Strategic Environmental Standards, Wage Incomes and the Location of Polluting Firms

The purpose of this paper is tostudy how the choice of environmental standardsby governments is affected by the existence ofwage incomes when firms locations areendogenous. In developed countries labor isunionized, which allows positive wage incomesto arise. Thus, each government has incentivesto persuade firms to locate in its countrysince social welfare depends on suchincomes. But, as pollution damages theenvironment, each government will only try toattract polluting firms to thecountry, to obtain the wage incomes, whenthe valuation of environmental damage showsthat it is low.     

欧洲单一金融市场中的最后贷款人(LLR)

本文研究在欧盟单一金融市场中有效发挥最后贷款人功能所面临的挑战.简要分析了欧盟金融业的一些特点,这些特点可能增加欧盟系统性金融风险;讨论了预防和解决金融问题的欧盟金融稳定构架的复杂性(最后贷款人的运作也包括在这个构架之中);论述了当系统性金融风波影响不止一个欧盟成员国时,如何实现最后贷款人功能.最后提出了提高现有构架效率所面临的挑战和可行的途径.     

Total factor productivity and R&D capital in the spanish economy, 1965–1980

A formal model of productivity growth and technical progress is presented. The model takes into account embodied and disembodied technical progress as explanatory variables. The slowdown in productivity growth for the Spanish economy after 1972 is explained for 92% by the decline in the rate of growth of technical progress originated from domestic R&D and technology imports.     

Ethical aspects of an urban catastrophe

As a consequence of the collapse of a building in Barcelona, in December 1990, it was discovered that a large number of dwellings, mainly in Barcelona but also in other towns of Catalonia, were affected by a structural defect known as aluminosis, consisting of a deterioration of the reinforced concrete manufactured using aluminous cement, which considerably reduced its strength and that of the steel embedded in the concrete. This brought to light a series of economic, social, political and also moral problems, such as the use of the aluminous cement itself — a quality product but which requires careful handling —, the lack of regulation concerning the product and its use in construction, the poor state of repair of the buildings affected, the careless manner in which they had been built, the lag in technical knowledge, the financial situation of the people affected by the aluminosis, etc.This document provides a full account of the events and their historical, technical, economic and legal background, paying particular attention to the ethical problems created by the situation.Antonio Argandoña is Professor at IESE, the International Graduate School of Management of the University of Navarra in Barcelona (Spain), where he teaches Economics and Business Ethics. He is a member of the Executive Committee of EBEN (European Business Ethics Network), and of the Organizing Committees of the Second (Barcelona, 1989) and Sixth (Oslo, 1993) European Conferences on Business Ethics. He is also co-editor ofPeople in Corporations: Ethical Responsibilities and Corporate Effectiveness (Kluwer, 1990) and author of many articles on business and economics ethics. This article was presented to the Fifth European Conference on Business Ethics (Paris, October 1992).     

Problem-solving in teaching/learning packages for Technology

In the project Technology in Secondary Education: Problem-solving in Teaching/learning Packages, two experiments regarding a construction problem and an explanation problem were conducted, in which two variants of a teching/learning package (strongly structuredvs. weakly structured) were compared. Only with the strongly structured instructional variant of the package for the explanation problem did the pupils come to a quick solution of the problem. In both experiments, the factors that influenced the problem-solving processes of the pupils were investigated. The results are of importance for curriculum developers and the authors of teaching/learning packages for Technology but further research into the factors influencing the problem solving process of pupils is necessary.     

The Effects of Megamergers on Efficiency and Prices: Evidence from a Bank Profit Function

This paper examines the efficiency and price effects of mergers by applying a frontier profit function to data on bank megamergers. We find that merged banks experience a statistically significant 16 percentage point average increase in profit efficiency rank relative to other large banks. Most of the improvement is from increasing revenues, including a shift in outputs from securities to loans, a higher-valued product. Improvements were greatest for the banks with the lowest efficiencies prior to merging, who therefore had the greatest capacity for improvement. By comparison, the effects on profits from merger-related changes in prices were found to be very small.