The Relationship Among Union Membership, Facets of Satisfaction and Intent to Leave: Further Evidence on the Voice Face of Unions

This study examined the impact of union membership on employees’ intent to leave their jobs across a number of facets of satisfaction, as a further test of unions’ voice face. Among the findings were that there were significant relationships between job, compensation, benefits, working conditions, and immediate supervisor satisfaction and intent to leave one’s job for nonunion employees. In contrast, only the relationship between job satisfaction and intent to leave was significant for union employees. Finally, over the facets of satisfaction where one would expect unions to have the most influence, the relationship between intent to leave one’s job and satisfaction was greater for nonunion employees than for union employees. These results provide a great deal of support for the effect of unions’ voice face.

Examining the Patterns of Goodwill Impairments in Europe and the US

We examine the patterns of goodwill impairments in Europe and in the US over the period from 2006 to 2015, for a sample of more than 35,000 firm-year observations. We define the timeliness of goodwill impairments as the frequency of accounting impairments conditional to indications of economic impairments. We measure indications of economic impairment with three metrics: equity market value minus equity book value less than goodwill, market-to-book smaller than one and negative earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). Our research strategy leads us to draw very different conclusions than those in the recent EFRAG (2016) study. While median levels of goodwill on the books between US and European firms are relatively similar, we find several indications that US firms recognise timelier impairments, at least during 2008 and 2009, that is, the early years of the financial crisis. We further document that US impairers write down a much greater percentage of their beginning balance of goodwill than European impairers. During the financial crisis, the median level of impairment by US firms was 63% of opening goodwill in 2008 and 40% in 2009, whereas median European write-downs were only 6% and 7% of opening goodwill, respectively. Even though European firms are more likely to impair over multiple years, the cumulative impairments never come close to the level of US firms, be it in a single year or cumulative over multiple years. We also find that the frequency of accounting impairment is small compared to the number of firms presenting evidence of economic impairment: only 20–25% of firms recognise impairments depending on the measure of economic impairment. This has often been interpreted by academics as a sign of untimely write-offs. Accounting differences between US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and International Financial Reporting Standards are unlikely to explain our results. One caveat of our analysis is that it does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether the observed differences between US and European firms are driven by differences in conditional conservatism and/or big bath accounting practices.     

The effect of globalization on union bargaining and price-cost margins of firms

In recent years, Europe has witnessed an accelerated process of economic integration. This paper analyzes how increased economic integration has affected labor and product markets. We use a panel of Belgian manufacturing firms to estimate price-cost margins and union bargaining power and show how various measures of globalization affect them. Import competition puts pressure on both markups and union bargaining power, especially when there is increased competition from low wage countries. This suggests that increased globalization is associated with a moderation of wage claims in unionized countries, which should be associated with positive effects on employment.

下个十亿市场

事实上,下一代新兴市场可以定夺许多产业中的胜利者和失败者,且是下一个崭新商业巨人的崛起之处。     

MARKET EFFICIENCY: EVIDENCE FROM A NO-BUBBLE ASSET MARKET EXPERIMENT

Abstract.  We report the results of an experiment that demonstrates that market experience is not necessary to eliminate bubbles in the type of asset markets studied in Smith et al . (1988) . We introduce a pre-market phase in which subjects experience a dividend flow themselves by literally observing and receiving dividends for 12 periods. The robust bubble–crash phenomenon never occurs in our experiment. Our results provide strong evidence that so long as a majority of the subjects have full understanding of the structure of the dividend, market efficiency can be ensured.     

Some deadweight losses from the minimum wage: the cases of full and partial compliance

This paper highlights the social costs from non-price rationing of the labour force due to the minimum wage. By short-circuiting the ability of low reservation-wage workers to underbid high-reservation wage workers, the minimum wage interferes with the market's basic function of grouping the lowest cost workers with the highest productivity firms. The present paper models the deadweight loss that society bears when high reservation-cost workers displace low reservation-cost workers. When firms can evade part or all of the minimum wage, an extra deadweight loss arises. Firms with high evasive ability but low productivity may displace firms with low evasive ability but high productivity.     

Justice Failure: Efficiency and Equality in Business Ethics

This paper offers the concept of “justice failure,” as a counterpart to the familiar idea of market failure, in order to better understand managers’ ethical obligations. This paper takes the “market failures approach” (MFA) to business ethics as its point of departure. The success of the MFA, I argue, lies in its close proximity with economic theory, particularly in the idea that, within a larger scheme of social cooperation, markets ought to pursue efficiency and leave the pursuit of equality to the welfare state. As a result, the core ethical responsibility of business actors is to avoid profiting off of market failure. After reviewing this approach I challenge its emphasis on efficiency. I argue that just as we note the suboptimal efficiency of actual markets (market failure), we should also take seriously the suboptimal equality of actual welfare states (what I call “justice failure”). Taking this idea seriously results in a whole other set of ethical responsibilities for businesses to take into account; in addition to market imperfections and regulatory lacunae, managers should also avoid profiting from, and exacerbating, structural inequalities and injustices. I offer an outline of the kinds of injustices and inequalities that would have bearing on business ethics, and the kinds of ethical responsibilities that this approach suggests that business actors should take into account.     

The impact of tariffs on profits in the United States and other major trading countries

Zusammenfassung Die Auswirkungen von Z?llen auf die Gewinne der Unternehmen in den Vereinigten Staaten und anderen gr?▾eren Handelsl?ndern. - In diesem Aufsatz wird das Michigan-Modell benutzt, um die Auswirkungen der Protektion auf die gesamten Gewinne und die Stückgewinne in den USA und anderen wichtigen Handelsnationen zu untersuchen. Es ergibt sich, da▾ die Protektion die Gewinne in den Exportsektoren st?rker verringert, als sie die Gewinne derjenigen Sektoren verbessert, die mit Importen konkurrieren. Allerdings bleiben die Gesamtgewinne aus der Kombination von exportorientierten und importsubstituierenden Unternehmen im allgemeinen von den bestehenden Z?llen unbeeinflu▾t. Au▾erdem finden die Gewinntransfers zwischen Exporteuren und importsubstituieren-den Unternehmen meistens innerhalb der gleichen Branche und nicht zwischen verschiedenen Branchen statt. Deshalb erh?hen allgemeine tarif?re Ma▾nahmen kaum die Gewinne von US-Industrien. Nur Tarife, die auf bestimmte Produktgruppen gerichtet sind, k?nnten derartige Wirkungen haben.

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Résumé L’effet des droits de douane sur les profits dans les Etats Unis et des autres pays principaux commer?ants. - Dans cet article le modèle Michigan de production mondiale et de commerce est appliqué pour analyser l’effet de la protection sur les profits totaux et par unité dans les Etats Unis et des autres pays principaux commer?ants. Les auteurs trouvent que la protection réduit les profits dans les secteurs exportatrices plus qu’elle stimule les profits dans les secteurs en concurrence avec les importations. Cependant, les profits totaux des entreprises exportatrices et en concurrence avec les importations ensemble ne sont pas affectés par des droits de douane existants. De plus, la majorité des transferts des profits entre les entreprises exportatrices et en concurrence avec les importations se passe dans la même industrie au lieu d’entre des industries. C’est pourquoi, il est conclu que des mesures générales tarifaires probablement n’augmentent pas les profits des industries des E.U. Ce ne sont que les droits de douane sur des groupes des biens spécifiques qui exercent un tel effet.

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Resumen El impacto de los aranceles sobre los beneficios en los Estados Unidos y otros países de importancia en el comercio international. - En este trabajo se utiliza el modelo de productión y comercio mundiales de Michigan para analizar el impacto de la protectión arancelaria sobre los beneficios totales y por unidad en los Estados Unidos y otros países de importancia en el comercio international. Los resultados indican que la protectión disminuye los beneficios en los sectores de exportatión y estimula los beneficios en las industrias que compiten con las importaciones, superando el primer efecto al segundo. Los beneficios totales de las empresas de exportatión y sustitución de importaciones juntas, empero, generalmente no son afectados por los aranceles existentes. Además, la mayor parte de la transferencia de beneficios entre exportadores y empresas de sustitución de importaciones tiene lugar dentro de la misma industria y no entre industrias diferentes. Por ello, medidas arancelarias de tipo general no son susceptibles de mejorar los beneficios de las industrias de los EE UU. Solamente aranceles que afecten a determinados grupos de productos podrían tener ese efecto.