How sensitive is executive compensation to organizational size?

Prior empirical research has documented a large cross-sectional correlation between the level of executive pay and firm size. In contrast, this paper examines the association between percentage changes in executive compensation and percentage changes in organizational size. We analyze compensation and size data for executives at several levels of the corporate hierarchy for a sample of 303 firms. Our results indicate that the correlation between compensation and size is much smaller, although still statistically significant, in changes than in levels. This suggests that changes in an executive's compensation are not primarily driven by changes in organizational size.     

Employment effects of technological change

This article examines the debate about whether new technology creates or displaces jobs. It emphasises the occupational dimension, in order to assess some of the policies relating to education, training and income distribution. Finally, the role of technological change is examined in terms of the quality of the resulting job structure and the issue of income and skill polarization.     

International competition and pay,working time and employment: exploring the processes of adjustment

The internationalisation of markets, competition and regulation is increasingly recognised. So far, however, debate about the effects has been largely speculative. This article examines the UK engineering industry. Survey evidence suggests that international comparisons are relatively unimportant, little benchmarking is going on and that stability characterises pay and working time arrangements. Further interview evidence explains that this is because pay and working time are set with employee expectations in mind, whereas it is the treatment of unit costs that reflects international pressures. As a consequence there has been substantial reductions in employment as well as some important changes in work organisation, even if there has been little change in pay or working time systems. In effect, it suggests that there is a form of ‘implicit contract’ taking place. A wider implication is that the main impetus for the ‘Europeanisation’ of industrial relations is likely to come from the growing convergence of costs rather than pressures for wage parity.     

Design matrix analysis

Analysts of social mobility are coming round to the view that it is not enough to find a model that fits the data; it is at least as important to know which bits of the model fit the data, and which are unimportant. The need for this type ofstructuring becomes even more pressing when we seek to determine the dimensions along which societies differ. This paper carries the process of structuring a stage further by proposing an orthogonal decomposition of a mobility model in which each dimension (degree of freedom) can be given a distinct sociological interpretation. In the following paper orthogonal rotation is deployed to uncover the latent dimensions of a mobility table. Relations among different models are established. The paper closes with a response to criticisms published by Sobel (1983).     

Workers’ investigations into the working environment

This article compares workers’ investigations into the working environment in Scandinavia with trade union research projects in Britain. The future of workers’ investigations in Britain is related to increasing concerns about occupational stress and changing work organisation with the introduction of new technology.     

Standards are Too High

Government action to establish minimum standards in a wide range of consumer activities almost invariably ignores the obvious economic truth that standards can be too high: they must have a cost, by forcing up prices, reducing choice and so on. Dr Keith Hartley, of the University of York, argues that the market, not the state, will provide the amount of information on quality that consumers want.     

THE NEW LEVERAGED LOAN SYNDICATION MARKET

Over the past ten years, commercial lending has been transformed from a one-off, bilateral "market" in which issuers maintained one or more separate banking relationships into a capital market in which one or more underwriters structure and price loans for syndication to groups of investors. This market-driven evolution has been most dramatic in the leveraged lending segment (defined as loans priced at LIBOR plus 150 basis points or more), where wide margins have attracted a large and growing field of underwriters, intermediaries, and investors.
Liquidity is the overriding theme in today's syndicated loan market, making the market a more user-friendly one for corporate borrowers and deal sponsors. As a result, a record number of corporate issuers are taking advantage of the syndicated loan market to finance strategic transactions or simply to reduce their borrowing costs. Deal sponsors, too, are tapping the market to finance leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, and acquisitions at a pace not seen since the late 1980s. But, although acquisition pricing has reached cash flow multiples that recall those of the late '80s, equity contributions by sponsors are larger and credit structures are more conservative.
For banks and other investors, reduced loan pricing and more flexible credit structures have been balanced by much greater access to a large volume of diversified assets, as well as the ability to manage asset-specific and portfolio risk more effectively. As a result of more effective portfolio management strategies, lenders today are less vulnerable to credit problems with individual issuers or a given industry segment, and the bank market as a whole should be much less subject to disruption than it proved to be in the early 1990s.