Retirements at risk: employees lack a comprehensive, realistic view of resources and needs

Employees who are following conventional retirement-planning advice will be in for a rude awakening as they approach retirement and discover that they can't afford to retire just yet or are likely to outlive their retirement funds. The article discusses how we have arrived at this point, what the implications are, and what both employers and employees can do to remedy the situation.     

Concerning trust and information

Communication and the associated information exchanges are key drivers of the development of relationships and of the trust embedded within them. This paper considers the development of business relationships in terms of the continuing co-evolution of trust and information exchange and the issues associated with researching these processes. The interconnections of trust and information exchange are examined in a survey of business relationships involving information exchange (n = 355). Analysis of variance shows few, if any, of the aspects of the standard conceptualizations of information exchange are associated with increased levels of trust. It is information exchange norms that have the greatest (positive) association with the level of trust. These norms emerge as part of the long term co-production of the relationship itself. This has important managerial implications. We conclude there are few managerial actions involving managing communication that can “manufacture” trust and improve or develop relationships in the short term. The paper concludes with a discussion of alternative ways of envisaging communication and relationship management and the nature and future of research into the evolution of business relationships.     

'Nonprofits' need surplus too

By definition profit refers to the difference between revenue and expenses. In for-profit organizations profit or surplus gives a return to the owners of the company and serves as a source of financing for capital acquisitions and working capital. Nonprofit organizations, which are not allowed a surplus, don't suffer on the first count because they have no owners. But they do suffer on the second count because, if expected to grow, they need to finance asset replacement and growth. In these days when funds for long-term debt are becoming scarcer, this author asserts, the need for regulators to allow 'nonprofits' to keep a surplus is increasing. In this article, he argues for a surplus and then discusses how managers and regulators can determine how much a nonprofit organization should be allowed. He presents a combination of a modified version of the return-on-asset pricing model used in for-profit organizations and a model for assessing working capital needs associated with growth.     

THE NONPROFIT SECTOR OF THE U.S. ECONOMY: A METHODOLOGICAL STATEMENT

United States input-output accounts identify and measure the interrelationships between the various industries in the United States economy. However, these accounts do not identify nonprofit activities from their for-profit counterparts in the service-producing sector. This paper, prepared by Gabriel Rudney and Paula Young, presents the methodology and summary data produced by disaggregating the service-producing industries to identify separately nonprofit activities.
The input-output accounts for 1977 produced in this study include 107 industries, but in this paper the results are summarized into 14 industries showing only nonprofit and for-profit components. The GNP and total outputs in this study are consistent with the revised input-output accounts for 1977 prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis.     

The effects of education in early-stage agriculture: some evidence from China

The stochastic production frontier approach is used to study the effects of education on agricultural efficiency for a cross-section of 'early-stage' farms from Guanghan County, Sichuan Province, China. Education for farm families in rural China is multifaceted with a combination of formal education, intragenerational transfer of knowledge within the home, and agricultural extension services. Since our survey data span two different years with markedly different policy environments, we are able to examine not only which aspects of education affect agricultural efficiency, but also whether or not the policy environment matters. We find limited evidence that in a policy environment that is conducive to agriculture, formal education provides positive returns in agriculture. Furthermore, general education may provide greater returns than the more targeted extension services.     

The influence of foreign factor prices and international taxation on fixed investment in the UK

This paper examines the influence of foreign factor prices andinternational corporate taxation on fixed investment in theUK manufacturing sector. The evidence suggests that factor pricesaffect fixed investment in the UK through their influence oninternational competitiveness rather than the factor mix decision.There also appears to be a significant effect of tax competitivenesson the rate of investment. Empirical evidence suggests thatpolicy to increase investment be aimed at reducing the averagerate rather than the marginal rate of corporation tax.     

Sources of family income and expenditure on children's private,after‐school education in Korea

This paper examines the relationship between sources of family income and household expenditure on private, after‐school education for children in secondary schools in Korea in the context of educational ‘credentialism’, which values evidence of college education highly. Data from a survey of 514 parents of secondary school students are used. Estimated ordinary least squares coefficients indicate that the wife's income, but not the husband's, was positively associated with the amount of spending on children's education at private, after‐school programmes. This finding suggests that some married women with children in Korea seek employment in order to earn the money needed for their children's private, after‐school education.