Monetary policy, taxes, and the business cycle

This paper analyzes the interaction of inflation with the tax code and its contribution to aggregate fluctuations. We find significant effects operating through the tax on realized nominal capital gains. A tax on nominal bond income magnifies these effects. Our innovation is to combine monetary policy shocks with non-indexed taxes in a model where the central bank implements policy using an interest rate rule. Monetary policy had important effects on the behavior of the business cycle before 1980 because policymakers did not exert effective control over inflation. Monetary policy reform around 1980 led to better control, and with more stable inflation, the effect of the interaction between monetary policy and the nominal capital gains tax has become negligible.     

Forecast Rationality in Small Firms*

A large sample of small firms was longitudinally surveyed to investigate the rationality of revenue forecasts made within such firms. The analysis helps to address the dearth of research investigating owner/managers' forecasts of growth in firms and their degree of accuracy. Contrary to conventional expectations, the results do not support the contention that forecasts made by the managers of small firms are optimistic. Although systematic overestimation was not found, managers did tend to make forecasts that were generally too extreme, and tended to overextrapolate previous growth. These results are consistent with propositions that overconfidence biases and representative heuristics influence the revenue forecasts made in small firms.     

Generalising Gibrat: using Chinese evidence founded on fieldwork

This paper reports on determinants of small firm growth and survival, using fieldwork evidence collected by face-to-face and telephone interviews. It extends the ??basic?? size-age model to a ??comprehensive?? growth model with two types of additional explanatory variables: firm specific and business environmental. Estimation is by log-linear regression on Chinese cross-section data, with corrections for sample selection bias and heteroskedasticity. Our results from the comprehensive model highlight the importance of location choice and customer orientation for the growth of Chinese private firms.     

Strategies to offset performance failures: The role of brand equity

In this research, we examine the role of brand equity as a strategy to offset the negative effects of a performance failure. Two independent studies, spanning four industries and involving 669 respondents are employed to investigate this issue. Results suggest that high brand equity leads to more favorable satisfaction evaluations and behavioral intentions than low brand equity. The brand equity effect is identified as a prevailing advantage that spans the entire failure and recovery sequence. This is an important finding because it implies that the advantages of high brand equity theoretically can apply to all failures, not just those for which recovery is attempted. Further inspection, however, reveals that despite the prevailing advantage, high-equity brand failures lead to a more drastic decline in customer evaluations immediately after the failure episode. Managerial implications and future research are addressed.     

Are There Investor Clienteles in Rental Housing?

The possible existence of investor clientele groups has received little attention in the real estate finance literature. In this paper we develop a clientele model, which in equilibrium produces a clustering of investors by tax characteristics. Low-tax-bracket investors are concentrated in low-value rental housing that attracts rents which are high in relation to property values. On the other hand, only high-tax-bracket investors will be observed in high-value rental housing, and they charge rents that are low in relation to property values. An empirical model is specified and estimated using a cross section of investors in Australian private rental housing markets. Investor clienteles are detected among property investors, though there is a weak diversification effect indicating that clientele effects may be stronger among single property investors.     

Unions in a changing climate: MSF and Unison experiences in the new public sector

Through an examination of national policies, case study and survey material, this article looks at the question of the possibility of union renewal through an examination of the various and varying responses of two unions, MSF and Unison, to the changing work and employment practices in the NHS.     

Conducting multilevel studies in purchasing and supply management research

Purchasing and supply management (PSM) research commonly covers multiple levels of theory and analysis. The theorizing and simultaneous testing of hypotheses across multiple levels is referred to as multilevel analysis (MLA) and is commonly performed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Researchers in the PSM domain have paid little attention thus far to the topic of multilevel studies. Although MLA holds the potential to yield novel insights into PSM issues, it also generates new challenges for authors and reviewers alike. We contribute to this methodological dialogue by examining reasons for conducting multilevel PSM research and offering practical guidance for increasing its methodological rigor.     

A note on the design and structure of a small firms relational database

The design of a database for analysing field-work data on small firms is reported upon. The flat file ralational database methodology is adopted. This facilitates the flexible handling of large volumes of both quantitative (numerical and categorical) and qualitative (textual) data. Manipulation of the database is illustrated using some small firms examples.Many persons have contributed to the larger project on which this paper is based. On the field work side, I should mention Lowell Jacobsen, Anne-Theresa Lawrie and Jacqueline Campbell. On the computing side, I should mention Sandra Rice and Julian Read. Christopher Corrie provided useful research assistance during my tenure of a Leverhulme Fellowship, when this work was accomplished. I remain responsible for such errors and deficiencies as this paper may contain.     

Capital Services Growth in the UK: 1950 to 2006*

This paper describes a capital services dataset for the United Kingdom developed for use in empirical work, and some of its key features. The estimates are consistent with National Accounts output estimates, making them ideal for use in growth‐accounting or business‐cycle analysis. The divergence between the volume of capital services and the volume of the capital stock after 1980 is highlighted. This divergence is driven by a shift in investment towards short‐lived and more productive information and communication technology assets for which the flow of capital services is high. Standard capital stock measures understate growth in the productive input of capital, especially after 1990.