TNCs and the corruption of GATT: Free trade versus fair trade

In order to enrich global corporate culture, a distinction must be made between the economic ideology of free trade and the moral ideology of fair trade. GATT has failed to make this distinction. Its sole ethos of free trade is only applicable among developmentally equivalent nations, and has been used by TNCs as a means for attaining their commercial ends in the third world. GATT's lack of commitment to an objective of fair trade necessitates its replacement. This article suggests a replacement in the form of a network of trade organizations. The network takes the form of a hub-and-spoke arrangement, in which the hub would be the Global Trade Organization, and the spokes would each represent Regional Trade Organizations.John Dobson is currently an Associate Professor of Finance at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. His primary research interests are Agency Theory and Financial Ethics. His publications include articles and letters inJournal of Business Ethics, Financial Management, Business in the Contemporary World andBusiness and Society.     

Alasdair Macintyre’s Aristotelian Business Ethics: A Critique

This paper begins by summarizing and distilling MacIntyre’s sweeping critique of modern business. It identifies the crux of MacIntyre’s critique as centering on the fundamental Aristotelian concepts of internal goods and practices. MacIntyre essentially follows Aristotle in arguing that by privileging external goods over internal goods, business activity – and certainly modern capitalistic business activity – corrupts practices. Thus, from the perspective of virtue ethics, business is morally indefensible. The paper continues with an evaluation of MacIntyre’s arguments. The conclusion is drawn that MacIntyre’s critique, although partially valid, does not vitiate modern business as he claims. In short, modern business need not of necessity be antithetical to individuals’ pursuit of internal goods within practices.     

Retailer power: recent developments and policy implications

It is common, but incorrect, to view retailing as a highly competitive activity. Unlike manufacturing, retailing has displayed a trend towards much higher concentration, reinforced by actions of retailers themselves, such as emphasis on own-label brands. This may introduce distortions arising from exercise of market power or may create countervailing power to that already enjoyed by manufacturers. Acknowledging increased market power within retailing raises new issues for competition authorities. We develop a consistent framework of analysis and use it to examine two issues: attitudes to retail mergers and exclusivity arrangements between retailers and their suppliers.     

Estimating Coaching Efficiency in Professional Team Sports: Evidence from English Association Football

This study provides a review of the literature on sporting production functions with an emphasis on different input‐output specifications and alternative estimation procedures. Empirical evidence is reported for English association football on the robustness of estimates of coaching efficiency to changes in estimation methods and the definition of team performance and playing talent inputs. A measure of player quality based on predicted start‐of‐season transfer values is developed. It is found that the estimation of coaching efficiency is sensitive to the choice of time‐invariant efficiency models versus time‐varying and inefficiency effects models. It is also found that the results are little affected by different measures of team performance but are highly sensitive to the use of an ex post financial expenditure input measure. Ex ante input measures based on start‐of‐season player characteristics or predicted transfer values are recommended as more appropriate on both theoretical and empirical grounds.     

League Structure and Match Attendances in English Rugby League

This paper investigates the effects of actual and hypothetical changes in league structure on match attendances for English rugby league. An empirical match attendance model is used to generate simulated attendances under various alternative structural regimes.The simulations are used to compare the effects on attendances of having larger and smaller divisions, and of having regionalised lower divisions or divisions whose membership is determined solely by playing quality. A limited form of regionalisation emerges as a positive recommendation. The model is also used to decompose the changes in average attendance, following the 1996 reorganisation, into components attributable to the change of structure, changes in team performance, and other factors.     

Multidimensional scaling of consumer preferences for a public transportation system: An application of two approaches

Consumer attitudes toward a proposed new public transportation system were assessed through the application of two multidimensional scaling models to data on preference choices for system attributes. Carroll's vector model and Kruskal and Carmone's nonmetric unfolding model were compared on theoretical and empirical levels to determine their utility for exposing the latent structure of attitudes for a public project. While the unfolding model was attractive because of a theoretical property, the vector model was able to uncover latent dimensions for the attitudes which could be related via discriminant analysis to socio-economic and demographic characteristics of the respondents. The vector model also produced an outcome which was more closely related to a unidimensional analysis of these data. Therefore, even though both the vector and unfolding models produced plausible geometric representations of the attitudes which arc expected to aid urban transportation planners in designing systems, the vector model produced the more acceptable outcome.     

Convergence of Inflationary Shocks: Evidence from the Caribbean

In this paper, we aim to shed some light on the inflation dynamics in the Caribbean. We analyse the inflation rates for twelve countries using various time series methods. The results show that the inflation rates are mean reverting processes and that there is evidence of a convergence club in inflation rates within the area, which contradicts previous studies. Our contribution implies a high degree of similarity in the dynamics of our target countries' inflation rates.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF COMMERCIAL PROPERTY PRICES AND RENTS

This paper develops a theoretical model of price and rent determination in the commercial property market. Prices and rents are assumed to adjust to ensure market clearing. A series of theoretical relationships are derived between prices and rents and a number of exogenous variables. These are then subjected to empirical testing for three types of property: industrial property, shops and offices. The results indicate employment is an important influence on price, especially for industrial property. In most cases, price and rent are also found to be sensitive to interest rates and residential property values.     

Organizational performance and managerial turnover

Involuntary and voluntary managerial job‐termination hazard functions are estimated for English professional soccer for the period 1972–1997. A novel feature is the use of match‐level data, which reveals aspects of the hazard otherwise concealed by estimation using annual data. Short‐term fluctuations in performance strongly influence the involuntary termination hazard. The latter is also heavily dependent on the team's current league position relative to its position when the manager took charge, and on the win ratio over the entire spell. Managerial human capital attributes are found to have a greater influence on the voluntary rather than on the involuntary termination hazard. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mutually related firms and the rationality of producing nothing

This paper considers the pricing and output decisions of firms which are related by the complementary nature of their products. The paper focuses on the problems which may result from non-co-operative behaviour of such firms. At the extreme, it is shown that non-cooperative complementary firms may ‘rationally’ choose to produce nothing. The paper considers the conditions which lead to this market failure result, and whether encouragement by government for the firms to co-operate or merge is required to make the market operate more efficiently.