Scale economies with regard to price adjustment costs and the speed of price adjustment in Australian manufacturing

This paper aims to examine the impact of firm size, industry concentration and the length of production on industry speed of price adjustment. To motivate the paper, an industry pricing model in error correction form is derived from firm pricing behaviour. As a new development, firms are assumed to have price adjustment costs that are a function of their size. The empirical model is estimated using two‐digit Australian manufacturing industry data for the period 1994:3 to 2006:1. The results suggest that the industry speed of price adjustment is positively related to firm size and negatively related to industry concentration and the production lag. Implied values for industry speeds of price adjustment are generally small when compared to other country industry studies. However, the industry average median lag of 7.1 quarters indicates a slightly faster speed of price adjustment than the estimate for the Australian consumer price index by Dwyer and Leong (2001 Dwyer, J. and Leong, K. 2001. Changes in the determination of inflation in Australia 1–44. Reserve Bank of Australia Research Discussion Paper 2001‐02 [Google Scholar]).     

Influences on Pricing and Markup in Segmented Manufacturing Markets*

The literature indicates that international manufactured product markets are segmented and imperfectly competitive. An industry pricing equation that encompasses markup pricing is constructed from flexible specifications of the firm's cost and demand functions, along with the profit-maximizing equilibrium condition. Instrumental variables estimation is carried out for 24 three-digit International Standard Industrial Classification industries, with data pooled across Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, for the period 1970–1991. The markup model is rejected for most industries. However, something approaching a fixed markup does exist in many industries, particularly when the Herfindahl index is low. The results indicate that countries with high levels of industry concentration are more likely to have prices and markups that are influenced by competing foreign prices. Nearly all markups are either pro-cyclical or a-cyclical.     

Intergenerational Mobility in Britain: Evidence from Unemployment Patterns

Recent papers have examined the intergenerational transmission of well-being by looking at the relationship between parents' and children's income. However, by concentrating on those who are working these studies exclude some of the very poorest in society, the unemployed. In this paper we extend the empirical work on intergenerational welfare in the UK by looking at the links between fathers' and sons' unemployment histories. Using an approach which takes account of both incidence and intensity of son's unemployment, we provide further evidence showing that parental background is an important determinant of a child's future welfare. A son whose father was unemployed 20 years earlier is almost twice as likely to be unemployed as a son whose father was not unemployed. Furthermore, this dependency remains significant after controlling for a range of son's characteristics including education, ability and family composition.     

Employment Trends in the Hotel and Catering Industry in Great Britain

As in other service industries, the outstanding feature of recent increases in employment levels in the hotel and catering trades has been the extensive utilisation of part-time labour, accounting for 95 per cent of new jobs between 1971 and 1981. Growth of part-time employment in the industry reflects changes in the patterns of employers' labour demands. The simultaneous growth in unemployment emphasises the permanent role of part-timers in the industry. Reductions in working hours associated with part-time employment provide a means of controlling wage costs, whilst carrying implications for employees' rights and benefits under employment and social welfare legislation.     

Impact of employees' character strengths of wisdom on stress and creative performance

Both conventional understanding and positive psychology recognise an important link between people's character strengths and how they perform their jobs. However, no research to date has focused on the relationship of employees' wisdom strengths, potential mediating effects and creative task performance. Utilising a large heterogeneous sample (N = 974) of working adults, this study found that participants' levels of the character strengths of wisdom were positively related to their performance on a creative task and negatively related to their reported level of stress. In addition, stress was found to be negatively related to creative task performance, with reported stress partly mediating the relationship between participants' wisdom and their performance on the creative task. Implications for incorporating character strengths in the development of HRM theory and practice conclude the article.     

Evaluating the Business Case for Part-time Working amongst Qualified Nurses

A ‘new’ business case for part‐time working assumes a mutuality of benefit for employer and employees. Examining this hypothesis from the perspective of qualified nursing staff and managers in the NHS, a context in which the new business case for part‐time working is particularly strong, this study found that the full benefits are not realized for either side. Extending the findings of other research into highly skilled/professional occupations, we conclude that, without substantive change in systems of work, the expansion of the part‐time work‐force could entail the under‐utilization of the skills of an indispensable section of the working population.