THE COMPETITIVENESS OF UK MANUFACTURING: EVIDENCE FROM IMPORTS

The paper presents an empirical analysis of the behaviour ofUK imports of manufactures, intended to develop understandingof non-price competitiveness by evaluating the impact of capacityconstraints, international specialisation, and industrial standards.Two data sets are employed: aggregate data for the period 1970–93,and a panel of 81 industries for 1985–90. Structural stabilityin a model of the former suggests that no competitiveness improvementhas occurred in domestic UK manufacturing which matches thatfound elsewhere for exports The panel model shows the importantimpact of standards on imports, while confirming that skilledlabour shortages are a key source of volatility.     

Stock Performance and Intermediation Changes Surrounding Sustained Increases in Disclosure*

This paper investigates whether firms benefit from expanded voluntary disclosure by examining changes in capital market factors associated with increases in analyst disclosure ratings for 97 firms. The disclosure rating increases are accompanied by increases in sample firms' stock returns, institutional ownership, analyst following, and stock liquidity. These findings persist after controlling for contemporaneous earnings performance and other potentially influential variables, such as risk, growth, and firm size. While it is difficult to draw unambiguous causal conclusions, these results are consistent with disclosure model predictions that expanded disclosure leads investors to revise upward valuations of the sample firms' stocks, increases stock liquidity, and creates additional institutional and analyst interest in the stocks.     

FOREIGN CAPITAL AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper examines the economic implications of institutional arrangements by which foreign investors are required to reinvest a certain percentage of their capital within the host country. Our analysis shows that foreign capital inflow can produce long-lasting economic benefits to the host country only when the foreign capital reinvestment rate is sufficiently greater than the host country's saving rate. In this case, the economy evolves into a unique steady state equilibrium, which is also asymptotically stable. The paper also presents several comparative static results regarding the responses of steady state capital-labour ratio and the proportion of foreign capital in total capital to changes in the population growth rate, the rate of capital depreciation, the host country's saving rate and the foreign capital reinvestment rate.     

A Note on Factors Influencing the Utilization of Bankcard*

This note is an empirical examination of the nature of factors influencing the utilization of credit cards in Australia. Cross-section data from a 1980 survey are employed in an attempt to determine what individual characteristics increase the probabilities of holding cards and using extended credit facilities. Aggregative time-series analysis seeks to explain the trends in Bankcard financing of various types of expenditure.