The Private Finance Initiative: Clarification of a Future Research Agenda

The Private Finance Initiative in the UK, whereby the public sector actively seeks private finance for developments in its services/buildings, can be traced to the Chancellor of the the Exchequer's Autumn Statement of 1992. However, the seeking of private finance had been a Government concern for many years before this time even though it was only in 1992 that it gained a real impetus and direction. Since then it has developed and expanded into all areas of Government and into local authorities and has been carried forward, with equal, if not greater, enthusiasm, by the recently elected Labour Government. This paper provides an introduction to this new development in the public sector in the UK, tracing its historical development from its 'macro' emphasis, through to the 'micro' outworking of these policies across the entire public sector. This summary provides the base to draw up a future research agenda for PFI, which forms the major concern of the paper.     

Corbis推出在线互动设计与广告的八大致胜法则

著名视频媒体供应机构Corbis近期发布了最新广告业趋势报告《在线取得胜利的艺术——视觉媒体在互动设计当中变得越来越重要》,并推出在线互动设计与广告的八大致胜法则。     

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.     

MARKET REACTIONS TO THE PASSAGE OF THE FINANCIAL HOLDING COMPANY ACT IN TAIWAN

Abstract. We examine how financial institutions react to various events surrounding the passage of Taiwan's Financial Holding Company Act in June 2001. Empirical results indicate that the financial system experiences significant abnormal returns along the legislative process. Smaller firms have significantly higher abnormal returns, thus lending no support for the hypothesis that larger firms benefit more from the Act. Further analysis shows that the significance of market value is replaced by a significant securities industry effect, thereby consistent with the observation that Taiwan's securities firms are generally smaller in market values and are potential target firms for financial holding companies.     

Exploring emotions and irrationality in attitudes towards consumer indebtedness: Individual perspectives of UK payday loan consumption

The aim of this research is to explore contemporary consumers’ emotions and irrationality in attitudes towards indebtedness, using the UK payday loan industry as a focus point. UK consumers’ have recently experienced a significant financial crisis, the result of which is expected to alter consumers’ spending, saving and borrowing habits. By using existential-phenomenological interviews to discuss individuals’ experiences of these activities, we observe some of the key issues emerging from this context. A primary theme is the influence of emotions on decision making, and how this shapes ‘irrationality’. This article aims to draw attention to this emotive thinking, which may be significant in thinking about how payday loans are communicated to users in the future.     

Corporate taxation and the efficiency gains of the 1986 Tax Reform Act

Summary The 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA) had little effect on the overall U. S. effective capital income tax rate. However, TRA significantly reduced differences in effective taxation of corporate and noncorporate capital for a number of U. S. industries. The Mutual Production Model developed in Gravelle and Kotlikoff (1989) can be used to study the efficiency gains from the reduction in corporate tax wedges within industries. Unlike the Harberger Model, the Mutual Production Model permits both corporate and noncorporate firms to produce the same goods and, therefore, to coexist within a given industry.This paper develops an 11-industry-55-year dynamic life cycle version of the Mutual Production Model. We use this model to study the steady-state efficiency gains associated with the new law. While we do not simulate the economy's transition path, our steady-state welfare changes are those that arise from compensating transitional generations for the first-order redistribution of income associated with the Tax Reform.We find that the 1986 Tax Reform law reduces excess burden by 85 percent of our model's economy's present value of consumption. This efficiency gain reflects the Tax Reform's reduction in corporate-noncorporate tax wedges, particularly in those industries with significant noncorporate production. Measured as a flow the 1988 estimated efficiency gain from the Tax Reform Act is $31 billion.The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, Boston University, or The National Bureau of Economic Research. We are particularly grateful to Alan Auerbach, Oldrich Kyn, and an anonymous referee for very extensive and critical comments. We also thank Don Fullerton, Yolanda Henderson, Tom Woodward, and a referee for their very helpful suggestions.     

Conflict or collaboration: the changing nature of inter-firm relationships in the UK Oil and Gas industry

Changes in contracting customs in the UK offshore oil and gas industry have led to changed relationships between companies, including the small, technology-based, oil-related companies which have been a source of much innovation. Issues raised by the research reported here include the impact of these changes on the industrial network and supply relationships of the industry. Continuing innovation is regarded by all industry members as being of gret importance for reducing costs and undertainsties in the North Sea industry. The changes within the industry have broken many of the linkages between firmsd which nediated this innovation in the past. This paper presents the initial findings of a project to analyze the new relationships which are developing, and their impact on innovation. Early conclusions include, in accordance with predictions from theory, that personal relationships assume relatively great importance when industry norms are poorly established, and that multiple relationships between firms under these circumstances are characterized by little trust, imcomplete intergration of network knowledge and conflicts of interest.     

Spinning the industrial revolution

The prevailing explanation for why the industrial revolution occurred first in Britain during the last quarter of the eighteenth century is Allen's ‘high wage economy’ view, which claims that the high cost of labour relative to capital and fuel incentivized innovation and the adoption of new techniques. This article presents new empirical evidence on hand spinning before the industrial revolution and demonstrates that there was no such ‘high wage economy’ in spinning, which was a leading sector of industrialization. We quantify the working lives of frequently ignored female and child spinners who were crucial to the British textile industry with evidence of productivity and wages from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth century. Spinning emerges as a widespread, low‐productivity, low‐wage employment, in which wages did not rise substantially in advance of the introduction of the jenny and water frame. The motivation for mechanization must be sought elsewhere.