ANALYST BEHAVIOR SURROUNDING TENDER OFFER ANNOUNCEMENTS

We examine the usefulness and credibility of analyst recommendations by focusing on their behavior surrounding tender offer announcements. For our 1998–2001 sample, we find analysts did not identify takeover targets through their recommendations nor did they distinguish between wealth‐increasing and wealth‐decreasing tender offers. We find some evidence of conflicts of interest in analyst recommendations, but it is confined to the 1999–2000 dot‐com period. However, the long‐run performance following recommendations suggests that these conflicts have little ultimate cost to investors.     

Monopsonistically/monopolistically competitive regional development: Public correction of market outcomes

A model of regional market development is constructed which captures the inefficiencies typical in most of the related literature, and a variety of corrective policy options are explored. For taxes and subsidies, there is no dominant policy with each limited by the zero-profit constraint on entry, informational problems, or adverse distributional considerations. Discriminatory pricing decreases efficiency, but uniform pricing achieves optimal allocations. Public production has certain informational advantages.     

New evidence on the dynamic wage curve for Western Germany: 1980–2004

Blanchflower and Oswald [Blanchflower, David G. and Oswald, Andrew J., 1994a, The Wage Curve, (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press), Blanchflower, David G. and Oswald, Andrew J., 1994b, Estimating a Wage Curve for Britain 1973–90, The Economic Journal 104, 1025–1043. Eine praktische Einführung, Nürnberg] reported that they have found an ‘empirical law of economics’ — the Wage Curve. Our paper reconsiders the western German Wage Curve using disaggregated regional data and is based on almost one million employees drawn from the Federal Employment Services of Germany over the period 1980–2004. We find that the wage equation is highly autoregressive but far from unit root. The unemployment elasticity is significant but relatively small: only between ? 0.02 and ? 0.04. We also check the sensitivity of this elasticity for different population groups (young versus old, men versus women, less educated versus highly educated, German native versus foreigner), confirming that it is stronger the weaker the bargaining power of the particular group.     

On mandatory labeling of animal welfare attributes

This paper assesses US resident support for mandatory labeling of animal welfare information on pork and egg products and outlines policy considerations for assessment prior to implementing any mandatory labeling policies regarding animal welfare practices. Results suggest consumers support mandatory labeling indicating use of gestation crates (stalls) and laying hen cages. Estimates suggest consumers would be willing to pay about 20% higher pork and egg prices to obtain this production practice information. Demographic and latent perception drivers of this support are highlighted. Multiple issues that warrant consideration prior to imposing mandatory labeling are discussed revealing lines of corresponding future research.     

Explaining greater test use for selection: the role of HR professionals in a world of expanding regulation

In recent decades there has been a well‐documented increase in organisations' use of formal tests for selection purposes. This article investigates whether tests' technical qualities and predictive validity are the critical determinants of take‐up, or whether other organisational and contextual factors are more important. Case studies of organisations were used to identify the factors driving change and Workplace Employee Relations Survey data were analysed to determine the consistency of the findings with national data. The single most important factor appears to be the regulatory environment, with tests used as a precautionary measure to protect selection decisions from challenge. The growing formal professionalisation of HR departments is also important, and the influence of both factors is consistent with current theories of organisational decision‐making. Continued growth in test use is likely, but the implications for efficiency in selection are less clear.     

Premiummarken im Sortiment des Einzelhandels — Erscheinungsformen und Entwicklungsperspektiven

Das Führen von Premiummarken bietet dem Einzelhandel unter den aktuellen Marktbedingungen nicht nur M?glichkeiten einer individuellen Akzentuierung und Differenzierung von Sortimenten, sondern auch interessante Entwicklungsperspektiven.Wesentliche Herausforderungen bestehen dabei in einer zielgruppenbezogenen Entwicklung von Premiummarkenstrategien sowie in einer st?rkeren Professionalisierung der Markenführung.     

Linear learning in changing environments

The decision maker receives signals imperfectly correlated with an unobservable state variable and must take actions whose payoffs depend on the state. The state randomly changes over time. In this environment, we examine the performance of simple linear updating rules relative to Bayesian learning. We show that a range of parameters exists for which linear learning results in exactly the same decisions as Bayesian learning, although not in the same beliefs. Outside this parameter range, we use simulations to demonstrate that the consumption level attainable under the optimal linear rule is virtually indistinguishable from the one attainable under Bayes’ rule, although the respective decisions will not always be identical. These results suggest that simple rules of thumb can have an advantage over Bayesian updating when more complex calculations are more costly to perform than less complex ones. We demonstrate the implications of such an advantage in an evolutionary model where agents “learn to learn.”     

Optimal foreign trade for the price-insensitive soviet-type economy

For a centrally planned economy in which the planners do not substitute among goods, either in production or consumption, in response to changes in relative prices, the short-run offer curve is in general backward-bending, and the planners will be indifferent as to whether the country is “small” or “large” in world markets as long as it faces an elastic foreign offer curve. The Soviet Union is found to have a backward-sloping offer curve in trade with the Western market economies. This suggests that systematic Soviet manipulation of this trade in order to earn monopoly profits is unlikely.     

A Case of Economic Pragmatism: Japanese Manufacturing in U.K.

This paper focuses on the comparative performance of Japanese and Western television manufacturing in the United Kingdom. It offers explanations of how differences in policies and practices lead to superior performance levels in the selected Japanese companies.