Competitive equilibria with limited enforcement

We show how to decentralize constrained efficient allocations that arise from enforcement constraints between sovereign nations. In a pure exchange economy these allocations can be decentralized with private agents acting competitively and taking as given government default decisions on foreign debt. In an economy with capital these allocations can be decentralized if the government can tax capital income as well as default on foreign debt. The tax on capital income is needed to make private agents internalize a subtle externality. The decisions of the government can arise as an equilibrium of a dynamic game between governments.     

Uncertainty Associated with Future Environmental Costs and the Market's Differential Response to Earnings Information

This study examines whether the uncertainty arising from a firm's exposure to future environmental costs (environmental uncertainty) affects the market's price sensitivity to reported earnings. Specifically, when environmental uncertainty is significantly high, are investors more responsive to reported earnings released by 'high-polluting' firms than reported earnings announced by 'low-polluting' firms within the same industry? The initial impact of Title IV (the acid rain provisions) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (1990 CAAA) on the US electric utility industry provides the research setting required to isolate the effects of environmental uncertainty while addressing this question. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that the earnings response coefficients (ERCs) of high-polluting electric utilities are significantly greater than those of their low-polluting counterparts during a predicted period of elevated environmental uncertainty. In adjoining sample years associated with lower environmental uncertainty, we observe no statistical difference in the magnitude of the ERCs between these two groups. In addition, the study's findings suggest that the magnitude of the ERC is increasing in the firm's exposure to future environmental costs, after controlling for other factors that potentially affect ERCs.     

全球金融：过去与现在

尽管偶尔有些失望与不信任的言论出现，经济生活的全球化现在仍然成为了必然之势。在过去的几十年中，恐怕再也没有其他场所比全球金融市场更能体现这种日渐普遍的趋势。资本流动的倍增给发达国家和发展中国家都创造了无数新的盈利机会，同时，也给这些国家的政策制定者带来了艰巨的挑战，一切还都尘埃未定。     

Internal labour markets in the Australian banking industry: their nature prior to the Second World War and their recent decline

This paper uses evidence from late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century personnel records of two Australian banks to examine the nature of internal labour markets prior to the Second World War. It is argued that the industry possessed all the classic features of internal labour markets: limited ports of entry, internal promotion, long careers, and assignment of wages by well-defined rules. The paper then examines the reasons why banks adopted internal labour markets. Finally, the paper examines the recent decline of internal labour markets and examines the role of technological and social changes in this decline.     

PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN AGRICULTURE (REVISITED): A MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK AND SOME EMPIRICAL RESULTS

This paper explores the methodology of sectoral productivity growth measurement within the framework of input-output analysis. A method which ensures that sectoral productivity growth rates are consistent with productivity growth rates for the economy as a whole (as well as allowing for external trade) is suggested. New estimates are presented on total factor productivity in UK agriculture using a Tornqvist index procedure. In addition, new estimates of agricultural labour productivity growth are presented, taking account not only of labour employed in agriculture but also of labour employed in ancillary industries on the supply side. The empirical results confirm that part of the labour previously employed on farms has shifted “upstream” to industries providing agriculture with fertilises, machinery and other inputs.     

Lies,damned lies and statistics: the accuracy of survey responses

That survey research is error prone is not a new idea and different varieties of non-sampling error have been investigated in the literature as well as consideration being given in many statistics textbooks to the issue of sampling error. The paper here considers research upon corporate environmental reporting. It compares information provided by corporate environmental reports with information that survey respondents claim their organization’s environmental report contains. This enables the accuracy of the claims to be assessed. Consideration is given to two different industries the Water industry and the Energy industry. Errors due to inaccurate reporting by survey respondents are shown to be relatively infrequent and respondents appear just about as likely to claim they report information that they do not, in fact, report as to fail to indicate that they report information that is, in fact, actually reported.