When in Rome ... Moral Maturity and Ethics for International Economic Organizations

A number of multinational enterprises have come under ethical scrutiny over the recent decades. In some cases, this may be due to a lack of maturity of corporate moral reasoning. The article is based on a framework developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. He suggested three main stages of moral development: They are (1) pre-conventional moral reasoning, (2) conventional and (3) post-conventional moral reasoning. The article places different approaches to business ethics into the framework developed by Kohlberg. It is argued that the first two stages form an insufficient basis for ethical guidance for multinational organizations. Five post-conventional ethical perspectives are presented to assist MNC's in their analysis in order to uncover the possible dilemmas, to avoid harming others and also to avoid costly embarrassment at the hands of critics.     

Eliminating the Barriers to Employment Equity in the Canadian Workplace

Have employment equity programs achieved the goal of equity for women in the workplace? We argue that they have not because gender stereotypes still persist. In fact, they may have created resentment and antagonism towards successful women and employment equity initiatives. Arguments are developed for the Canadian government to create a self-regulating system, in which the government plays a role of educator as opposed to monitor.     

When Hard Heads Collide

ABSTRACT . In this article, Loren Lomasky begins with a firsthand account of some of the people he interacted with at the Center for the Study of Public Choice in Blacksburg and some of what he learned there. Aside from the revealing personal anecdotes, we learn something of the culture clash he experienced as a visiting fellow at the Center and about his introduction to intellectual activity as “blood sport.” Lomasky then reviews some of the strengths and weaknesses of public choice theory from a philosophical point of view and offers some suggestions. These primarily concern the theory's narrow focus on the material nature of interests. Finally, Lomasky offers techniques for including moral interests in the deliberations of decision makers.     

Do retail mergers affect competition? Evidence from grocery retailing

This study estimates the price effects of horizontal mergers in the U.S. grocery retailing industry. We examine fourteen regions affected by mergers, including mergers in highly concentrated and relatively unconcentrated markets. We identify price effects by comparing markets affected by mergers to unaffected markets using difference‐in‐difference estimation with three different comparison groups, propensity score weights, and by using the synthetic control method. Our results are robust to the choice of control group and estimation technique. We find that mergers in highly concentrated markets are most frequently associated with price increases, and mergers in less concentrated markets are most often associated with price decreases.     

Dynamics and equilibrium in a structural model of wide‐body commercial aircraft markets

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic equilibrium model of the market for new and used commercial aircraft. The model is estimated by maximum simulated likelihood using data on wide‐body aircraft owners and prices for transactions occurring 1978‐1997. The importance of explicitly modeling dynamics and equilibrium in new and used markets for durable goods is illustrated in two counterfactual experiments. Estimates of the structural model are used to show that implementing an investment tax credit not only increases demand for new wide‐body aircraft by the airlines that receive the tax credit, but also increases the number of new wide‐body aircraft owned by airlines not directly affected by the policy. Further, the model indicates that a policy which improves the efficiency of secondary markets for used wide‐body aircraft will also stimulate demand for new wide‐body aircraft. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Productivity of New York Dairy Farms Measured by Nonparametric Malmquist Indices

The productivity of 70 individual New York dairy farms, decomposed into technical efficiency change and technological change components, was measured annually from 1985 to 1993 from output distance functions estimated using nonparametric programming methods. Technology is measured regressively only if it is regressive to all previous periods rather than just the immediate previous period. Productivity increase averaged 2.6 per cent annually, mostly from gains in technological improvements, since average efficiency decreased slightly. Twenty-five per cent of the farms failed to increase productivity sufficiently over the period to offset the decreased ratio of output to input prices.     

Discrimination and development? Immigration,urbanisation and sustainable livelihoods in Johannesburg

Through its analysis of new survey data and interviews coupled with participant observation, this article examines how official and popular responses to international migration and urbanisation may undermine Johannesburg's efforts to build a prosperous, safe and inclusive city. Working from the position that international migration is an inexorable response to regional economic inequality, it illustrates how ignorance, xenophobia and legal discrimination are preventing significant numbers of foreign migrants from productively integrating into Johannesburg's politics, economy and communities. It concludes that, in an era of migration, building inclusive and sustainable cities means finding creative ways to combat discrimination based on nationality, even when such exclusion is legally, politically, and socially mandated. Doing otherwise tacitly endorses human rights abuses, social fragmentation, inequitable growth and insecurity.