Employee Job Satisfaction following Deregulation in the Bus Industry

This article examines the effect of deregulation on 95 first line managers in the bus industry. The way deregulation was handled by the government was a major source of criticism. On the whole the sample felt perturbed by deregulation as they did not see it as being in the best interest of the public or the bus industry. Feelings regarding the effects on their jobs were mixed although quite a number felt deregulation had led to improvements. Despite concern over the status of the bus industry, the image of the companies in the community and the services they offered, respondents expressed considerable pride in working for their respective companies. It is tentatively suggested that poor communication before and immediately following deregulation was the cause of much of the dissatisfaction.     

An economic evaluation of bushfire prevention and suppression

The Fire Management Program (FMP) of the Victorian Department of Natural Resources and Environment is responsible for the prevention and suppression of fires on public land in the State of Victoria. This article reports on an economic evaluation of the net benefits of these fire management activities for a representative year. The FMP is calculated to yield high net benefits to Victoria from its investment in fire suppression and prevention, through a reduction in the value of agricultural, capital and forest assets which would otherwise be lost to bushfires.     

The Iterated Cte

Abstract

In this paper we present a method for defining a dynamic risk measure from a static risk measure, by backwards iteration. We apply the method to the conditional tail expectation (CTE) risk measure to construct a new, dynamic risk measure, the iterated CTE (ICTE). We show that the ICTE is coherent, consistent, and relevant according to the definitions of Riedel (2003), and we derive formulae for the ICTE for the case where the loss process is lognormal. Finally, we demonstrate the practical implementation of the ICTE to an equity-linked insurance contract with maturity and death benefit guarantees.     

Leverage and Volatility Feedback Effects in High-Frequency Data

We examine the relationship between volatility and past andfuture returns using high-frequency aggregate equity index data.Consistent with a prolonged "leverage" effect, we find the correlationsbetween absolute high-frequency returns and current and pasthigh-frequency returns to be significantly negative for severaldays, whereas the reverse cross-correlations are generally negligible.We also find that high-frequency data may be used in more accuratelyassessing volatility asymmetries over longer daily return horizons.Furthermore, our analysis of several popular continuous-timestochastic volatility models clearly points to the importanceof allowing for multiple latent volatility factors for satisfactorilydescribing the observed volatility asymmetries.     

Hiring Risky Workers: Some Evidence

Lazear recently suggested that firms that do not expect to live for a long time will hire only safe workers. Hence their worker turnover will be lower. In this paper we test this hypothesis using both the industry growth rate and industry-average age of establishments as measures of the horizon for a particular firm. We find mixed results, both at the industry level and at the establishment level. Establishments in growing industries do indeed exhibit higher churning flows, but a high average age of establishments reduces rather than increases churning.     

Asymptotic optimal investment under interest rate for a class of subexponential distributions

We consider a classical risk model with the possibility of investment and positive interest rate for the riskless bond. The stock price movement is modelled as a geometric Brownian motion, the claim sizes are assumed to have a distribution belonging to a certain subclass of subexponential distributions. In this setting, we study the asymptotic behaviour of the optimal investment strategy under the ruin probability as a risk measure. This problem has been already considered before, but no results were obtained, for instance, for Weibull and Benktander-type-II distributions with certain parameters. We introduce a method which closes this gap.     

A life cycle model of multi-stakeholder networks

In multi-stakeholder networks, actors from civil society, business and governmental institutions come together in order to find a common solution to a problem that affects all of them. Problems approached by such networks often affect people across national boundaries, tend to be very complex and are not sufficiently understood. In multi-stakeholder networks, information concerning a problem is gathered from different sources, learning takes place, conflicts between participants are addressed and cooperation is sought. Corporations are key actors in many networks, because the problems addressed are frequently related to business activities. The aim of this article is to conceptualise multi-stakeholder networks by proposing a problem-centred stakeholder definition. From an analysis of several case studies, a life cycle model is deduced that distinguishes seven phases: initiation, acquaintance, first and second agreement, implementation, consolidation and institutionalisation.     

The nature of value created by UK online grocery retailers

The UK retail environment is extremely competitive, forcing retailers to constantly develop and enhance both their offerings and their formats. Probably the most significant changes taking place are coming from not the products being sold themselves, but rather when, how and where they are being sold. For example, new technologies such as the Internet, CD‐Roms, electronic kiosks and digital television are opening up new opportunities for retailers through remote purchasing and delivery. While a number of large retailers have made heavy investments into electronic retailing, such as Arcadia, Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury, it is uncertain how they are going to use this technology to gain competitive or market advantages. Given the media attention which technologies such as the Internet has attracted, there is the danger that businesses may adopt an unfocussed use. This report identifies and evaluates the ways in which major UK grocery retailers are using the Internet to create value for their users over and above that which is offered by bricks and mortar stores. Web sites of three grocery retailers were evaluated via preselected criteria in order to assess how they created value for their customers. Applying Holbrook’s typology of consumer value, the findings of the research suggest that each of the retailers surveyed are similar in terms of the nature of the value they have created for consumers online, these being value‐as‐convenience and value‐as excellence.