Impacts of meat product recalls on consumer demand in the USA

The impact of meat product recall events on consumer demand (beef, pork, poultry, and other consumption goods) in the USA is tested empirically. Beef, pork, and poultry recall indices are constructed from both the Food Safety Inspection Service's meat recall events and from newspaper reports over the period 1982–1998. Following previous product recall studies, recall indices are incorporated as shift variables in consumers’ demand functions. Estimating an absolute price version of the Rotterdam demand model, findings indicate that Food Safety Inspection Service's meat recall events significantly impact demand, and newspaper reports do not. Moreover, although elasticities related to recall events are significant they are small in magnitude relative to price and income effects. Any favourable effects on the demands of meat substitutes for a recall are offset by a more general negative effect on meat demand. The general negative effect indicates a shift out of meat to non-meat consumption goods.     

Productivity growth in east Asia: a reappraisal

In recent years there has been considerable disagreement over the extent to which productivity growth has accounted for the success of the east Asian economies. Empirical evidence, based on forms of growth accounting or direct estimation of a production function, is inconclusive so that the debate appears to be at a stalemate. This article applies an alternative approach, using the Malmquist productivity indices, to investigate the contribution of productivity to the longer term growth. The results support the view that over the longer term, the east Asian economies were input driven but interesting differences arise between countries when shorter periods are analysed.     

Investment in human capital and gender wage differences: evidence from the NLSY

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to investigate gender differences in returns to various forms of human capital. Since the NLSY includes relatively detailed information regarding on- and off-the-job training, we place special emphasis on measuring gender differences in the incidence of and returns to formal post-school training. Also considered is the role of nonhuman capital factors such as industry and occupation in explaining the wage gap. It is found that about 60% of the gender wage gap in the sample is explained by mean differences in individual characteristics and market circumstances. This suggests a smaller role for discrimination in explaining the wage gap than previous research has found. The research indicates that training does not affect the gender wage gap. Also it is found that there is no statistically significant difference in the rate of return to other measures of human capital for women versus men. Our research suggests that the largest factors contributing to the wage gap are differences in the stocks of human capital for men and women, and differences in the distributions of men and women across industries and occupations.     

The Political Power of Big Business: A Response to Bell and Hindmoor

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in debates about the power of business (Culpepper 2011 Culpepper, P. (2011). Quiet Politics and Business Power: Corporate Control in Europe and Japan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]; Bell 2012 Bell, S. (2012). The Power of Ideas: The Ideational Mediation of the Structural Power of Business. International Studies Quarterly, 56(4), 661–73. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2478.2012.00743.x[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and Bell and Hindmoor (2013 Bell, S., Hindmoor, A. (2013). The Structural Power of Business and the Power of Ideas: The Strange Case of the Australian Mining Tax. New Political Economy, ,forthcoming. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2013.796452 [19 (3), pp. 470–486, cross-references updated] [Google Scholar]) make an important, theoretically informed, but empirically rooted, contribution to that debate. In this response, we address both aspects of their contribution, arguing that their treatment of Lindblom is partial and, consequently, so is their explanation of the case. As such, we largely rely on their narrative of the evolution of the Australian mining tax, focusing first on critically examining Bell and Hindmoor's theoretical position, before turning to their analysis of the case.     

The evolution of scale economies in US banking

Continued consolidation of the US banking industry and a general increase in the size of banks have prompted some policymakers to consider policies that discourage banks from getting larger, including explicit caps on bank size. However, limits on the size of banks could entail economic costs if they prevent banks from achieving economies of scale. This paper presents new estimates of returns to scale for US banks based on nonparametric, local‐linear estimation of bank cost, revenue, and profit functions. We report estimates for both 2006 and 2015 to compare returns to scale some 7 years after the financial crisis and 5 years after enactment of the Dodd–Frank Act with returns to scale before the crisis. We find that a high percentage of banks faced increasing returns to scale in cost in both years, including most of the 10 largest bank holding companies. Also, while returns to scale in revenue and profit vary more across banks, we find evidence that the largest four banks operate under increasing returns to scale.     

Economic Analysis for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment: Synthesis and Scenario Valuation of Changes in Ecosystem Services

We combine natural science modelling and valuation techniques to present economic analyses of a variety of land use change scenarios generated for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. Specifically, the agricultural, greenhouse gas, recreational and urban greenspace impacts of the envisioned land use changes are valued. Particular attention is given to the incorporation of spatial variation in the natural environment and to addressing issues such as biodiversity impacts where reliable values are not available. Results show that the incorporation of ecosystem services and their values within analyses can substantially change decisions.     

Toward a Phylogenetic Reconstruction of Organizational Life

Synopsis Classification is an important activity that facilitates theory development in many academic disciplines. Scholars in fields such as organizational science, management science and economics and have long recognized that classification offers an approach for ordering and understanding the diversity of organizational taxa (groups of one or more similar organizational entities). However, even the most prominent organizational classifications have limited utility, as they tend to be shaped by a specific research bias, inadequate units of analysis and a standard neoclassical economic view that does not naturally accommodate the disequilibrium dynamics of modern competition. The result is a relatively large number of individual and unconnected organizational classifications, which tend to ignore the processes of change responsible for organizational diversity. Collectively they fail to provide any sort of universal system for ordering, compiling and presenting knowledge on organizational diversity. This paper has two purposes. First, it reviews the general status of the major theoretical approaches to biological and organizational classification and compares the methods and resulting classifications derived from each approach. Definitions of key terms and a discussion on the three principal schools of biological classification (evolutionary systematics, phenetics and cladistics) are included in this review. Second, this paper aims to encourage critical thinking and debate about the use of the cladistic classification approach for inferring and representing the historical relationships underpinning organizational diversity. This involves examining the feasibility of applying the logic of common ancestry to populations of organizations. Consequently, this paper is exploratory and preparatory in style, with illustrations and assertions concerning the study and classification of organizational diversity.     

The Exchange Rate and its Fundamentals in a Complex World

We develop a nonlinear exchange rate model with heterogeneous agents. Some agents adopt a “fundamentalist” forecasting rule, while others use a “chartist” forecasting rule. We show that the model is capable of explaining the empirical puzzles relating to exchange rate movements. In particular, the model explains the “exchange rate determination” and PPP puzzles, the excess volatility, and fat tails in exchange rate returns.     

French revolution or industrial revolution? A note on the contrasting experiences of England and France up to 1800

At the end of the eighteenth century, England and France both underwent revolutions: France the French Revolution, England the industrial revolution. This note sheds new light on these contrasting experiences in the histories of England and France by looking at the evolution of real consumer prices in London and Paris in the centuries leading up to 1800. Whilst in London, building workers were facing low and stable consumer prices over the period, leaving plenty of scope for a demand-driven consumer revolution (in particular after 1650), their Parisian counterparts had to engage in a year-long grind to maintain a decent living, and often had to cut consumption to make ends meet. The exercise conducted in the present paper gives a quantitative and economic underpinning to the notion that the French revolution did not arise out of nowhere, but rather had its roots in centuries of hardship amongst working class people as they struggled to make a living.