BEA's Regional Economic Accounts Program: Recent and Planned Improvements

This article highlights recent improvements and plans for further improvements to each of BEA’s major regional economic accounts programs. The improvements focus on the acceleration of release of the estimates and on the preparation of new and extended estimates. There also is a brief discussion on BEA’s research effort to improve the regional accounts.JEL Classification E010     

Human resource management,union voice and the use of discipline: an analysis of WIRS3

Three outcomes of personnel practice (rates of discipline, quitting and absence) are analysed. There was no firm association with measures of practices associated with Human Resource Management. By contrast, unionisation was strongly associated with the low use of discipline and low quit rates: union ‘voice’ remains influential in the 1990s.     

Managing New Product Design and Development: an Anglo-German Study

This article reports the results of a study of innovation and product development at 245 manufacturing sites in the UK and Germany. It examines the relationship between design and performance and the competitiveness of the UK and Germany in design and manufacturing. Overall, few sites reached "world-class" standards - 9% in Germany and 3% in the UK, although many sites were not far below these standards.     

A dynamic approach to the analysis of strategic alliances

The increasing trend in strategic alliance formation between major firms around the world, has prompted researchers from various disciplines to look at this phenomenon in great detail. In this paper, we review alternate approaches in the literature in this area. We then propose a non-linear dynamic approach to study the formation of competitive strategic alliances and contrast it with the traditional game-theoretic approach. The pros and cons of these two approaches are discussed with reference to a competitive alliance scenario. Dynamic models have significant managerial implications as they enable us to investigate ‘if-then’ type scenarios and project the impact of different strategies.     

Slow adjustment to shocks or true hysteresis?

In Western Europe in the last two decades the unemployment rate has increased during cyclical downturns only to persist at or around the higher level in the following phase of economic recovery. One of the most notable exceptions to this pattern of unemployment persistence, often termed hysteresis, is the United States. The following article examines the empirical evidence and the possible theoretical explanations for this difference.     

Selected by the Institute of Industrial Relations Liberary University of California at Berkeley

Catching the Wave: Workplace Reform in Australia. By John Mathews. Comparable Worth and Gender Discrimination: An International Perspective. By Morley Gunderson. Cooper Crucible: How the Arizona Miner's Strike of 1983 Recast Labor-Management Relations in America. By Jonathan D. Rosenblum. Cultural Diversity in the Workplace: Issues and Strategies. By George Henderson. The Employer's Legal Handbook. By Fred S. Steingold. The Future of Industrial Relations: Global Change and Challenges. By John Niland, Chrissie Verevis, and Russell D. Lansbury. Labor and Community: Mexican Citrus Worker Villages in a Southern California County, 1900–1950. By Gilbert G. Gonzalez. Labor Arbitration: An Annotated Bibliography. Edited by Charles J. Coleman and theodora T. Haynes. Labour's Dilemma: The Gender Politics of Auto Workers in Canada, 1937-79. By Pamela Sugiman. The Promise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict through Empowerment and Recognition. By Robert A. Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger. Ranbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s. By George Lipsitz. Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism and the Public Workplace. By Paul Johnston. Trade Union Growth and Decline: An International Study. By Walter Galenson.     

Some economics of content protection

We are grateful to a perceptive referee for many constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper entitled The Economics of Content Protection: A Dual Approach. The usual disclaimer applies.