Ethnic Variation in Commuting Propensity and Unemployment Spells: Some U.K. Evidence

This paper uses 1987–88 U.K. survey data from the unemployment inflow to investigate the ability of ethnic variation in commuting willingness to account for longer non-white unemployment spells. The study is motivated by the possibility that ethnic minorities are at greater risk of spatial mismatch unemployment because they are more geographically restrictive in their job-seeking activities. Our findings support this hypothesis and indicate that lower commuting willingness explains about 20% of the differential between the average unemployment spells of ethnic minorities and whites.     

The network structure of big business in Taiwan

This paper takes a network approach to understanding ownership patterns and director interlocks in Taiwan. In particular, this paper analyzes ties among Taiwan’s top 200 publicly listed companies in 1990 and 2000. The speed of change in Taiwan’s economic organization during the period has been striking. Not only have the identities of many of Taiwan’s largest firms changed, there seems to have been a substantial pruning and thinning of director ties over time and also a substantial transformation of the ownership network. What continuity remains appears to be largely a consequence of business group membership, and the strength of those ties appears to be considerable. Overall, this research finds that Taiwan’s financial sector has been quite central to the island’s big business network, that business groups are an extremely important category for understanding patterns of ownership ties, and that most director interlocks in Taiwan appear to cross industry boundaries rather than occur within them.     

A hierarchical agency model of deposit insurance

This paper develops a hierarchical agency model of deposit insurance. The main purpose of the analysis is to propose a micro-founded model of deposit insurance schemes and study their effects on the behavior of depositors and the monitoring problem for a bank. This paper also characterizes a risk-based premium in equilibrium, and conducts a comparative statics analysis of depositors’ optimal actions. The results supply the basic theoretical foundation for designing deposit insurance schemes. Our findings are consistent with the empirical research on depositor behavior.     

Mitigating shortage and distribution costs in damaged water networks

Recent events have sparked renewed interest in disaster mitigation for public infrastructures. Presidential Decision Directive 63 identifies water distribution as being among the most vital and vulnerable of our large-scale infrastructures. Water distribution networks are vulnerable to threats such as chemical and biological contamination, cyber attacks on computer-based management systems, and physical destruction from acts of nature and intentional attack. This research develops methods for configuring the undamaged portion of the water network to mitigate the consequences of physical destruction. The approach is to find a hydraulically feasible residual network that can be pressurized to meet the demand of a subset of demand sectors. Demand sectors not pressurized then receive water through truck distribution from pressurized sectors. The objective is to minimize weighted water shortage and water truck distribution costs by identifying sectors to pressurize along with an assignment of unpressurized sectors to pressurized sectors for water delivery by truck. The paper develops an optimization model, describes a solution method, and presents computational results for three example networks.     

Signalling,Disclosure And The Implications Of Financial Structure For Uk Corporate R&D ∗

This paper investigates the impact of R&D disclosure and finance variables on the level of R&D expenditures. The question addressed is: what is the impact of changes in disclosure requirements on the relationship between R&D expenditure and the financing of firms? The question is motivated by the possible signalling role that elective disclosure may have had prior to changes in accounting practices to ensure R&D disclosure.     

The determinants of firm diversification in UK quoted companies

This paper examines the role of resource-based and governance factors in determining the boundaries of UK quoted companies, measured by both the probability and intensity of market diversification. Using a panel of over 2000 firms for the period 1988 to 2001 it is found that firm-level heterogeneity and industry characteristics account for the variability in diversification behaviour and that resource-based and governance factors interact in a complex manner not necessarily fully explained by the theoretical literature. The results also indicate that the degree of data aggregation has significant implications for the empirical modelling of market diversification.     

Identifying and characterising price leadership in British supermarkets

Price leadership is a concept that lacks precision. We propose a deliberately narrow, falsifiable, definition then develop it, illustrate its feasibility and test it using the two leading British supermarket chains. We find both firms engaging in leading prices upward over a range of products, with the larger being initially more dominant but the smaller increasing leadership activity to take overall leadership over time. However, more price leadership events are price reductions than price increases, consistently led by the smaller firm. Nevertheless, the increases are of larger monetary amounts than the falls, so average basket price increases over time.     

Public Service Leaders as ‘Change Agents’ – for Whom?

Abstract

This article examines how far senior staff in English educational and health service organizations view themselves as leaders who are ‘change agents’ for government-driven reform and independent change agendas. The contribution of external leadership development provision to shaping these self-perceptions is explored. Special attention is paid to national leadership development bodies with different degrees of formal association with government. Whatever this relationship, such provision and other development support apparently reinforced a strong sense of personal agency (choice of action) associated with being a leader, empowering senior staff to adopt a modestly mediatory stance towards both reform and leadership development provision.