Book Reviews

Book reviews in this article: UNEMPLOYMENT: CAUSE AND CURE Patrick Minford BRITAIN CAN WORK Ian Gilmour THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRIAL CONFLICT: WORKER RESISTANCE IN THE WORKPLACE P. K. Edwards and Hugh Scullion MANAGING INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS Mick Marchington MANAGERS IN FOCUS: THE BRITISH MANAGER IN THE EARLY 1980s Michael Poole THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LABOUR PROCESS IN CAPITALIST SOCIETIES Craig R. Littler THE MODERNIZATION OF SOVIET INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT William J. Conyngham THE SOCIALIST CORPORATION AND TECHNOCRATIC POWER Jean Woodhall     

Conference Tourism: A Problem for the Environment,as well as for Research?

The increase in professional trips to conferences and seminars made by employees in the 'knowledge industries' presents an environmentally worrying trend in mobility in contemporary post-industrial society. A number of factors are involved. Globalisation and regional competition encourage host cities and institutions to put themselves on the conference map. For the individual traveller, conferences and seminars offer escape from daily routines and the chance to experience new, perhaps exotic, places. But trips to distant conferences can have serious environmental impacts, especially if made by airplane. Because of the aggressive impact of greenhouse gas emissions in the upper atmosphere, their threat to the global climate is more serious than similar trips made at surface level. In addition, the time spent on such trips competes with other tasks: conference participation takes scarce time resources available to university academics for research. In the age of electronic communication, it is questionable whether conferences are effective arenas for communicating and gathering knowledge.     

Anstieg der Staatsverschuldung stellt Finanzpolitik vor große Herausforderungen

Zusammenfassung  Aufgrund der derzeitigen Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise wird die Verschuldung der ?ffentlichen Haushalte in diesem und dem kommenden Jahr so erheblich steigen, dass es selbst unter günstigen gesamt- und finanzwirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen mindestens ein Jahrzehnt dauern k?nnte, bis Deutschland wieder beide Verschuldungsgrenzen des Maastricht-Vertrages einhalten wird. Wie rasch kann die hohe Staatsschuldenquote zurückgeführt werden? Welchen Beitrag kann die Finanzpolitik für ein angemessenes Wirtschaftswachstum leisten? Wie sollte die Konsolidierungsstrategie ausgerichtet sein? Heinz Gebhardt, 56, Dipl.-Volkswirt, arbeitet in den Kompetenzbereichen „?ffentliche Finanzen“ und „Wachstum und Konjunktur“ des RWI Essen; Dr. Rainer Kambeck, 47, ist Leiter des Kompetenzbereichs „?ffentliche Finanzen“. Die Autoren danken Christoph M. Schmidt für kritische Anmerkungen und hilfreiche Kommentare.     

BOOK REVIEWS

NIGHT WORK: by J. Carpentier and P. Cazamian INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS–ATEXT BOOK: by M. P. Jackson RULE-MAKING AND INDUSTRIAL PEACE: INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN THE FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY; by J. F. B. Goodman, E.GA. Armstrong, J. E. Davis and A. Wagner GRIEVANCE ARBITRATION: A PRACTICAL GUIDE: International Labour Office THE SHIPPING INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: by J. McConville The Development of Industrial Relation Systems: Some Implications of Japanese experience.     

Prices of raw materials continue to rise

Following the abatement of the boom market during the early months of 1983, the coming months will see an “adjustment” of world market prices for industrial raw materials to “fundamental” market conditions. Price fluctuations are likely during this period. A gradual increase in demand for raw materials and a moderate rise in raw materials prices can be expected during the further course of 1983 and in 1984.     

Insuring against the shortfall risk associated with real options

We would like to insure against the risk that a geometric Brownian motion, correlated with the price process of a certain traded asset, is in a set E at time T. In this paper it is shown that the best action one can take to insure against this risk is to buy a binary option on the traded asset. We give explicit formulas in the case that E is an infinite interval. The setting of all our investigations is the Black-Scholes model. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 91B28, 60J65, 62P05, 91B30, 62F03 Journal of Economic Literature Classification: G31