The Government/Democrats' package of changes in indirect taxes

Australia is faced with a comprehensive package of changes to its indirect tax system, including the introduction of a GST. The Government's only quantitative analysis in formulating the package employed PRISMOD, an archaic input-output price model. PRISMOD sheds dim light on a very limited range of policy-relevant variables. This article explains how PRISMOD works; this is of continuing relevance because PRISMOD results are a benchmark in negotiations concerning the price effects of the tax package. Then an assessment of the package is made using MONASH, a comprehensive dynamic general equilibrium model. Overall, the conclusions are negative: the package is welfare-reducing and unnecessary.     

Influence of strategies and heuristics on farmers' response to change under uncertainty

Hierarchical Decision Models of woolproducers' decisions provide unique insights into the impact of major price changes. Producers' lagged response in some contexts appear to be due to the ambiguous decision environment they face, their strategic goals and responses to that environment apart from lags caused by factors such as attitude to risk, expectations adjustment, adjustment costs and learning costs. Much of the response to major price changes comes from strategic decisions to change enterprises rather than marginal changes to existing enterprises. In ambiguous environments, methods may need to be found that incorporate simplifying behavioural rules and strategies.     

The Dynamic Role of Small Firms: Evidence from the U.S.

This paper provides a conceptual and empirical account of the dynamic role of SMEs in the U.S. economy. Evidence is provided to show that SMEs are important sources of employment growth and innovation. For example, the net employment gain during 1990–95 is shown to be greater among smaller firms than among larger firms. Furthermore, while large firms often produce a larger number of patents per firm, the patenting rate for small firms is typically higher than that for large firms when measured on a per-employee basis. It is noted that public policy is shifting away from traditional measures which were based on a static conception of industrial organization and thus emphasized anti-trust, regulation and public ownership solutions, towards measures which are geared towards supporting the dynamic role of SMEs. These measures focus on providing an enabling environment for enterprise start-ups, job creation, knowledge spillovers and technological change.     

I suppose you think that's funny! The role of humour in corporate learning events

This paper examines the uses of humour among participants in five bank training programmes in the UK. These programmes, run by the banks themselves, were studied using ethnographic methods and the observations reported here are based upon extensive field notes. The paper examines the ways in which participants deployed humour during these learning events and the role humour played in the management of their relations with their fellow learners and the course instructors. The course instructors' use of humour is also examined. It is argued that humour played a far from trivial role in the programmes studied. On the contrary, humour was vital to their maintenance as viable organizational practices. In conclusion it is suggested that the more systematic study of humour could make an important contribution to the understanding of the social realities of corporate training programmes.     

The Federal Reserve and the 2007–2009 Financial Crisis: Treating a Virus with Antibiotics? Evidence from the Commercial Paper Market

The two main explanations for the crisis in the commercial paper (CP) market are credit concerns and liquidity issues. The CP market is not homogeneous in terms of credit quality, maturities and types of issues. We find that lower credit‐quality CP suffered more during the crisis. Additionally, we find little evidence that Federal Reserve (Fed) liquidity facilities reduced the impact of the crisis, but that when the Fed became a lender in the CP market, the crisis pressures were dramatically reduced. We conclude that the crisis in the money markets is related more to increases in credit risk. Liquidity is a secondary issue.     

Sell‐Side Analyst Bias When Investment Banks Have Privileged Access to the Board

Research on analyst bias typically identifies affiliation with reference to a subset of the mandates that could give rise to incentives for bias in a multifunction investment bank. This paper develops a new measure of affiliation based upon the UK practice of corporate broking. An advantage of this approach is that affiliation is no longer restricted to isolated equity issuance events as it is an ongoing activity. This research shows that prior US evidence regarding the “Global Settlement” is robust to this new measure and application in the United Kingdom rather than solely the United States. The paper uses a hazard rate methodology focusing on the timeliness of revisions to address selection bias concerns.