Applying ethical theory to public relations

There seems to be a prevailing belief among public relations professionals that ethical problems can easily be solved by either reference to a simplified code or citation of a few well-worn platitudes. However, the route to a more complete understanding of questions of ethics is circuitous and often painstaking. By applying a number of ethical theories to a public relations problem, both the skilled public relations technician and the public relations professional may arrive at similar conclusions concerning moral obligations; however, the professional is in the most favorable position to effect change.Thomas H. Bivins is Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon, School of Journalism. He is also Head of Public Relations Sequence and has been awarded Public Relations Student Society of America: Faculty Advisor of the Year, 1984, 1986.     

Globalisation, internal labour markets and the migration of the highly skilled

Over the last decade highly skilled migration has been gaining relative importance in European migration flows. Following the goods and factor markets the market for highly skilled labour has thus also started to globalise. How are the globalisation processes of the world-wide goods, capital and labour markets interlinked? What role do international enterprises and their internal labour markets play in increasing highly skilled migration? What trends can be expected for the future?     

COMPETING VIEWS OF THE MONEY SUPPLY PROCESS: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper examines three competing approaches to the determination of the money supply. The first approach is labelled the pure portfolio approach, and corresponds to the orthodox approach to the money supply. The second approach is labelled the pure loan demand approach, and corresponds to the Post Keynesian accommodationist view of endogenous money. The third approach is labelled the mixed portfolio-loan demand approach, and corresponds to the Post Keynesian structuralist view of endogenous money. The critical theoretical difference between the latter two models is identified in terms of the importance of the private initiatives of banks in accommodating expansions of loan demand. The paper then provides Granger-causality evidence on the three approaches, and concludes in favor of the mixed portfolio-loan demand approach.     

The Structure of Municipal Water Supply Costs: Application to a Panel of French Local Communities

Network losses and returns are importantissues for water resource management, that are addressed in thispaper by modeling the structure of production for municipal waterutilities with two outputs: water sold to final customers andwater network losses. We propose a measure of economies of scopeto assess the benefit associated with joint production of waterfor final customers and water losses, and several measures ofreturns to evaluate potential gains in exploiting technologicalflexibility of water networks. We estimate the cost structureof water utilities using a GMM procedure with a Translog costfunction and panel data. Estimation results reveal a positivedegree of economies of scope, and short-run returns to productiondensity and returns to customer density that are not significantlydifferent from 1. Significant economies of scale indicate thatlocal communities may benefit from merging into water districts.     

Environment,public debt,and epidemics

We study whether fiscal policies, especially public debt, can help to curb the macroeconomic and health consequences of epidemics. Our approach is based on three main features: we introduce the dynamics of epidemics in an overlapping generations model to take into account that old people are more vulnerable; people are more easily infected when pollution is high; public spending in health care and public debt can be used to tackle the effects of epidemics. We show that fiscal policies can promote convergence to a stable disease-free steady state. When public policies are not able to permanently eradicate the epidemic, public debt, and income transfers could reduce the number of infected people and increase capital and GDP per capita. As a prerequisite, pollution intensity should not be too high. Finally, we define a household subsidy policy that eliminates income and welfare inequalities between healthy and infected individuals.     

Community banks' capital requirements and regional housing tenure

Bank capital requirements aim at reducing the likelihood of banks' failure. However, these policies may generate externalities on the overall economy. By investigating the pathways from capital requirements to housing tenure using structural equation modelling, we show that community banks' capital requirements increase the gap between the regional real estate loans-based and non-real estate loans-based housing purchase rate and act as driving factors of housing market imbalance. The drop in residential real estate loans caused by the increase in capital requirements has two opposite effects: the direct effect motivates residents to rent properties, while the indirect effect motivates residents to purchase them due to the fall in housing prices. When both effects exist in housing purchases with real estate loans, the former effect is more influential than the latter one. Our findings suggest that the impact of capital requirements on housing tenure will depend on residents' reliance on real estate loans. If a housing purchase requires real estate loans, capital requirements will have a negative impact on the housing purchase, and vice versa.