The “Iron Law of Paternalism” in Employee Grievances and Arbitration? A Comparison of Disciplinary and Nondisciplinary Cases

In the criminology literature, the iron law of paternalism suggests that women receive less serious sanctions in the judicial system. This examination of three years of grievance outcomes (n= 1216) and arbitration outcomes (n= 1146) tests this iron law in the context of organizational disciplinary and dispute resolutions. These data, across several levels of outcomes (win, lose, compromise), controlling for the severity of grievances (disciplinary/nondisciplinary) and arbitrations (termination/nontermination) provide no support for the paternalistic thesis. Moreover, we find no support for the paternalistic thesis with regard to either the incidence or length of suspensions as a function of gender.     

Existence of an equilibrium for infinite horizon economies with and without complete information

This work proves the existence of an equilibrium for an infinite horizon economy where trade takes place sequentially over time. There exist two types of agents: the first correctly anticipates all future contingent endogenous variables with complete information as in Radner [Radner, R. (1972). Existence of equilibrium of plans, prices and price expectations in a sequence of markets. Econometrica, 289–303] and the second has exogenous expectations about the future environment as in Grandmont [Grandmont, J. M. (1977). Temporary general equilibrium theory. Econometrica, 535–572] and information based on the current and past aggregate variables including those which are private knowledge. Agents with exogenous expectations may have inconsistent optimal plans but have predictive beliefs in the context of Blackwell and Dubbins [Blackwell, D., Dubins, L. (1962). Merging of opinions with increasing information. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 882–886] with probability transition rules based on all observed variables. We provide examples of this framework applied to models of differential information and environments exhibiting results of market selection and convergence of an equilibrium. The existence result can be used to conclude that, by adding the continuity assumption on the probability transition rules, we obtain the existence of an equilibrium for some models of differential information and incomplete markets.     

Revitalization: The most difficult of all strategies

American industry following World War II has enjoyed much success, primarily built on growth and easily consumed material and human resources. Since 1973, however, resources have become increasingly critical and problems increasingly complex. Organizations large and small are faced with dramatic change. Strategies for growth and decline are clearly understood. A little-noted strategy, yet the most difficult of all strategies to implement, is that of revitalization. This article emphasizes the use of technology, middle managers, and interdisciplinary organization analysis as the necessary ingredients for American revitalization strategy success in the 1990s.