Demographic and Economic Pressure on Emigration out of Africa*

Two of the main forces driving European emigration in the late nineteenth century were real wage gaps between sending and receiving regions and demographic booms in the low‐wage sending regions. Our new estimates of net migration for the countries of sub‐Saharan Africa show that exactly the same forces driving African across‐border migration are at work today. The results suggest that rapid growth in the cohort of potential young emigrants, population pressure on the resource base, and slow economic growth are likely to intensify the pressure for migration out of Africa and into high‐wage OECD countries over the next two decades.     

Large Non-Union Companies: How Do They Avoid a Catch 22?

Large non-union companies might be expected to enjoy extensive work-force flexibility deriving from their high-wage, high-involvement strategies. However, where there is a strong local union presence, this might be expected to exert a strong dampening effect on the levels of internal flexibility achieved. Such companies, fearful of union organization, could not then enjoy the freedoms that might be associated with a non-union strategy. Research conducted in the Republic of Ireland on large non-union US companies operating in the electronics industry suggests a conceptual framework indicating how a Catch-22 situation is avoided in these companies.     

A reply to Thomas Mulligan's “critique of Milton Friedman's essay ‘The Social Responsibility of Business to Increase Its Profits’”

Professor Thomas Mulligan undertakes to discredit Milton Friedman's thesis that The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits. He attempts to do this by moving from Friedman's paradigm characterizing a socially responsible executive as willful and disloyal to a different paradigm, i.e., one emphasizing the consultative and consensus-building role of a socially responsible executive. Mulligan's critique misses the point, first, because even consensus-building executives act contrary to the will of minority shareholders, but even more importantly, because he assumes that the mandate of a shareholder majority brings legitimacy to efforts of corporate managers to utilize corporate wealth in solving social problems. It is the role of our democratic institutions to deal with national agenda issues such as inflation, unemployment, and pollution, not that of the private sector. Corporations and private individuals do have a role to play in enhancing the quality of the human environment, however, and the author suggests a coherent means of developing that role in an effort rescue corporate social responsibility from Mulligan no less than from Friedman. Bill Shaw, Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor of Business Ethics at the Jesse H. School of Administration, Rice University, is Professor of Business Law at the University of Texas at Austin. He is staff editor of the American Business Law Journal and the Midwest Law Review. Among his most recent publications are The Structure of the Legal Environment (with Art Wolfe), Environmental Law: Text and Cases, The Global Environment: A Proposal to Eliminate Marine Oil Pollution (With Frank Cross and Brenda Winslett, The Natural Resources Journal), and Comparable Worth and Its Prospects (The Labor Law Journal).     

THE REAL WAGE GAP

Over the past year a gap has opened up between the growth of manufacturing productivity and that of real wages. This gap cannot persist indefinitely, but it can be closed in many different ways. The best that can happen is that wage settlements fall while output and productivity accelerate. The worst outcome would be continued stagnation of real output and no deceleration of wages, in which case the required productivity improvement would have to come about through renewed labour shedding. There are worrying signs that this has started to happen. An intermediate solution might involve a fall in the exchange rate, with some improvement in competitiveness boosting real output (so that UK producers get a larger share of buoyant consumer spending) and some rise in prices holding back real wages.
We continue to believe that the most likely outcome is a rise in output and a fall in the rate of wage settlements. In our June forecast this occurs despite a fall in the real exchange rate. In these circumstances we expect the growth of unit labour costs to fall back from its current high level so that the current 3 per cent inflation rate becomes a true "core" rate. But a moderate fall in the real exchange rate may prove hard to achieve, especially if the oil price continues to weaken. We therefore explore what would happen if the required depreciation happens more rapidly, so that interest rates have to remain high to prevent it getting out of control. In this case we would expect lower growth and higher inflation than we forecast in June.     

Is this the right time to come out? Case study

In this fictional case study, Adam Lawson is a promising young associate at Kirkham McDowell Securities, a St. Louis underwriting and financial advisory firm. Recently, Adam helped to bring in an extremely lucrative deal, and soon he and a few other associates will be honored for their efforts at the firm's silver anniversary dinner. George Campbell, vice president in mergers and acquisitions, is caught unprepared when Adam tells him that, after serious reflection, he has decided to bring his partner, Robert Collins, to the banquet. George is one of Adam's biggest supporters at the firm, and he personally has no problem with Adam being gay. But it is one thing for Adam to come out of the closet at the office. It is quite another to do so at a public company-client event. After all, Kirkham McDowell's client roster includes some very conservative companies--one of the country's largest defense contractors, for example. George is concerned with how Adam's openness about his sexual orientation will play with their clients and, as a result, how senior management will react. Adam has not come to George for permission to bring Robert to the dinner. But clearly Adam wants some sort of response. George has never faced sexual diversity issues in the workplace before, and there is no company policy to guide him. Just how negative an effect could Robert have on Adam's career with the firm and the firm's relationship with its clients? Isn't it possible that even the firm's most conservative clients will simply decide that Adam's choice of guest is a personal matter--not a business one?(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Examining the disclosures on the websites of English credit unions

This paper examines the disclosures made on English credit unions’ websites. Credit unions without a website are presumed to be small. Community credit unions with websites tend to offer basic services with a limited range of products that may appeal to poorer members of society. Occupational credit unions appear more likely to have a greater range of products.