Pure Altruism,Consumer Behavior and Choice Modeling*

An important assumption underlying non‐market valuation is that it is not the environment but the human preference that is valued. This paper attempts to test whether individual consumer behavior is influenced by a purely altruistic motive, examining the attitude of hikers towards the hypothetical removal of the Muju ski resort from the Mount Togyu National Park in South Korea. Data were collected from samples of hikers and skiers who visited the national park. The respondents were forced to consider trade‐offs between the recovery of the lost environmental assets in the Muju ski resort area, skiers’ additional travel time, and willingness‐to‐pay amounts for the hypothetical environmental improvement. It was found that hikers did not take into account skiers’ disutility represented by additional travel time.     

Convergence or divergence? Corporatism and the dynamics of European wage bargaining

Against the backdrop of the debate on European pay bargaining, this article investigates the central claims of the literature on national pay policies and critically evaluates the macroeconomic studies of bargaining structure and economic performance. It is argued that structural changes in the world economy, including the slowdown in productivity growth, the process of internationalization and sectoral shifts in employment, threaten to destabilize industrial relations systems characterized by highly centralized mechanisms of pay-fixing, and that policy proposals that favour a concerted shift towards more corporatist arrangements are unlikely to be feasible.     

Project management for R & D equipment: a prescriptive attack

The authors review statements from industry on the problems of procuring physical equipment for research and development, and list the lessons of project management that can be applied     

Longevity and the life-cycle of management buy-outs

The longevity debate about buy-outs has hitherto been restricted. By focusing on large highly leveraged transactions, existing research has taken only a partial view of how long buy-outs last and the factors influencing longevity. This paper develops and tests hypotheses concerning the influences on buy-out longevity across the whole spectrum of management buy-out applications. Both quantitative and case study evidence from the U. K. is presented. A heterogeneity view of buy-outs is supported. Tests using quantitative data show that earlier exit is associated with larger buy-outs, and buy-outs arising on privatization from the public sector and from non-U. K. parents. Case study evidence principally supports hypotheses that earlier exit is associated with financing institutions being in a relatively stronger position than management and with more rapidly changing market conditions for the firm.     

An explanation of why shareholders' losses are so large after drug recalls

Recent studies show firms suffering drug recalls experience security losses many times larger than any reasonable measure of their direct cost. We discover that the implied standard deviation of stock returns from the Black-Scholes option pricing model significantly increases after a drug recall. The implied standard deviation provides a good proxy for the stock's ex ante beta. The higher systematic risk after a product recall must raise the discount rate used by investors. After a recall, stock prices are reduced in line with the lower expected future earnings and are further reduced because of a higher discount rate.