AGAINST LEVIATHAN: A REVIEW OF CLASSICAL LIBERALISM IN THE 21ST CENTURY: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF NORMAN P. BARRY1

Classical Liberalism in the 21st Century is a collection of essays from colleagues and friends of the late Norman Barry, Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Buckingham. Most share Barry's Hayekian perspective. The essays cover themes such as: international competition in trade and between jurisdictions; the corporate social responsibility fad; secular economic errors; policies relating to alleged global warming; the state's impotence at removing externalities; the moral functions of competition; and, above all, Barry's rigour and eloquence in the economic and political case for freedom.     

Not part of the family? The limits to managing the corporate way in international hotel chains

Companies increasingly seek solutions to the corporate/local dichotomies perceived to be a feature of more traditional approaches to managing across national boundaries. At the human resource level, the rhetoric of transnationalism emphasizes integration being achieved through 'soft' mechanisms, such as corporate culture devices, which encourage all managers to develop an international (for this read corporate) perspective on what they do. In theory, managerial staff are recruited and promoted on a 'best person for the job' basis and national identities are played down. Drawing upon evidence from three international hotel chains (one American, one French and one Swedish), this paper argues that there is a disjuncture between corporate culture devices which assume that they can transcend national origins and the issues of interest and identity which inform the activities and experiences of managers at unit level. The paper suggests that companies need to be aware of the danger of assuming that one can be trained to be 'one of the family'. Rather, we argue that local managers are potentially disadvantaged in terms of career progression as managers from the parent country utilize criteria of acceptability informed by processes of socialization which are more institutionally embedded and derived than has been assumed.     

Who Gains From Nominal Devaluation? An Empirical Assessment of Euro‐area Exports and Imports

In early 2013, rumours about the euro‐appreciation gained momentum, which may lead to decreases in exports and increases in imports of the member states. Therefore, we investigate the impact of changes in the nominal euro exchange rate vis‐à‐vis major currencies on export and import performance of nine different euro‐area countries. To disentangle the ‘true’ equilibrium elasticities Stein's unbiased risk estimate (SURE) system error correction models (SSECM) are estimated for nominal exchange rate changes versus the rest of the world or other major currencies. To differentiate between price level changes and changes of the nominal exchange rate, a country's export and import equation is estimated using separately the nominal rate and the relative price/unit labour cost as regressors. Results of Wald tests indicate that assuming both variables to have the same influence on exports and imports is misleading. Whether the relative price/unit labour costs elasticities are high or low depends crucially on which indicator is chosen, while the effect of nominal exchange rate changes can be estimated robustly for all countries in the sample. In particular, France and Spain are hit by a euro‐appreciation since their exports are highly exchange rate elastic. However, for France, this effect is at least partly offset by an also negative exchange rate elasticity of imports.     

Raising rivals' costs: The entry of an upstream monopolist into downstream markets

A regulated upstream monopolist provides an input to firms in a downstream market. If the monopolist enters the downstream market, a natural concern is that it will act so as to raise its downstream rivals' costs. An offsetting incentive is that a higher downstream price will reduce demand for the input, which reduces the monopolist's profit. Conditions under which one incentive dominates the other are derived. The monopolist may desire to lower its downstream rivals' costs rather than raise them. These findings suggest that regulatory policy towards such downstream entry should not focus exclusively on the ability to discriminate.     

Informed Trading Around Earnings Announcements: Another Look

This study is an empirical test of the Easley, O'Hara, and Srinivas (1998) multimarket sequential trade model of stock and option markets. We employ two approaches to determine the information content of signed stock and option trades executed around quarterly earnings announcements. The first approach expands the vector autoregression (VAR) technique of Hasbrouck (1991a) to include signed option trade volumes and inter‐trade durations. Estimates from the VAR models provide insight into whether both equity and option trades are viewed as informative by the equity specialist. The second approach focuses on the information content of the earnings releases to determine whether signed equity and option trades executed prior to the announcements are informed. Results indicate that although informed traders prefer to transact in both markets around earnings announcements, option market transactions contain no incremental information.     

Developing a Learning Community Approach to Business Ethics Education

In this paper we discuss a project, still in progress, that moves away from a traditional lecture based educational pedagogy. We present a team taught approach to ethics teaching that embraces a progressive philosophy of education and is focused on the development of a discussion based learning community. We describe our primary pedagogical tools of case discussion and the development of student expert role assignments as a locus, and how they relate to the learning community, course content and course objectives. Finally, we provide our preliminary review of outcomes and emerging issues.     

Understanding Social Welfare Capitalism,Private Property,and the Government’s Duty to Create a Sustainable Environment

No one would deny that sustainability is necessary for individual, business, and national survival. How this goal is to be accomplished is a matter of great debate. In this article I will show that the United States and other developed countries have a duty to create sustainable cities, even if that is against a notion of private property rights considered as an absolute. Through eminent domain and regulation, developed countries can fulfill their obligations to current and future generations. To do so, the governments must reject perfectly competitive free market capitalism and the absolute right to private property, and more fully adopt social welfare capitalism as their economic system. The result will be a sustainable society that balances democracy, individual rights and individual flourishing with the community’s flourishing.