La transición de Tailandia en las esferas laboral y sanitaria

La economía de Tailandia ha cambiado rápidamente de la agricultura a la industria manufacturera y el sector de los servicios, pero el ordenamiento del mercado laboral y la representación de los trabajadores son mucho menos consistentes que en los países desarrollados, donde hubo una transición más lenta y gradual hace ya décadas. Los autores estudian el robustecimiento de las políticas y la legislación tailandesas en el ámbito de la seguridad y la salud en el trabajo, que obedece a las normas internacionales y a la nueva Constitución democrática. Por último, identifican los principales retos pendientes, entre ellos el cumplimiento de la ley y una medición mejor de los efectos del trabajo en la salud física y mental.     

Management practices in Australasian ethical investment products: a role for regulation?

This paper adds to the literatures on socially responsible investment (SRI), investment management, regulation of financial services and social accounting by providing a comprehensive survey of investment methods used in SRI products and regulated social reporting in financial services. Australian and New Zealand regulations require issuers of self‐declarative SRI products to provide details on methods used in portfolio construction. Regulators' objectives to standardize the reporting of portfolio construction and thus improve its comparability were identified by examination of parliamentary debates and other public reports. Portfolio construction styles of 86 SRI products managed by 63 financial institutions in Australia and New Zealand were chosen for analysis. Statistical analysis was conducted to identify associations between styles, construction methods and assessment techniques over a four‐year period: 2004–2007. These aspects were further examined in 18 case studies. Over the period, diversity and intensity of construction methods had increased both within and between investment managers. The non‐standard nature of management consultation used in SRI products, marketing needs to distinguish rather than standardize investment methods and the types of information thought relevant to clients did not reconcile easily with the types of information required by regulation. The more recent products in the sample tended to reference market indexes in portfolio construction, separate social considerations from financial considerations and delegate qualitative assessments of invested companies. Consumer policy implications arise from questions bearing on the integrity of information attached to investment products and the effective monitoring of delegated investment processes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The evolution of post-Soviet labour processes: a case study of the hollowing out of paternalism in Moldova

During the Soviet era, directors and workers derived mutual benefits from concealing true capacity, hoarding labour and just fulfilling an enterprise's plan. In an environment of labour shortages and guaranteed markets, managers used informal mechanisms to reward and retain good workers given the absence of unemployment and meaningful wage differentials as mechanisms to discipline workers. This cultivated a paternalistic set of relations between enterprise managers and workers, which, it is argued, are being hollowed out in the post-communist era. This is explored in a case study of evolving labour relations in Moldova. Casualization of the workforce has been used as a buffer against greater instability in both the supply of raw materials and demand. Such a strategy has become feasible as enterprises, such as the case-study firm, now have a large pool of external surplus labour on which they can draw. However, paternalism has not been hollowed out completely but rather a split-level realignment is identified.     

Endogenous Games and Mechanisms: Side Payments Among Players

We characterize the outcomes of games when players may make binding offers of strategy contingent side payments before the game is played. This does not always lead to efficient outcomes, despite complete information and costless contracting. The characterizations are illustrated in a series of examples, including voluntary contribution public good games, Cournot and Bertrand oligopoly, principal–agent problems, and commons games, among others.     

The influence of colour on visual search times in cluttered environments

Fifty subjects participated in a series of visual search tasks where the aim was to explore the influence of colour on visual search times for targets situated in a series of cluttered distractor fields. The results supported previous findings regarding the effect of colour and showed that, even in cluttered environments, certain hues helped in the reduction of search times. The findings also indicated that there were interaction effects between the colour and positioning of the targets in the distractor fields.