Futures beyond dystopia

The speculative imagination is an higher-order human capacity that can productively explore the not-here and the not-yet. To some extent it is already doing so. But these explorations are limited by prevailing cultural assumptions. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that there are other arenas to explore that, were they taken seriously, could exert sufficient symbolic ‘pull' to qualify as desirable images of futures. They could then begin to act as ‘magnets' for the realisation of possibilities that are presently obscured.     

Demographic change, social security systems, and savings

In theory, improvements in healthy life expectancy should generate increases in the average age of retirement, with little effect on savings rates. In many countries, however, retirement incentives in social security programs prevent retirement ages from keeping pace with changes in life expectancy, leading to an increased need for life-cycle savings. Analyzing a cross-country panel of macroeconomic data, we find that increased longevity raises aggregate savings rates in countries with universal pension coverage and retirement incentives, though the effect disappears in countries with pay-as-you-go systems and high replacement rates.     

Conversion of mortality ratios to a numerical rating classification for life insurance underwriting-revisited

This is a commentary requested by the J Insur Med Editor to accompany a reprinting in this 2004 issue of my 1988 article on "Conversion of Mortality Ratios to a Numerical Rating Classification for Life Underwriting" (J Insur Med 1988;20:54-61). Topics discussed in this commentary include the distinction between short-term and long-term mortality follow-up in certain conditions, the format and the introductory text of the US Decennial Life Tables, the distinction between mortality rate and mortality probability, averaging mortality rates over a period of years, and the great value of the exemplary follow-up study used in the 1988 article.     

The effects of the current turbulent times on American multinational banking : An overview

Turbulent times are nothing new in the long sweep of financial and monetary history. Nonetheless, the turbulence of the current period has some unique features in terms of both its causes and its long-run effects on the financial markets. Three factors in particular would seem to set the current period apart from previous turbulent periods. First, most previous periods of global financial difficulties were associated either with wars or with acute liquidity crises in the banking system. These factors have been present to some extent in the current episode. However, in addition there has been a dramatic change in the global monetary regime that has played a major role in the present turbulence. Second, most previous crises were not accompanied by technological changes of the magnitude of the current computer/information revolution. And third, no previous crisis occurred in the context of a highly regulated banking industry attempting to adjust to much higher levels of risk, much faster paces of technological change, and much greater price and non-price competition from both traditional and non-traditional competitors in the global financial markets. These factors have radically changed the nature of multinational banking and accelerated pressures to deregulate the price fixing and entry restriction parts of the American financial regulatory system. Many of the current technological, competitive and regulatory issues facing multinational banks have their roots in the unstable and inflationary global monetary regime of the past decade. High and volatile inflation and interest rates, fluctuating currencies, and a long and deep recession have both changed and raised the risks facing multinational banks. Banks have responded over the past decade by attempting to manage this greater risk more carefully through diversification and by developing new products and services that are in demand in this riskier environment, including better and cheaper means of cash management and a richer menu of fixed and variable rate bank deposit and loan products. While the major purpose of this paper is to review how American multinational banks adapted — and are adapting — to the current turbulent times, there is a more fundamental question to consider. That is, will the financial and monetary turbulence of the past decade continue, or will the 1980s bring a return to lower and more stable inflation and interest rates, and faster economic progress?     

The effect of the Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act of 2000 on employer-provided pension and medical plans

On April 7, 2000 President Clinton signed the Senior Citizens' Freedom to Work Act. The act reduces the Social Security retirement benefit penalties previously imposed on 65- through 69-year-old workers who earned more than nominal incomes after enrolling in the program. This article analyzes the impact that the act will have on retirement decisions of the affected cohorts of older workers and closes with an analysis of how the act may affect employer-provided pension, medical and paid leave plans.     

"A players" or "A positions"? The strategic logic of workforce management

Companies simply can't afford to have "A players" in all positions. Rather, businesses need to adopt a portfolio approach to workforce management, systematically identifying their strategically important A positions, supporting B positions, and surplus C positions, then focusing disproportionate resources on making sure A players hold A positions. This is not as obvious as it may seem, because the three types of positions do not reflect corporate hierarchy, pay scales, or the level of difficulty in filling them. A positions are those that directly further company strategy and, less obviously, exhibit wide variation in the quality of the work done by the people who occupy them. Why variability? Because raising the average performance of individuals in these critical roles will pay huge dividends in corporate value. If a company like Nordstrom, for example, whose strategy depends on personalized service, were to improve the performance of its frontline sales associates, it could reap huge revenue benefits. B positions are those that support A positions or maintain company value. Inattention to them could represent a significant downside risk. (Think how damaging it would be to an airline, for example, if the quality of its pilots were to drop.) Yet investing in them to the same degree as A positions is ill-advised because B positions don't offer an upside potential. (Pilots are already highly trained, so channeling resources into improving their performance would probably not create much competitive advantage.) And C positions? Companies should consider outsourcing them--or eliminating them. We all know that effective business strategy requires differentiating a firm's products and services in ways that create value for customers. Accomplishing this requires a differentiated workforce strategy, as well.     

Random coefficient regression and the long-run phillips curve for the U.S.

This research suggests that a random coefficient regression model is well-suited for analyzing long-run versus short-run movements in wages and unemployment and is an improvement over some empirical techniques typically used.