Reasonableness and Section 4 of the Employment Act 1980

This article explains the origins of s.4 of the Employment Act 1980 and assesses the place of this provision in the corpus of labour legislation enacted by the Conservative government since 1980. Its principal aim is to concentrate upon the concept of reasonableness which is central to the operation of the provision and to evaluate critically the role of the EAT and the industrial tribunals in interpreting it. Finally, the article seeks to assess the impact of the tribunaľs interpretation of s.4 on union admission and expulsion procedures.     

Regularity conditions and scope estimates: The case of large-sized U.S. banks

We consider economies and diseconomies of scope for large U.S. banks by employing ordinary and hybrid translog cost functions. We examine the regularity conditions in output space where scope estimates are calculated and reject all models for which these conditions fail. The translog model always possesses violations. For the hybrid translog, violations occur in every case except one. In this one case, we find economies of scope.     

Swinburne's Challenge: A Note on Probability Estimates for Nontypical Potential Evidence Instances

General confirmation theory, and especially its Bayesian variant, has never been able to adequately address the issue of how to handle qualitative evidence instances. Such statements encompass a wide class including historical claims, those of the human sciences not incorporating quantitative models, legal statements and the like. The issue was recognized by the philosopher Swinburne (1973) who puzzled how such statements as, Caesar crossed the Rubicon, could be assigned a meaningful probability estimate. The present paper suggests that such statements can be transformed into, at least, plausible probability estimates. This requires a two step process: judgements made by credible raters, and the transformation of judgements into one or more reliability co-efficients. These reliability estimates can then be utilized in the standard Bayesian model to yield plausible degrees of belief between hypothesis and evidence.     

an anti-trust regime for Britain

Britain needs a complete transformation of its policy towards monopoly. Robert Miller argues that freedom of entry is the vital ingredient of policy for regulating monopolies and public utilities.     

The underpricing of initial public offerings: A theoretical and empirical reconsideration of the adverse selection hypothesis

In this paper we generalize Rock's theory regarding the underpricing of IPOs. In Rock's model, informed investors have a firm-specific informational advantage pertaining to a firm's cash flow. We derive the new results that the level of beta and the size of the market risk premium positively affect underpricing. These implications extend the adverse selection theory and further distinguish this theory from the current state of signalling theories of underpricing. The results put the “hot and cold” issue markets phenomenon in a theoretical context. Empirical results are consistent with the theoretical propositions and provide support for Rock's theory of underpricing.     

Spotting management fads

Business fads can change companies, for better or worse. They can introduce useful ideas but often fail to deliver on promises. So how can managers tell a fad from a tool that might endure? For one thing, beware of suspiciously simple techniques. If they seem too easy, they probably are.