The demand for imports and exports in the U.S.: A survey

One of the more important issues in applied international economics is the extent to which trade flows adjust to changes in income, relative prices, and exchange rates. In this paper, the literature on the empirical estimation of the demand for imports and exports for the U.S. is surveyed. More precisely, this paper updates earlier surveys by Stern, Francis, and Schumacher (1976) and Goldstein and Khan (1985).     

Book review

New Technologies and Work: Capitalist and Socialist Perspectives A. Francis & P. Grootings (Eds) London, Routledge, 1989, 335 pp.

New Technology and Manufacturing Management: Strategic Choices for Flexible Production Systems M. Warner, W. Wobbe & P. Brodner (Eds) Chichester, Wiley, 1990, 265 pp.

The Single European Market and the Information and Communication Technologies Gareth Locksley (Ed.) London and New York, Belhaven Press, 1990, 290 pp., £27.50.

Technology and Competition in the International Telecommunications Industry David Charles, Peter Monk & Ed Sciberras London and New York, Pinter Publishers, 1989, 170 pp., £35.00.

Organising for Manufacturing Innovation: The Case of Flexible Manufacturing Systems Harry Boer Enschede, Febodruk, 1990, 253 pp.

Future Work: Seven Critical Forces Reshaping Work and the Work Force in North America Joseph F. Coates, Jennifer Jarratt & John B. Mahaffie Sun Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass, 1990, 2 vols, 445 pp. & 120 pp., $49.50.

Science, Technology and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany John Gimbel Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 1990, 280 pp., £29.50 (hbk).     

Introducing ‘Young Minds Matter’

Young Minds Matter: The second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing provides updated national prevalence estimates of mental disorders in children and adolescents and measures the burden and impact of these disorders and the use of services and unmet need for services in the health and education sectors. The field work for Young Minds Matter included face‐to‐face interviews with the primary carer of 6,310 children and adolescents aged 4–17 years who were randomly selected from across Australia. This article describes the survey, the response rates achieved and the representativeness of the sample.     

Book Reviews

In economic literature risk taking is usually discussed with special reference to capital risks and profits. It is argued that in an uncertain world all economic agents are exposed to risks. Workers in particular face risks of income losses and obsolescence of human capital. But the effects of and rewards for risk taking are unevenly distributed between capital owners and dependent employees. This leads to critical questions about the normative aspects of risk taking propensities.     

Financial accounting choice and earnings management

This paper presents a case that exposes students in graduate accounting or MBA financial accounting classes to the concepts of accounting choice and earnings management. In the case, students role-play as a manager who, facing conflicting incentives, must make and defend three expense estimates for a hypothetical company. Students also read selected business press articles that introduce earnings management and that highlight the importance of the issue to the business community. The articles give students some background from which to approach the choices they will make with respect to the financial statements.     

Vertical and Horizontal Trust Networks in Bureaucracies: Evidence from the Third Reich

In a seminal contribution to the literature on bureaucracy, Breton and Wintrobe (The Logic of Bureaucratic Conduct: An Economic Analysis of Competition, Exchange, and Efficiency in Private and Public Organization. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1982) develop a model wherein subordinates and superiors in a bureaucratic structure trade with each other to advance the objectives of the superiors. The success of such an organizational arrangement (for superiors) is based upon the development of vertical trust networks in a way that facilitates the promise of informal payments by superiors in return for informal services provided by their subordinates. Breton and Wintrobe [Journal of Political Economy 94 (1986) 905] also provide a theoretical application of their model by describing the Nazi bureaucracy as a conglomeration of competing agencies that zealously carried out the Final Solution to the Jewish question. As an extension, this note develops two compelling empirical examples of vertical and horizontal trust networks within the Nazi regime: Einsatzgruppen As (Special Action Detachments) attempt to liquidate all Lithuanian Jews after the German invasion of the U.S.S.R. in 1941 and the 20 July 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.JEL Classification: D23, D73.     

Workplace contextual supports for LGBT employees: A review,meta‐analysis,and agenda for future research

The past decade has witnessed a rise in the visibility of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This has resulted in some organizational researchers focusing their attention on workplace issues facing LGBT employees. While empirical research has been appropriately focused on examining the impact of workplace factors on the work lives of LGBT individuals, no research has examined these empirical relationships cumulatively. The purpose of this study was to conduct a comprehensive review and meta‐analysis of the outcomes associated with three workplace contextual supports (formal LGBT policies and practices, LGBT‐supportive climate, and supportive workplace relationships) and to compare the relative influence of these workplace supports on outcomes. Outcomes were grouped into four categories: (a) work attitudes, (b) psychological strain, (c) disclosure, and (d) perceived discrimination. Results show that supportive workplace relationships were more strongly related to work attitudes and strain, whereas LGBT supportive climate was more strongly related to disclosure and perceived discrimination compared to the other supports. Our findings also revealed a number of insights concerning the measurement, research design, and sample characteristics of the studies in the present review. Based on these results, we offer an agenda for future research.     

Unemployment and the Independent European System of Central Banks

A bstract .This paper scrutinizes the case for an Independent European System of Central Banks (IESCB) Proposals for IESCB are based on some specific interrelated theoretical propositions upon which we cast some doubt The case for an IESCB is rejected on the grounds that it would worsen the performance of the real economy We propose different arrangements, which are focused on high levels of employment throughout the European Union as the prime objective Such a scenario, which emphasizes full employment and requires coordination among member countries in terms of economic policy, will avoid most, if not all, of the problems of the IESCB proposals. The alternative would thus be better able to tackle the unemployment problems of the European Union