Care labelling for upholstered furniture: consumers’expressed needs and preferences

The issue of care labelling for upholstered furniture has been debated by U.S. government officials and furniture manufacturers since 1974. While the Federal Trade Commission in 1982 voted not to include upholstered furniture in a move to extend coverage to products other than apparel, they did order a continuing investigation into this area. FTC officials solicited an opinion from industry representatives on the necessity of providing care labels for upholstered furniture at this time; however, they did not seek consumer input. An investigation into consumer preferences for care labelling on upholstered furniture was needed. This study was designed in two phases. Phase 1 consisted of a market survey to assess the availability of written care information on upholstered furniture at a local level. The second phase was a mail survey of consumers that collected data on expressed needs and preferences for upholstered furniture care labelling.     

Subcontracting and vertical integration in the Spanish cotton industry1

This paper examines changes in the organization of the Spanish cotton industry from 1736 to 1860 in its core region of Catalonia. As the Spanish cotton industry adopted the most modern technology available and experienced the transition to the factory system, cotton spinning and weaving mills became increasingly vertically integrated. Asset specificity, more than other factors, explains this tendency towards vertical integration. The probability of a firm being vertically integrated was higher among firms located in districts with high concentration ratios, and rose with size and the use of modern machinery. At the same time, subcontracting predominated in other phases of production and distribution, where transaction costs appear to be less important.     

Correlates of Union Support in NLRB Elections

Bargaining unit, union, industry, and geographic correlates of union support in NLRB certification and decertification elections for the period 1977 to 1979 are analyzed using similar regression specifications. Several relationships are found to be significant; however, an examination of the magnitude of the estimated coefficients suggests only unit size and union organizing effort affect outcomes in more than a small percentage of all certification elections.     

Economic Viewpoint

The search for a policy device which will yield the benefits of monetary discipline without the pain is as old as it is fruitless, and the central message of this Economic Viewpoint is that going into the EMS will not provide a magic answer to our problems. However we believe that if we go into the EMS at today's rate, and pursue monetary policies consistent with maintaining that rate, the authorities' target of 3 per cent inflation by 1988 is well within reach… Our analysis of the experience of other countries, inside and outside the EMS, over the floating rate period suggests that membership of the EMS should also reduce exchange rate fluctuations and help to create a more stable environment for business planning. However, sterling's vulnerability to oil-related fluctuations cannot be eliminated just by joining the EMS. We therefore suggest that an oil bond, which capitalises the value of our North Sea assets, is created and sold to our EMS partners, thus equalising the exposure to fluctuations in oil prices and removing one major cause of exchange rate instability.