Influences on Trade Union Organizing Effectiveness in Britain

Do British trade unions vary in their effectiveness in maintaining organization and membership in workplaces where they have an established bargaining presence? Do highly developed national union recruitment strategies and innovation in recruitment strategy boost consolidatory organizing and recruitment effectiveness (CORE)? Results suggest that (1) there is some variation in internal organising effectiveness between unions, and (2) national union innovation in recruitment policy is positively associated with internal organizing effectiveness where unions organize blue‐collar workers, but negatively associated with internal organizing effectiveness where unions organize white‐collar workers.     

A statistical treatment of the problem of division

The problem of division is one of the most important problems in the emergence of probability. It has been long considered solved from a probabilistic viewpoint. However, we do not find the solution satisfactory. In this study, the problem is recasted as a statistical problem. The outcomes of matches of the game are considered as an infinitely exchangeable random sequence and predictors/estimators are constructed in light of de Finetti representation theorem. Bounds of the estimators are derived over wide classes of priors (mixing distributions). We find that, although conservative, the classical solutions are justifiable by our analysis while the plug-in estimates are too optimistic for the winning player.Acknowledgement. The authors would like to thank the referees for the insightful and informative suggestions and, particularly, for referring us to important references.Supported by NSC-88-2118-M-259-009.Supported in part by NSC 89-2118-M-259-012.Received August 2002     

The Structure and Management of Alliances: Syndication in the Venture Capital Industry*

abstract Syndicates are a form of inter‐firm alliance in which two or more venture capital firms co‐invest in an investee firm and share a joint pay‐off. Syndication is a significant part of the venture capital market yet little research has been conducted into the process of structuring syndicate deals and the management of syndicates following deal completion. This paper analyses the neglected issues concerning the structuring and management of syndicated venture capital investments from the perspectives of both lead and non‐lead syndicate members using two surveys of venture capital firms and examination of syndication documents. Lead investors typically have larger equity stakes and the syndicated investment agreement is a document that enshrines the rights of participants rather than specifying behaviour. Contractual arrangements typically serve as a back drop to relationships as non‐legal sanctions are important and decisions are typically reached following discussion and consensus, but lead venture capital investors’ residual and specific powers are important in ensuring timely decision‐making. The findings extend previous work on alliances by emphasizing the importance of non‐legal sanctions, especially reputation effects, in mitigating opportunistic behaviour by dominant equity holders. The paper also adds to the limited research on the dynamics of alliances by highlighting the role of repeat syndicates.     

Do Foreign and Domestic Venture Capital Firms Differ in Their Monitoring of Investees?

This paper addresses an important omission in the venture capital literature by comparing the monitoring behavior of foreign and domestic venture capital firms (VCs). Evidence from 31 VCs in India (84% response) shows foreign VCs were significantly more likely than domestic VCs to be involved at the strategic level while domestic VCs were significantly more active at the operational level. Foreign VCs placed significantly more emphasis on restrictions on additional borrowings. Domestic VCs placed significantly more emphasis on specifying certain accounting policies while foreign VCs placed significantly more emphasis on monthly management accounts. Domestic VCs place significantly more emphasis on industry specialist board membership.     

Search Costs,Behavioral Biases,and Information Intermediary Effects

In many markets, buyers, sellers, and their agents have differential information about the quality of heterogeneous assets. We study negotiated transaction prices in the commercial real estate market, which is characterized by heterogeneous assets, illiquidity, and highly segmented local markets, all of which increase the importance of asymmetric information in negotiated pricing outcomes. Using 114,588 industrial, multi-family and office sale transactions that occurred during 1997–2011, we document that distant commercial real estate buyers pay, on average, premiums of 4 % to 15 % relative to local buyers, controlling for individual property characteristics as well as time fixed-effects. We also examine the extent to which the sources of these observed premiums are a product of higher search costs/information asymmetry problems associated with distance (search cost channel) or a result of reference-dependence preference/anchoring based on the price levels in the investors’ local market (behavioral biases channel). Our results suggest the observed price premiums are explained by distant investors who face higher search costs and are at an information disadvantage compared to investors located in closer proximity to the property. In contrast, anchoring plays a more muted role in explaining observed premiums. The use of an intermediary (broker) increases, on average, the acquisition prices of buyers and decreases the disposition prices of sellers by 3 % to 8 %. This result is consistent with the incentive real estate agents have to convince sellers to dispose of their properties too quickly and to convince buyers to search less and therefore pay higher prices.     

The sentimental city: the lost urbanism of Pierre Mac Orlan and Guy Debord

Behind a high stonewall surrounding a rural farmhouse in Auvergne, Guy Debord, the ex‐Situationist theorist and activist, retreated. The grungy, cheap‐thrill Parisian urbanism of his youth was no more. Paris had died in his arms of a fatal illness that has seen off other great cities. Economic forces and planning initiatives had assassinated his rebel underworld, and culprits are still at large, still awaiting trial in the people's court. This essay embraces Debord the other side of the wall, dialoging with Pierre Mac Orlan, one of his favorite novelists. In so doing, we enter the phantasmal zone of the sentimental city, the city both real and make‐believe, defunct and yet‐to‐be. Mac Orlan's ideas about passive and active adventuring are explored here, to unlock the Pandora's box of Debord's urbanism. The essay approaches the capitalist city with a poetic gloss and reveals a realm richer and deeper than most social scientific urban research can grasp. Alongside Mac Orlan, Debord retraces his steps through urban ruins, and recaptures an everyday melancholy of backstreets and damaged people, of twilight nooks and crannies and shadowy bars. In Debord's sentimental city, it isn't so much the past that one regrets as the future. Derrière un haut mur de pierre entourant une ferme d'Auvergne, s'est retiré Guy Debord, l'ancien théoricien et militant situationniste. L'urbanisme parisien minable et décadent de sa jeunesse n'existait plus. Paris était mort dans ses bras d'une maladie désastreuse qui a emporté d'autres grandes villes. Forces économiques et initiatives d'aménagement ont assassiné son milieu rebelle et les coupables courent encore, dans l'attente d'un procès populaire. Cet essai voit Debord de l'autre côté du mur en train de dialoguer avec Pierre Mac Orlan, l'un de ses écrivains favoris. Ainsi, nous entrons dans l'illusion de la ville sentimentale, ville à la fois réelle et imaginaire, défunte et survivante. Les idées de Mac Orlan sur l'aventurier actif et passif y sont examinées afin d'ouvrir la boîte de Pandore de l'urbanisme selon Debord. L'approche de la ville capitaliste revêt un vernis poétique, révélant un univers plus riche et plus profond que ce qui peut être saisi par la plupart des recherches urbaines en sciences sociales. Aux côtés de Mac Orlan, Debord revient sur ses pas, traversant des ruines urbaines, retrouvant une mélancolie au quotidien des bas‐quartiers et d'une pègre abîmée, des coins et recoins obscurs et des bars mal éclairés. Dans la ville sentimentale de Debord, ce n'est pas tant le passé que l'on regrette, mais plutôt l'avenir.     

Asian development and poverty reduction strategies: Integrating fisheries into the development discourse

Asia is the world’s foremost capture fishery and aquaculture producer. It is also home to the majority of the world’s fishers and marine fleet (decked and undecked). Consequently, there is every reason to expect that this importance is reflected in national development discourses. This article identifies the socio-economic importance of fisheries in the region in terms of its contribution to primary exports, domestic protein consumption, employment and poverty alleviation. We then analyse national development and poverty reduction strategy documents using a content analysis methodology previously applied to measure the extent to which environmental or forestry issues had been mainstreamed into national policy documents. This enables us to identify those countries that have currently integrated fisheries into the national development discourse – and those that have not. We conclude by proposing two strategies to enable the more effective integration of fisheries into the development agenda.