Valuing medieval annuities: Were corrodies underpriced?

Medieval bishops condemned and restricted the sale of corrodies (a type of annuity), partly on the grounds of their perceived unprofitability. The available data on the profitability of corrodies is limited and little analysed, and the episcopal condemnation of corrodies has been adopted by modern researchers. After recognising the difficulties, this paper applies an annuity pricing model to study corrody pricing. Given various assumptions, contrary to the established view, it is argued that the sale of corrodies was financially profitable for institutions. Finally, some reasons are considered for the negative attitude of contemporary and historical opinion towards the sale of corrodies.     

The Influence of Managerial Relations on Waves of Employee Involvement

One of the most enduring issues in the debate about employee involvement (EI) and workers' participation is how it survives over time, and to what extent the dynamics of EI is linked with labour-management relations. In this article, which draws upon data collected in a two-year study of 25 organizations, it is suggested that managerial relations is a significant factor in explaining waves of EI, and one that is frequently overlooked. Waves of EI can be assessed in terms of the twin concepts of centrality and prominence, terms that are amplified below. The introduction of EI techniques is motivated by a number of forces, but one of the most important is a desire by managers to be noticed, to engage in ‘impression management’, via the creation of new schemes. Despite having high-profile introductions, these schemes soon tend to fade in importance, to a large extent because of problems within management such as internal political rivalries, low supervisory commitment to schemes, inadequate training provision or the downgrading of EI by management arising from conflicting priorities.     

The effect of information releases on the pricing and timing of equity issues

With time-varying adverse selection in the market for new equityissues, firms will prefer to issue equity when the market ismost informed about the quality of the firm. This implies thatequity issues tend to follow credible information releases.In addition, if the asymmetric in information increases overtime between information releases, the price drop at the announcementof an equity issue should increase in the time since the lastinformation release. Using earning releases as a proxy for informativeevents, we find evidence supporting these propositions.     

Problems of Bank Lending in Bulgaria: Information Asymmetry and Institutional Learning

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

The Impact of Employee Share Ownership Plans On Employee Participation and Industrial Democracy

This article examines employee participation in recently-formed employee share ownership plan organisations (ESOPS) in the UK. the various legal/institutional forms of ESOP are outlined prior to considering the nature and determinants of participative institutions and processes. It is suggested that there are three ‘constellations’ of ESOP in terms of employee participation:‘technical ESOPS’, ‘paternalist ESOPs’ and ‘representative ESOPs’. There are relatively few innovations in participation in the first of these, while in paternalist ESOPs, innovations centre on individualistic forms of participation and communication at the level of the workplace. In representative ESOPs employees gain more of a say in strategic decisions through such innovations as employee representation on company boards. It is argued that these differences in the nature of participation are due neither to differences in legal structure nor to variations in the extent of employee share ownership. Instead, participative systems are viewed as the outcome of the philosophies and objectives of those involved in the conversion to employee ownership.     

The role of moral intensity in moral judgments: An empirical investigation

Jones (1991) has proposed an issue-contingent model of ethical decision making by individuals in organizations. The distinguishing feature of the issue was identified as its moral intensity, which determines the moral imperative in the situation. In this study, we adapted three scenarios from the literature in order to examine the issue-contingent model. Findings, based on a student sample, suggest that (1) the perceived and actual dimensions of moral intensity often differed; (2) perceived moral intensity variables, in the aggregate, significantly affected an individual's moral judgments; and (3) some dimensions of moral intensity (namely, perceived social consensus and perceived magnitude of consequences) mattered more than others.Sara A. Morris is Assistant Professor of Management at Old Dominion University. Her current research examines corporate codes of ethics, attitudes about corporate social responsibility, and the relationship between corporate social and financial performance.Robert A. McDonald is a doctoral candidate in organizational studies at the State University of New York at Albany. His research interests include ethical decision making, characteristics of moral dilemmas, and leadership power and influence tactics.     

Openness and Wage Inequality in Developing Countries: The Latin American Challenge to East Asian Conventional Wisdom

The experience of East Asia in the 1960s and 1970s supportsthe theory that greater openness to trade tends to narrow thewage gap between skilled and unskilled workers in developingcountries. In Latin America since the mid-1980s, however, increasedopenness has widened wage differentials. This conflict of evidenceis probably not the result of differences between East Asiaand Latin America. Instead, the conflict is probably the resultof differences between the 1960s and the 1980s, specifically,the entry of China into the world market and, perhaps, the adventof new technology biased against unskilled workers.     

Financial amplification of foreign exchange risk premia

Theories of financial frictions in international capital markets suggest that financial intermediaries' balance sheet constraints amplify fundamental shocks. We present empirical evidence for such theories by decomposing the U.S. dollar risk premium into components associated with macroeconomic fundamentals, and a component associated with financial intermediary balance sheets. Relative to the benchmark model with only macroeconomic state variables, balance sheets amplify the U.S. dollar risk premium. We discuss applications to financial stability monitoring.