The Role of Government Assistance in Structural Change in Manufacturing: Australian Evidence

By the 1970s the Australian manufacturing sector was, by OECD standards, small, fragmented and inward looking. Successive Australian Federal Governments have since responded by progressively reducing levels of assistance to manufacturing in an effort to promote structural change. In this article we investigate whether these lower levels of assistance have accelerated the pace of structural change by estimating an empirical model using a pooled cross-section time-series data set. Our results suggest that reduced levels of assistance to manufacturing have had a positive impact on the pace of structural change in the Australian manufacturing sector. In addition, we find that taxes on factor inputs can be expected to impede structural change, and it would appear that structural change proceeds at a faster pace in more specialised manufacturing sectors.     

Searching for uncertain benefits and the conservation of biological diversity

This paper describes a model under which the maximization of option value leads to a preference for biological diversity arising from potential substitutability among species.     

Reviews

Regenerating town centres. Evans, R. 1997: REGENERATING TOWN CENTRES. Manchester: Manchester University Press, £30.00 cased.

Privatised utilities. Marvin, S., Graham, S. and Guy, S. 1996: PRIVATISED UTILITIES AND REGIONAL MANAGEMENT. Harlow: SEEDS (South East Economic Development Strategy), £25.00 plus £3.50 postage and packing.

Women returners. Chisholm, L. (ed) 1997: GETTING IN, CLIMBING UP AND BREAKING THROUGH. London: The Policy Press, £15.25 paper.

Regionalism. John, P. and Whitehead, A. (eds) 1997: POLICY AND POLITICS VOL 25 NO. 1 SPECIAL ISSUE. REGIONALISM IN ENGLAND: CURRENT TRENDS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS. Policy Press.

Socially regulated labour markets. Peck, J. 1996: WORK-PLACE. THE SOCIAL REGULATION OF LABOUR MARKETS. New York and London: The Guilford Press, £16.99 paper £35.00 cased.

Private delivery — public goods. Arnold-Forster, J., Lee, M. and McLeod, J. 1997: HAND IN GLOVE: PRIVATE SECTOR DELIVERING PUBLIC GOODS. London: Fabian Society, supported by Generale des Eaux, £15.00 paper.

Bio-tech. Milhell, D., Kingham, D. and Stott, M. 1997: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BIOTECHNOLOGY SECTOR IN OXFORDSHIRE: IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY. Oxford: Oxford Innovation Limited, £5.00 paper.     

can europe compete post-1992?

Can Europe compete? Andrew Sentance of the CBI suggests the EC may be ill-placed to compete in international markets following the 1992 process; completion of the internal market is no guarantee of a strong recovery.     

Asymmetric business cycles: Theory and time-series evidence

We offer a theory of economic fluctuations based on intertemporal increasing returns: agents who have been active in the past face lower costs of action today. This specification explains the observed persistence in individual and aggregate output fluctuations even in the presence of i.i.d shocks because individuals respond to the same shock differently depending on their recent past experience. The exact process for output, the sharpness of turning points and the degree of asymmetry are determined by the form of heterogeneity. Our general formulation, under certain assumptions, reduces to a number of popular state space (unobserved components) models. We find that on US data our general formulation performs better than many of the existing econometric models, largely because it allows sharper downturns and more pronounced asymmetries than linear models, and is smoother than discrete regime shift models. Our estimates imply that only modest intertemporal returns are needed for our model to explain US GNP, and that heterogeneity across agents plays an important role in the propagation of business cycle shocks.     

Corporate moral responsibility and the moral audit: Challenges for Refuse Relief Inc.

Much debate has occurred as to whether or not moral responsibility should be ascribed to corporate entities. The present study advances the theory that moral responsibility is a self-imposed or attributable aspect of corporate operations which extends beyond the parameters established by law.In this context, the corporation must consciously endeavor to discharge its moral responsibility to avoid, minimize, eliminate and compensate for the potential or actual harm which its operations cause. To achieve this objective, consideration is given to the establishment of a Moral Audit Committee, an internal monitoring mechanism, with a proposed generic structure. The corporate Mission Statement and Code of Ethics play a vital role as well in building an institutional environment which supports this self-appraisal process. With this system in place, the ambit of a Moral Audit is then examined. This study concludes with a case analysis, which partly depicts the Moral Audit process.S. Andrew Ostapski is Assistant Professor of Business Law, University of Miami, School of Business Administration, Coral Gables, Florida. A.B., 1975 Oberlin College; J.D., 1978, Capital University Law School; LL.M. in International Law, 1986, University of Miami School of Law.Camille N. Isaacs is a Foreign Service Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kingston, Jamaica. B.A., 1983, University of the West Indies; M.B.A., 1991, University of Miami, School of Business Administration.The name of the corporation and other data have been altered to preserve the anonymity of the firm, but the essential factual basis has not been materially distorted.     

THE ECONOMIC RETURNS TO AN MBA*

Because MBA programs require work experience before admittance, prior wages can be exploited to disentangle the return to the degree from unobserved productivity. We find that controlling for individual fixed effects generally reduces the estimated returns to an MBA, particularly for those in top programs. However, for full‐time MBA students attending schools outside of the top‐25 the estimated returns are higher when we control for individual fixed effects. We show that there is some evidence that those who take the GMAT but do not obtain an MBA are stronger in dimensions such as workplace skills that are not easily measured.