Employment law and The European Community: review article

Book reviewed in this article: Business Transfers and Employee Rights John McMullen Butterworths Harmonization and Hazard: Regulating Workplace Health and Safety in the European Community Robert Baldwin and Terence Daintith (Eds.) EC Social Policy and 1992: Laws, Cases and Materials Union of Parts: Labor Politics in Postwar Germany Kathleen A. Thelen The Power to Manage? Employers and Industrial Relations in Comparative Historical Context S. Tolliday and J. Zeitlin (Eds.) Trouble on Board: The Plight of International Seafarers Paul K. Chapman (Introduction by Clifford B. Donn) Markets, Firms and the Management of Labour in Modern Britain . Howard Gospel Hard Cheese: A Study of Hotel and Catering Employment in Scotland Ian R. Macaulay and Roy C. Wood Working Miracles: Experiences of Jobs and Childcare Usha Brown and Louise Tait Scottish     

Is Germany following the British path? a comparative analysis of stability and change

This article reviews recent developments in industrial relations in Britain and Germany and examines the different adjustments to external influences of an economic, political and social structural kind. It concludes that the higher degree of stability and legitimacy of the German system is partly due to the lesser severity of external challenges and partly to structural characteristics of the two systems.     

Vocational training and new production concepts in Germany: some lessons for Britain

This article shows the pivotal role, played by the German system of vocational education and training, in the emergence of a new manufacturing policy. It offers a critique of recent changes in British training policy and practice and suggests further radical revisions in that area, in order to break out of the vicious circle of low training effort–low technology–low competitiveness.     

Interest Rate Risk of European Financial Corporations

We investigate the interest rate exposure of large European financial corporations' equity returns. For the period from January 1982 to March 1995 we estimate multifactor index models to examine the sensitivity of equity returns to market index returns and domestic as well as global interest rate movements. In addition, we specify an APT‐model to test whether an exposure to interest rate movements is rewarded in the cross‐section of expected returns. In the four European markets both domestic and global interest rate shifts constitute driving forces of stock returns beyond the influence of the domestic market indices. However, the exposure to interest rate movements does not seem to be rewarded in the same fashion among the markets.     

French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy – Nick Parsons

Books reviewed: French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy by Nick Parsons. Routledge, London and New York, 2005, xii + 222 pp., ISBN 0 415368529, £75.00.     

Russia’s food self-sufficiency and food security: an assessment

The article differentiates between self-sufficiency and food security. The impact of Russia’s 2014 food embargo on the food system and food trade is analysed. Domestic production has increased and Russia has become more self-sufficient in food and seafood. In addition, food trading partners have changed. Western food and seafood trading partners have been replaced by trading partners from Asia and Central Asia. There is a high likelihood that the Russian food market has been lost to Western exporters for the foreseeable future. Even after sanctions and countersanctions end, it is difficult to see the pathway for Western food exporters to recapture market share in Russia.