INDUSTRIAL POLICY IN GREAT BRITAIN AND ITS EFFECT ON TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY IN MANUFACTURING PLANTS, 1990–1998

Industrial policy in any economy has a number of varying and occasionally conflicting objectives, but the overarching intention of the various grants, subsidies and support schemes, arguably, must be to improve the economic performance of the plants they assist directly. However, in the absence of counterfactual evidence, whether or not assistance does improve performance is hard to establish. In this paper, we consider the impact of two UK government industrial support schemes (Regional Selective Assistance and the Small Firm Merit Awards for Research and Technology) on UK manufacturing plant level total factor productivity in an attempt to answer the question, ‘did assistance make a difference?’     

Employee relations in British television‐regulation,fragmentation and flexibility

The impact of regulatory change on employee relations within the UK television industry is examined. While collective labour regulation was initially eroded, employment fragmentation, combined with increased demand for programming and a shortage of skills provided the basis for the maintenance of the bargaining power of key groups of workers.     

The service sector of Cuba: An analysis and critique

The Cuban economy has experienced a significant increase in foreign direct investment over the past decade due to the end of the Soviet Union and the establishment of more liberal trade policies. Although the U.S. embargo of trade with Cuba still exists, there has been movement lately that suggests the end of the four‐decades‐old policy. The purpose of this article is to analyze the current Cuban business environment and to identify potential entrepreneurial opportunities in the service sector. Major trade partners are also reviewed and managerial implications discussed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Corporate ethical consulting: Developing management strategies for corporate ethics

The increase of scandals in the business sector is forcing many companies to examine their corporate ethical behavior with a view toward rebuilding their corporate value system. This article describes how value-system reconstruction must proceed in a company and demonstrates that corporate ethics can only become plausible if based on a corporate ethical ethos. It outlines a five-step development plan of management strategies toward rebuilding a company's value system on this corporate ethos through: corporate policy and strategy reformulation; corporate ethical code promulgation and value-statement formulation; management ethical training and corporate ethical education; and corporate ethical performance evaluation. The role of the corporate ethical consultant is also outlined to illustrate how corporate ethical consulting can provide the specialized services designed to insure an enduring management ethical upgrading and to improve a company's corporate ethical performance record. The discussion indicates how corporate ethical consulting promotes good business through its capacity to deliver industry credibility and company security. Richard Guerrette is a Research Fellow at Yale University Divinity School, where he is conducting a research study in organization management process and corporate ethics. He is also a Lecturer in sociology at the University of Connecticut at Hartford and is an author of two books on ecumenical ministry and social movement organization in the church. He has published extensively in theological journals and has recently contributed an article on Environmental Integrity and Corporate Responsibility for the Journal of Business Ethics 5 (1986). He is the Director of Equipax, an organization/management consulting service in Farmington, Connecticut.     

Price as a signal of quality: Canada in the international context

Studies have shown that price is very poorly correlated with quality. This paper discusses the methodological criticisms of the earlier work, concluding that the original results remain robust. Examination of 91 sets of Canadian products containing 1020 items reinforces the conclusions of earlier work for the United States and Japan. These international studies contradict the conventional wisdom that price is an adequate signal of quality. We also test the hypotheses that price is a better signal of quality (a) after product tests have been published, and (b) for higher priced items which presumably justify larger investments in search. Canadian data do not support either hypothesis. Some theoretical explanations are outlined and a conclusion briefly presents implications for policy.

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Der Preis als Qualitätsindikator: Kanadische und internationale Befunde

Zusammenfassung Zahlreiche Untersuchungsergebnisse haben gezeigt, daß Preis und Qualität in einem nur sehr dürftigen Zusammenhang stehen. Diese Befunde sind unter methodischem Gesichtspunkt kritisiert worden, der vorliegende Beitrag versucht jedoch zu zeigen, daß die Befunde robust sind und der Kritik standhalten können. Eine Untersuchung der Autoren anhand von 91 kanadischen Warentests mit 1,020 Artikeln bestätigt darüberhinaus die früheren Ergebnisse aus den Vereinigten Staaten und Japan. Insgesamt widersprechen diese internationalen Untersuchungen der herkömmlichen Ansicht, daß der Preis eines Gutes ein angemessener Qualitätsindikator sei.Darüber hinaus prüft die Studie der Autoren die Hypothese, daß der Preis ein besserer Qualitätsindikator ist, (a) nachdem Warentests durchgeführt und die Ergebnisse publiziert wurden, und (b) wenn es sich um teurere Produkte handelt, die vermutlich einen höheren Suchaufwand rechtfertigen. Beide Hypothesen werden durch kanadische Daten nicht gestützt. Abschließend werden einige verbraucherpolitische Implikationen dieser Befunde behandelt.The authors are grateful to referees for important assistance.

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Richard W. Bodell is Assistant Professor and Robert R. Kerton is Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1. Richard W. Schuster is an economist with the Economics Department of the Bank of Nova Scotia in Toronto.     

Productivity and Welfare

Technical change is generally characterized by a rate and biases, both evaluated for given producer prices. This paper examines the potential discrepancy between this rate and the corresponding rate of consumer welfare change as measured by Allais distributable surplus. We postulate a general equilibrium context with various market failures (taxes, quotas, imperfect competition, and “poorly priced” commodities), and use comparative statics to express the rate of welfare change in terms of the rate and biases of the technical change. An elementary simulation model of a taxed economy suggests that the rate of welfare change may differ from the rate of technical change by as much as 50% under plausible circumstances.     

Business communities in the European confectionery sector: A U.K.-Finland comparison

This paper is based on the early stages of an international collaborative project investigating the structural changes of the confectionery sectors in Finland and the U.K. over the past two decades. An institutional perspective is used to extend conventional understandings of industries via the development of the sector concept. The network and community constructs are shown to be important devices for understanding the institutional character of a sector. Accordingly, the paper reveals the similarities and differences between the two national examples. An explanation is offered of the way domestic networks persist in both countries while contrasting community profiles are apparent.