Why statutory union recognition is bad labour policy:the North American experience

The proposed British legislation is modelled on that of the United States which has been a clear failure in its stated goal of encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining (Adams, 1993). It has instead perpetuated a culture of labour-management animosity that many other nations have 113been able, to their benefit, to overcome (Adams, 1995c).     

Seebohm Rowntree and the postwar poverty puzzle

In his third social survey of York carried out in 1950, Seebohm Rowntree reported a steep decline since 1936 of the percentage of households in poverty. He attributed the bulk of this decline to government welfare reforms enacted during and after the war. This article re‐examines the survivingrecords from the 1950 survey, using a revised poverty line and looking more closely at the measurement of income. It also re‐assesses the impact of welfare reforms on working‐class poverty, and finds that poverty in York was significantly higher, and the contribution of welfare reform substantially less, than was originally reported.     

THE INFLUENCE OF FIRM‐ AND CEO‐SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS ON THE USE OF NONLINEAR DERIVATIVE INSTRUMENTS

We examine why firms use nonlinear derivatives (e.g., options). Our results suggest that option characteristics in investment opportunities and debt, the payoff structure of incentive compensation, and free cash‐flow agency problems influence the firm's choice. Investment opportunities, internally generated cash flow, business risk, and option compensation positively influence the use of nonlinear currency derivatives. Option feature in bonds positively influence the use of nonlinear interest rate derivatives, whereas bonus and stock compensation, and CEO tenure have a negative influence. In sum, nonlinear cash flow characteristics in investment opportunity, debt, and executive compensation all relate positively to nonlinear derivative usage.     

Inequality and Size of the Informal Sector during Recession: A Note

This note provides a theoretical explanation for the empirical observation that more unequal economies tend to have larger informal sector. In contrary to the general belief, it shows that informal sector does not necessarily expand at the time of recession acting as a buffer for the unemployed pool.     

Market information and channel price structure

An analytical model is developed that considers the effect of demand information, and the precision with which demand forecasts are made, on channel profitability. Different channel price structures such as Stackelberg and Vertically integrated are considered and comparisons are made of the impact of information precision on channel profits under each structure. Other demand factors such as brand substitutability and share of base level demand are also included in the analysis, and the interaction of information and demand effects is examined. An empirical study is carried out using a sample of firms based in Hong Kong and support is found for the model propositions.     

Land reform and agricultural productivity in India: a review of the evidence

In this paper we review as well as contribute to the empiricalliterature on the impact of land reform on agricultural productivityin India. We find that, overall for all states, land-reformlegislation had a negative and significant effect on agriculturalproductivity. However, this hides considerable variation acrosstypes of land reform, as well as variation across states. Decomposingby type of land reform, the main driver for this negative effectseems to be land-ceiling legislation. In contrast, the effectof tenancy reform, averaged across all states, is insignificant.There seems to be a wide range of state-specific effects, whichsuggests that focusing on average treatment effects can hidea considerable amount of heterogeneity. In particular, allowinga separate slope for West Bengal, one of the few states thatimplemented tenancy laws rigorously, we find that land reformhad a marginal positive effect relative to the rest of India.     

Qualitative Input–Output Analysis of the Indian Economic Structure

Qualitative input–output (IO) analysis can be considered mostly in terms of a graph-theoretic formulation, which involves the construction and use of an adjacency matrix, derived from a binary transformation of the IO coefficient matrix. Classical attempts at qualitative IO analysis have derived the structure from the direct IO coefficient table. In more recent attempts, greater sophistication has been achieved by incorporating a degree of quantification into the qualitative analysis. Also, the concept of important coefficients (IC) has been used for the construction of the adjacency matrix. The present study is carried out along these lines for the Indian economy.     

Cellular phone etiquette among college students

There has been tremendous growth in the cellular telephone industry in recent years. This evolving technology has given rise to concerns over the social rules of etiquette governing cellphone usage behaviour. The present study was undertaken to better understand the perceptions of cellphone usage propriety among one of the most important target markets for cellphone products – young adults attending college. Data were collected from a total of 383 cellphone consumers residing in geographically diverse regions of the United States. Overall, the results indicated a high degree of agreement among respondents as to appropriate and inappropriate situations for cellphone usage. Respondents considered inappropriate situations for cellphone usage to include during worship/church, during class, in a library and in a movie theatre during a movie. Respondents considered it to be appropriate to use cellphones while on public transportation, in a supermarket, and to use a hands‐free set while driving. Specific differences were found as a function of geographic regions, gender and employment status.     

Criteria used by venture capitalists to evaluate new venture proposals

A questionnaire was administered to one hundred venture capitalists to determine the most important criteria that they use to decide on funding new ventures. Perhaps the most important finding from the study is direct confirmation of the frequently iterated position taken by the venture capital community that above all it is the quality of the entrepreneur that ultimately determines the funding decision. Five of the top ten most important criteria had to do with the entrepreneur's experience or personality. There is no question that irrespective of the horse (product), horse race (market), or odds (financial criteria), it is the jockey (entrepreneur) who fundamentally determines whether the venture capitalist will place a bet at all.The question is if this is the case, then why is so much emphasis placed on the business plan? In a business plan there is generally little to indicate the characteristics of the entrepreneur—it is generally devoted to a detailed discussion of the product/service, the market, and the competition. To us, the implications are obvious—such content is necessary, but not sufficient. The business plan should also show as clearly as possible that the “jockey is fit to ride” —namely, indicate by whatever feasible and credible means possible that the entrepreneur has staying power, has a track record, can react to risk well, and has familiarity with the target market. Failing this, he or she needs to be able to pull together a team that has such characteristics and show that he or she is capable of leading that team.Factor analysis of the results indicate that venture capitalists appear to assess ventures systematically in terms of six categories of risk to be managed. These are: risk of losing the entire investment: risk of being unable to bail out if necessary; risk of failure to implement the venture idea; competitive risk; risk of management failure; and risk of leadership failure.Finally, three clusters of venture capitalists were identified: those who carefully assess the competitive and implementation risks: those who seek easy bail out; and those who deliberately keep as many options open as possible.