ORGANIC FOOD AND SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

Over the past 50 years, the rapid transformation of agricultural technology has provided the benefits of lower prices and a smaller share of income spent on food. Developing and applying synthetic chemicals was instrumental in lowering costs of production and in increasing yields. Conventional agriculture today relies on substantial use of synthetic chemicals as key inputs. This leads to increasing concern over negative externalities, including risks to both human health and the environment. In response to these concerns, organic food has emerged as a rapidly expanding industry. This paper examines the role of organic agriculture and other low-input farming methods more sustainable within the context of policies designed to reduce negative externalities from using synthetic chemicals.     

How good was the profitability of British railways, 1870–1912?

This article provides new estimates of the return on capital employed (ROCE) for major British railway companies. It shows that ROCE was generally below the cost of capital after the mid‐1870s and fell until the turn of the century. Addressing cost inefficiency issues could have restored ROCE to an adequate level in the late 1890s but not in 1910. Declines in ROCE hit share prices and investors made little or no money in real terms after 1897. Optimal portfolio analysis shows that, while railway securities were attractive to investors before this date, they would have been justified in rushing to the exits thereafter.     

An Open Mind Wants More: Opinion Strength and the Desire for Genetically Modified Food Labeling Policy

Two opposing viewpoints exist in the literature; some suggest consumers are unconcerned and do not desire any genetically modified labeling, while others indicate the opposite. The mixed results may be because consumers make finer distinctions than surveys have called for, and have evaluation schemes sensitive to information about the benefits and risks associated with genetically modified foods. We find consumers are quite nuanced in their preferences for genetically modified labeling policy. Unexpectedly, consumers with less‐defined views desire mandatory labeling of the most stringent type, while consumers with stronger viewpoints (either pro‐ or con‐genetically modified) are more relaxed in their labeling requirements.     

Shop Stewards' Satisfaction with Grievance Procedures

A model of shop stewards' satisfaction with grievance procedures, focusing on procedure characteristics and procedure outcomes is estimated for 831 shop stewards. The results indicate that stewards are more satisfied with procedures that permit oral presentation of grievances at the first step and include screening by grievance committees or other union officials. Stewards' satisfaction is negatively related to grievance filing rates and the size of the stewards' work groups, but is positively related to the proportion of grievances resolved at year end and the unions' success rate. The implications for designing more effective grievance procedures are discussed.     

Linguistic Complexity in Firm Disclosures: Obfuscation or Information?

Prior research generally interprets complex language in firms’ disclosures as indicative of managerial obfuscation. However, complex language can also reflect the provision of complex information; for example, informative technical disclosure. As a consequence, linguistic complexity commingles two latent components—obfuscation and information—that are related to information asymmetry in opposite directions. We develop a novel empirical approach to estimate these two latent components within the context of quarterly earnings conference calls. We validate our estimates of these two latent components by examining their relation to information asymmetry. Consistent with our predictions, we find that our estimate of the information component is negatively associated with information asymmetry while our estimate of the obfuscation component is positively associated with information asymmetry. Our findings suggest that future research on linguistic complexity can construct more powerful tests by separately examining these two latent components of linguistic complexity.     

SEIGNORAGE AND EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION

Inflation differentials in Europe have narrowed substantially since the inception of the European Monetary System in 1979. However, their persistence after more than a decade raises the question of why these differentials are so difficult to eliminate. Some European Community countries systematically use seignorage—financing government expenditures with money creation—while others do not. This increases the difficulty of achieving the convergence of monetary policies and inflation rates required for irrevocably fixed exchange rates in Europe. This paper, utilizing a model of government finance that minimizes the social cost of financing government expenditures, examines monetary finance in the European Community. It rejects soundly the social cost minimization model of seignorage collection.