Phosphate rock

Large increases in the price of phosphate rock on a permanent basis are unlikely to occur as a result of action by a producer cartel. The reasons for this conclusion include the size of America production and the ability of consumers to resist price increases by lowering consumption.     

Strategy,Structure and Control In the Changing Corporation: A Survey-Based Investigation

Paul Marginson, Paul Edwards, Peter Armstrong and John Purcell draw on the findings of IRRU's Company Level Industrial Relations Survey to investigate the business structure, budgetary control systems and strategic orientations of large companies in the UK. Companies’ internal structure, and their systems of budgetary control, are shown to be associated with the kind of diversification strategy they are pursuing. Both external change, such as acquisition, and organic change are widespread across all types of firm as is the consequent internal reorganisation. They discuss the implications of the different strategic orientations and structural arrangements, and the rapidity of organisational change, for human resource policy. Paul Marginson and Paul Edwards are respectively Senior Lecturer and Professor of Industrial Relations at the Warwick Business School and Associate Fellow and Deputy Director of its Industrial Relations Research Unit; Peter Armstrong is Senior Lecturer in the Management School at the University of Sheffield; and John Purcell is University Lecturer in Management Studies and Fellow of Templeton College, Oxford.     

Investment in education in developing nations: Policy responses when private and social signals conflict

In most developing countries the net private benefit of higher education exceeds its net social benefit because education-related wage differentials are excessive and the beneficiaries of higher education are subsidized. The resulting political pressures seem to favor investment in education over the creation of employment opportunities. A more balanced allocation of investment may require the revision of basic policies dealing with wage determination, the incidence of educational costs and the role of private sector education. The aim should be narrow the gap between private and social signals and thus reduce excess private demand for higher education.     

The Halle Economic Projection Model

In this paper we develop an open economy model explaining the joint determination of output, inflation, interest rates, unemployment and the exchange rate in a multi-country framework. Our model—the Halle Economic Projection Model (HEPM)—is closely related to studies published by Carabenciov et al. (2008a,b,c). Our main contribution is that we model the Euro area countries separately. In doing so, we consider Germany, France, and Italy which represent together about 70% of Euro area GDP. The model combines core equations of the New-Keynesian standard DSGE model with empirically useful ad-hoc equations. We estimate this model using Bayesian techniques and evaluate the forecasting properties. Additionally, we provide an impulse response analysis and historical shock decomposition.