Contemporary ethical issues in labor-management relations

Numerous labor-management issues possess ethical dimensions and pose ethical questions. In this article, the authors discuss four labor-management issues that present important contemporary problems: union organizing, labor-management negotiations, employee involvement programs, and union obligations of fair representation. In the authors view, labor and management too often view their ethical obligations as beginning and ending at the law's boundaries. Contemporary business realities suggest that cooperative and enlightened modes of interaction between labor and management seem appropriate.Robert S. Adler is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He teaches courses in Business Law, Business Ethics, and Regulation. Prior to coming to UNC, Professor Adler served as Counsel to the Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the U.S. House of Representatives.William J. Bigoness is Professor of Business Administration and Director, Center for Management Studies at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His professional interests include organizational behavior, human resource management, and labor-management relations. Dr. Bigoness was Visiting Professor of Business Administration at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) located in Lausanne, Switzerland from 1985 to 1987.     

The National Lottery:A Preliminary Assessment of net Additionality

This paper makes a preliminary assessment of how the current structure for the distribution of UK National Lottery funds affects the promise of net additionality for the designated 'good causes'. Indifference analysis demonstrates that the funding structure is optimal in these terms. However, the measurement of net additionality is highly problematic and involves both quantitative and qualitative techniques. Whilst a preliminary comparison with Ireland shows that the UK system is in a better position to achieve net additionality through its accountability and transparency, net additionality could still be only a relatively small proportion of the dedicated Lottery money, depending on the behaviour of politicians, local authorities, other interest groups, and the distribution boards themselves.     

INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERINGS: GOING BY THE BOOK

In the U.S., and increasingly in other countries as well, IPO securities are marketed to investors in a process known as "book-building"—one that amounts to polling institutional investors to establish a demand schedule for the issue and then allotting stock to individual investors according to the strength of their professed interest. Although book-building methods require use of discriminatory tactics that have attracted strong criticism from investors and regulators, this article defends such practices by demonstrating that book-building is more efficient than alternative methods. It effectively allows issuers to increase the net proceeds of their offerings by making better use of information about market demand conditions.
In the process of explaining the efficiency of the book-building method, this article also offers a plausible explanation for a phenomenon that has long puzzled economists: the systematic underpricing of IPOs. The key to the success of a book-building effort lies in the use of a strategic pricing and allocation policy designed to offset the investor's incentive to understate his or her interest in an IPO. By committing to favor investors who provide strong indications of interest with relatively large allocations of underpriced shares, the investment bank can limit the distortion of investor's incentives in bidding and so increase the level of proceeds the issuing firm can expect to generate from its IPO.     

The Role of Multinational Firms in the Wage-Gap Debate

The observation of an increase in the ratio of skilled to unskilled wages in the high-income countries and in some cases in low/middle-income countries has led to considerable discussion and controversy as to its cause. Virtually none of the analyses have considered a role for multinational investment in explaining the wage-gap phenomenon. This paper adapts the authors' earlier work to consider what role multinationals might play in factor markets. It identifies circumstances under which investment liberalization is likely to raise the wage gap in both the skilled-labor abundant and the unskilled-labor abundant country.     

Evaluation of cooperative research

This report looks at evaluation studies of a number of cooperative academic-industrfy research programmes in Europe, and suggests that indirect economic benefits should be taken into account as well as motives and goals of participating firms.     

The economics of land transfer and title insurance

In the presence of uncertainty over the title of land (due to fraud or error), a legal system can protect either the current (innocent) owner, or a previous owner who claims title. The predominant system in the United States generally awards title to the latter in the event of legitimate claim. Thus, current owners frequently purchase title insurance to provide indemnification in the event of a loss. In contrast, the Torrens system awards title to the current owner, but provides for indemnification of any legitimate claimants. We evaluate these two systems and argue that if transaction costs are low, both promote efficient assignment of title (according to the Coase Theorem), but if transaction costs are high, the Torrens system is more likely to award title to the party that values it the most (namely, the current possessor).