government intervention in the mortgage market a study of anti redlining regulations abstract this paper addresses the question of whether economic incentives exist for mortgage lenders to avoid or to minimize mortgage originations in neighborhoods inhabited primarily by low income racial minorities the option pricing model is utilized to determine what mortgage borrower characteristics affect the market value of the mortgage contracts it is found that existing laws do not enable mortgage lenders to vary either origination prices or mortgage terms so as to adjust for differences in the market values of mortgages as a result incentives are created for both the mortgage lender and the mortgage insurer to avoid originations and underwritings in areas with relatively high default probabilities various changes in mortgage lending regulations are suggested to eliminate these incentives and the effects of alternative programs to subsidize mortgage borrowers with relatively high default probabilities are considered

the microfinance promise in the past decade microfinance programs have demonstrated that it is possible to lend to low income households while maintaining high repayment rates even without requiring collateral the programs promise a revolution in approaches to alleviating poverty and spreading financial services and millions of poor households are served globally a growing body of economic theory demonstrates how new contractual forms offer a key to microfinance success particularly the use of group lending contracts with joint liability for the most part however high repayment rates have not translated into profits and studies of impacts on poverty yield a mixed picture in describing emerging tensions the paper highlights the diversity of innovative mechanisms beyond group lending contracts the measurement of financial sustainability the estimation of economic and social impacts the costs and benefits of subsidization and the potential to reduce poverty through savings programs rather than just credit the promise of microfinance has pushed far ahead of the evidence and an agenda is put forward for addressing critical empirical gaps and sharpening the terms of policy discussion

rotating and accumulating savings and credit associations a development perspective abstract financial self help groups in low income countries consist of two basic types rotating and accumulating savings and credit associations or roscas and ascras in the ascra funds are not immediately withdrawn but are left to grow for loan making comparing the two groups the author finds similarities and differences efforts to rectify the rosca s shortcomings have prompted many innovations and given birth to a hybrid preserving the best of both types in constant adaptation to changing environments

mortgage redlining race risk and demand charges that geographical redlining is widely practiced by mortgage lenders and is associated with racial discrimination have received much attention however empirical research in this area has yet to document a convincing answer to the question of whether redlining even exists much of the previous research in this area has suffered from failure to account for variations in risk and or failure to adequately control for geographical differences in demand this study addresses these problems in an effort to determine whether the disparity in the flow of mortgage credit can be explained by differences in risk and demand the u s mortgage market is operationally efficient with long term mortgage loans made to highly leveraged borrowers at very thin spreads above the lender s cost of funds there has long been controversy however with respect to considerations of equity legislation on this issue began with the fair housing act of 1968 followed by the equal credit opportunity act of 1974 and the home mortgage disclosure act of 1975 hmda it is now over 15 years since passage of the community reinvestment act of 1977 cra this legislation was designed to assure that banks meet the credit needs of neighborhoods in their service areas in recent years much attention in the administration of the cra has been devoted to the issue of racial discrimination in mortgage lending questions still remain as to whether the decisions of mortgage lenders are influenced by the race of the loan applicant or on the racial composition of his neighborhood redlining is the refusal of lenders to make mortgage loans in certain areas regardless of the creditworthiness of the individual loan applicant many studies claim to verify the existence of racially based mortgage redlining the earliest studies were generally carried out by community groups and were rather crudely done for a summary of such studies see benston 1981 several studies appear in professional literature for example see bradbury case and dunham 1989 and hutchinson ostas and reed 1977 from a public policy standpoint these findings if valid would indicate a need for additional regulation to ensure social equality additionally the existence of redlining in the absence of structural defects in the market would conflict

child labor and multinational conduct a comparison of international business andstakeholder codes increasing attention to the issue of child labor has been reflected in codes of conduct that emerged in the past decade in particular this paper examines the way in which multinationals business associations governmental and non governmental organizations deal with child labor in their codes with a standardized framework it analyzes 55 codes drawn up by these different actors to influence firms external societal behavior the exploratory study helps to identify the main issues related to child labor and the use of voluntary instruments such as codes of conduct apart from a specific indication of the topics covered by the code especially minimum age requirements this also includes monitoring systems and monitoring parties most important to company codes are the sanctions imposed on business partners in case of non compliance severe measures may be counterproductive as they do not change the underlying causes of child labor and can worsen the situation of the child workers by driving them to more hazardous work in the informal sector this underlines the importance of a broad rather than a restrictive approach to child labor in codes of conduct the paper discusses the implications of this study offering suggestions for future research

how well have social economy financial institutions performed during the crisis period exploring financial and social efficiency in spanish credit unions as social economy financial institutions credit unions have traditionally been considered less efficient than traditional banking entities however like banks and savings banks they have to be as efficient and competitive as possible to survive in today s business environment especially at times of crisis to date there have been very few studies on their efficiency and practically none for the crisis period moreover almost all the existing studies assess only financial efficiency without considering their social function this study examines the levels of both financial and social efficiency in spanish credit unions as well as their main determinants during the recent crisis we apply the two stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis dea methodology based on panel data corresponding to all the credit unions active in spain between 2008 and 2013 the empirical results indicate that financial and social efficiency achieved an acceptable level although on average the former was slightly greater than the latter we also find that both age and merger and acquisition activity were positively influential on the financial efficiency of credit unions but had a significant negative effect on their social efficiency moreover the regional location of such entities and the financial crisis were also crucial determinants of both types of efficiency our findings are therefore useful for all the stakeholders of credit unions to know if these entities have been efficient according to a double bottom line accounting in the crisis period and hence to maintain successful social management that is compatible with satisfactory financial efficiency

the market valuation effects of the financial institutions reform recovery and enforcement act of 1989 abstract this paper evaluates the stock market effects of events leading to the passage of the financial institutions reforms recovery and enforcement act of 1989 the evidence suggests that the signing of the act by president bush produced positive abnormal returns for both banks and s ls and that the addition of tougher capital standards produced positive returns for s ls in addition the act increased the risk of both banks and s ls

testing for unit roots in panel data are wages on different bargaining levels cointegrated theoritical considerations suggest that spillover forces equalize wages for similar jobs thus it is expected that firm wages are cointegrated with the corresponding wage rates on an industrial level in this paper we apply various unit root tests to a panel of wage data we show that the familiar techniques can be adopted to this type of data allowing for unobserved heterogeneity and common time effects our results suggest that firm and industry wages both possess a unit root in the autoregressive representation however ther is only weak evidence for a cointegration realtionship

age size growth and survival uk companies in the 1980s this paper examines growth and survival amongst quoted and unquoted u k companies in the period 1975 85 and compares the results with earlier u k and u s studies an examination of death rates shows that smaller companies had higher death rates but the largest and smallest companies were least vulnerable to takeover careful attention is therefore paid to problems of sample selection bias it is shown that smaller companies grew faster than larger companies that gibrat s law does not hold amongst smaller firms that age is negatively related to growth and that these results are not an artifact of sample selection bias copyright 1994 by blackwell publishing ltd

roscas as financial agreements to cope with self control problems abstract we consider a model in which people with limited self control can sign binding financial agreements among themselves thereby forming coalitions we show that these financial agreements may help them to alleviate their self control problems we then demonstrate that there exists a stable structure of coalitions in which people form rotating savings and credit associations roscas we therefore provide a behavioral rationale for one of the most prevalent and puzzling financial institutions in developing countries finally we derive and discuss some empirical predictions

gender biases in bank lending lessons from microcredit in france the evidence on gender discrimination in lending remains controversial to capture gender biases in banks loan allocations we observe the impact on the applicants of a microfinance institution mfi and exploit the natural experiment of a regulatory change imposing a strict eur 10 000 loan ceiling on microcredit descriptive statistics indicate that the presence of the ceiling is associated both with bank mfi co financing and with harsher treatment of female borrowers to investigate causal links we develop an econometric approach that addresses the concerns of selection biases multicollinearity and endogeneity our empirical findings suggest that the change in the mfi s gender related attitude was triggered by banks through co financing hence we speculate that co financing pushes ceiling constrained mfis to import whatever biases in loan granting that the banks are prone to overall this paper stresses that apparently benign regulations such as loan ceilings can significantly harm the women s empowerment efforts made by mfis

the growth of us credit unions abstract the growth of us credit unions during the 1990s is investigated empirically using univariate and multivariate cross sectional and panel estimation techniques univariate tests of the law of proportionate effect suggest that in general large credit unions grew faster than their smaller counterparts on average credit unions with above average growth in one period tended to experience below average growth in the next smaller credit unions tended to have more variable growth than large ones while credit unions share a common co operative philosophy they differ in terms of age profile scope for membership growth charter type and financial structure and performance in estimations of a multivariate growth model most of these characteristics are found to have a significant influence on the size growth relationship while large state chartered credit unions grew faster than their smaller counterparts the reverse was true for federally chartered credit unions in general if larger credit unions grew faster than smaller ones they tended to do so for specific reasons because their charters were less restrictive because they were more efficient or because they had a financial structure that was more conducive to growth therefore credit union growth was not random but highly systematic

social multi criteria evaluation methodological foundations and operational consequences in order to address contemporary issues economics and decision sciences need to expand their empirical relevance by introducing more and more realistic thus more complex assumptions in their models one of the most interesting research directions in the field of public economics is the attempt to introduce political constraints interest groups and collusion effects explicitly j j laffont incentives and political economy 2000 the main argument developed here is the proposal of the concept of social multi criteria evaluation smce as a possible useful framework for the application of social choice to the difficult policy problems of our millennium where as stated by funtowicz and ravetz facts are uncertain values in dispute stakes high and decisions urgent this paper starts from the following main questions 1 why social multi criteria evaluation 2 how should such an approach be developed the foundations of smce are set up by referring to concepts from complex system theory and philosophy such as reflexive complexity post normal science and incommensurability to give some operational guidelines on the application of smce basic questions to be answered are 1 how is it possible to deal with technical incommensurability 2 how can we deal with the issue of social incommensurability to answer these questions using theoretical considerations and lessons learned from real world case studies is the main objective of the present article

stock market reactions to the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 1980 abstract this paper evaluates the effects of events leading to the passage of the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 1980 the evidence suggests that the initial proposal of the act by then president carter and the final passage of the act by the house of representatives produced positive abnormal returns to stockholders of large commercial banks stockholders of small commercial banks and small savings and loans on the other hand generally experienced negative abnormal returns furthermore when hopes of passage of the act faced significant negative positive abnormal returns were experienced by stockholders of large small commercial banks

a time to grow and a time to die growth and mortality of credit unions in new york city 1914 1990 one vision of organizational evolution suggests that old and large organizations become increasingly dominant over their environment a second suggests that as organizations age they become less able to respond to new challenges in this article the authors investigate which of these visions best characterizes the evolution of state chartered credit unions in new york city from 1914 through 1990 by analyzing the effects of organizational age size and population density on rates of organizational failure and growth the authors find evidence that old and small institutions are more likely to fail while young and small organizations have the highest growth rates

multiple criteria decision making combined with finance a categorized bibliographic study abstract this paper provides a categorized bibliography on the application of the techniques of multiple criteria decision making mcdm to problems and issues in finance a total of 265 references have been compiled and classified according to the methodological approaches of goal programming multiple objective programming the analytic hierarchy process etc and to the application areas of capital budgeting working capital management portfolio analysis etc the bibliography provides an overview of the literature on mcdm combined with finance shows how contributions to the area have come from all over the world facilitates access to the entirety of this heretofore fragmented literature and underscores the often multiple criterion nature of many problems in finance

suppliers as stewards managing social standards in first and second tier suppliers buyer supplier relationships are often framed as principal agent relationships based on contractual arrangements that temporarily align the goals of both parties the underlying notion is that the relationship between buyers and suppliers is adversarial in nature and that the supplier acting in the role of the agent will take advantage of the principal if not sufficiently controlled we propose that there is empirically also another type of partnership which reflects the propositions of stewardship theory according to this theory suppliers are motivated to work autonomously towards contractually agreed objectives we analyse how the agency and stewardship theories differ regarding their descriptions of autonomy motivation identification authority stakeholder orientation and short versus long term collaboration we analyse the case of a first tier supplier and four second tier suppliers situated in turkey in the area of istanbul which collaborate with the aim of improving their social and environmental performance the results show that the relationship between the partners in this case has become more collaborative over time and can now be described in terms of stewardship theory rather than in terms of agency theory we conclude that the distinction between agency and stewardship relationships is empirically meaningful in the context of supplier buyer relationships and adds a new aspect to our understanding of how to achieve more sustainable supply chains

an examination of the impact of the garn st germain depository institutions act of 1982 on commercial banks and savings and loans this paper evaluates the effects of events leading to the passage of the garn st germain depository institutions act of 1982 the evidence suggests that the call for reform by president reagan s housing commission and the senate passage of the bill produced positive abnormal returns to stockholders of large savings and loans and commercial banks stockholders of small s ls and banks on the other hand generally experienced negative abnormal returns furthermore when hopes of passage of the act faded significant negative positive abnormal returns were experienced by stockholders of large small s ls and banks this study examines the impact of the passage of the garn st germain depository institutions gsgdi act of 1982 on commercial bank and savings and loan stockholder returns the gsgdi act represents one of two major revisions of the financial system over the last twenty years the other being the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act of 19801 the proposal for such a change reflected the growing inadequacy of the regulatory structure of financial institutions to adapt to rapid changes in technology shifting consumer demands for financial services and extremely volatile interest rates efforts to reform the financial system resulted in passage of the gsgdi act of 1982 which included provisions seeking to improve both the implementation of monetary policy and the degree of equity in the regulation of financial institutions such improvements were intended to reduce the operational and financial risk of financial institutions a central issue in the economics of regulation is whether regulatory actions benefit the economic agents they are intended to benefit a large body of literature exists which examines the economic effects of regulation much of this literature has utilized the concepts and methods of welfare economics to assess the extent

suppliers compliance with mncs codes of conduct behind the scenes at chinese toy suppliers despite increased academic and practitioner interest in codes of conduct there has been little research into the actual compliance of suppliers in developing countries with the codes of conduct of multinational corporations mncs this paper addresses this lack by analysing chinese suppliers level of compliance with swedish toy retailers codes of conduct based on unannounced and unofficial interviews with employees of chinese suppliers the study shows that all of the nine studied suppliers breached some of the standards in the toy retailers codes with over two thirds of the suppliers not complying with the majority of the studied standards while there are different explanations of this lack of compliance the main explanation seems to be that chinese suppliers successfully deceive toy retailers monitoring organisations by decoupling the formal monitored part of their organisation from the actual operational part of their organisation the paper concludes with a discussion of how to increase compliance with mncs codes of conduct

impacts of corporate code of conduct on labor standards a case study of reebok s athletic footwear supplier factory in china this study examines the social impacts of labor related corporate social responsibility csr policies or corporate codes of conduct on upholding labor standards through a case study of csr discourses and codes implementation of reebok a leading branded company enjoying a high profiled image for its human rights achievement in a large taiwanese invested athletic footwear factory located in south china i find although implementation of reebok labor related codes has resulted in a race to ethical and legal minimum labor standards when notoriously inhumane and seriously illegal labor rights abuses were curbed chinese workers were forced to work harder and faster but earned less payment and the employee elected trade union installed through codes implementation operated more like a company union rather than an autonomous workers organization representing worker interests in order to explain the paradoxical effects of reebok labor related codes on labor standards i argue the result is determined by both structural forces and agency related factors embedded in industrial national and local contexts to put it shortly i find the effectiveness of reebok labor related codes is constrained not only by unsolved tension between reebok s impetus for profit maximization and commitment to workers human rights but also by hard nosed competition realities at marketplace and chinese government s insufficient protection of labor rights despite drawing merely from a single case study these findings illuminate key determinants inhibiting the effectiveness of labor related csr policies or codes in upholding labor standards and hence two possible way outs of the deadlock 1 sharing cost for improving labor standards among key players in global supply chain and 2 combining regulatory power of voluntary codes and compulsory state legislations

growth acquisition activity and firm size evidence from the united kingdom this paper provides new empirical evidence on the relationship between size growth and acquisition activity of quoted companies in the united kingdom the evidence is based on some two thousand companies and covers the period i960 76 there has been no detailed systematic study for this period the results suggest some revisions to generally accepted views in the area and they have certain implications for industrial and competition policy pursued in the u k and the factors affecting aggregate concentration the paper is arranged as follows section i considers the broader economic context for the study whilst section ii notes some a priori expectations regarding the relationship between size and growth and size and acquisition activity sections iii v present empirical evidence and the last section provides a summary and policy implications of the results

size growth and transnationality among the world s largest banks this essay investigates the relationship between size and growth rate of large international banks and then relates these to the banks degree of transnationality we test two sets of three propositions each the first three propositions are pi that the growth rate of each bank over some period is independent of its size p2 that the variability of growth rates is independent of the banks size and p3 that the banks growth rates in two consecutive periods are independent of each other the second three propositions are p4 that there is no association between size and transnationality p5 that transnationality and growth are independent and p6 that there is no relationship between transnationality and the variability of growth rates the growth referred to is primarily that of assets as a measure of size for the two propositions concerning the variability of growth rates we supplement this measure with one of the market value of the banks equity the results have implications for concentration in internathis paper investigates six propositions relating to gibrat s law of proportionate growth the growth referred to is that of book assets and total market value the results have implications for concentration in international banking and for depositor safety and the social cost of insuring it and provide evidence on economies of scale and on the transnational spread of the industry

private regulation and trade union rights why codes of conduct have limited impact on trade union rights codes of conduct are the main tools to privately regulate worker rights in global value chains scholars have shown that while codes may improve outcome standards such as occupational health and safety they have had limited impact on process rights such as freedom of association and collective bargaining scholars have though only provided vague or general explanations for this empirical finding we address this shortcoming by providing a holistic and detailed explanation and argue that codes in their current form have limited impact on trade union rights due to i buyers paying lip service to trade union rights ii workers being treated as passive objects of regulation in codes of conduct iii auditing being unable to detect and remediate violations of trade union rights iv codes emphasizing parallel means of organizing v suppliers having limited incentives for compliance and vi codes being unable to open up space for union organizing when leveraged in grassroots struggles our arguments suggest that there is no quick fix for codes limited impact on trade union rights and that codes in their current form have limited potential to improve trade union rights we conclude by discussing ways in which codes of conduct and private regulation of worker rights more generally could be transformed to more effectively address trade union rights

the valuation effects of the 1977 community reinvestment act and its enforcement abstract we examine the wealth effects of the passage of the community reinvestment act cra of 1977 for commercial banks and savings and loan associations we find significantly negative average excess returns for small nyse amex banks and sl in contrast there is no evidence that large nyse amex institutions or nasdaq institutions experience wealth losses we also study the effects of individual cra protests against institutions and find they produce significantly negative excess returns which are not reversed when the protests are resolved our results have implications for proposed changes to cra and for the future consolidation of the financial services industry the results also demonstrate the difficulties associated with studying returns from the early years of the nasdaq market

safety and soundness and the cra is there a conflict i introduction financial problems often pose a dilemma regarding the appropriate nature and timing of any regulatory response banks and the financial intermediation services they perform generally are viewed as crucial to economic growth and the intermediary role of banks entails potential negative economic consequences of reducing permissible lending activities in response to an adverse financial shock as in bernanke and gertler 1987 equally well known however are the perverse incentives associated with allowing thinly capitalized banks to operate with federally guaranteed deposits as in kaufman 1987 to the extent both views are correct they point to a potential trade off between enhancing the supply of bank credit and promoting safe and sound banking practices in periods of financial difficulty although this type of trade off has been debated and clarified in the context of banking crises its implications for banking regulation more generally are underappreciated in particular limited attention has been given to the potential trade off between the general credit enhancement objective of the community reinvestment act cra and the risk constraining objectives of safety and soundness standards in october 1977 the u s congress passed the cra as title viii of the housing and community development act the legislation is designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to help meet the credit needs of their communities in a manner consistent with safe and sound banking practices the cra is often associated with the specific objective of enhancing the availability of credit for low income neighborhoods in a bank s service area however the implementing regulations in accordance with the general nature of the statute also prominently feature general guidelines related to the total volume of lending activity conducted in an institution s market area irrespective of neighborhood income levels at its most fundamental level the cra is concerned with the credit needs of the communities in which banks are chartered that is federal regulators are to use their supervisory authority to encourage institutions to help meet local credit needs as in garwood and smith 1993 since july 1 990 cra ratings have had four levels 1 outstanding 2 satisfactory 3 needs to improve and 4 substantial noncompliance 55 fr 18163 the cra s specific and general credit enhancement objectives are qualified by reference to safe and sound banking practices but the possibility nevertheless arises that favorable cra ratings might reflect aggressive financial strategies designed to support an expansion of lending activity in contrast bank regulators use very different criteria in assigning safety and soundness ratings in 1979 federal agencies adopted the uniform financial institutions rating system the resulting overall or composite safety and soundness ratings originally were derived from the onsite evaluation and rating of five separate factors capital adequacy c asset quality a management m earnings e and liquidity l this camel rating system was amended on 1 january 1997 to include a sixth component 61 fr 67021 the new s component focuses on sensitivity to market risk such as the risk arising from changes in interest rates like the earlier camel rating the camels overall rating has five levels 1 basically sound in every respect 2 fundamentally sound but with modest weaknesses 3 financial operational or compliance weaknesses that cause supervisory concern 4 serious financial weaknesses that could impair future viability and 5 critical financial weaknesses that render the probability of near term failure extremely high for simplicity this study applies the term camel to both camel and camels ratings in contrast to cra ratings the camel rating system clearly is directed at containing risk given the opposing perspectives on bank credit underlying cra and safety and soundness ratings in addition to the bank level costs associated with cra compliance efforts current regulatory policies entail a potential conflict

carbon risk carbon risk awareness and the cost of debt financing we seek insights into potential benefits for firms adopting strategies to improve business sustainability in a carbon constrained future we investigate whether lenders incorporate a firm s exposure to carbon related risk into lending decisions through the cost of financing and if so importantly whether firms can mitigate the penalty by demonstrating an awareness of their carbon risks we use a sample of 255 firm year observations from eight industries over the period 2009 2013 we measure carbon related risk exposure as the firm s historical carbon emissions and our primary measure of carbon risk awareness is based on the firm s willingness to respond to the carbon disclosure project cdp survey we document a positive association between cost of debt and carbon risk for firms failing to respond to the cdp further this association is economically meaningful with a one standard deviation increase in carbon risk mapping into between a 38 and 62 basis point increase in the cost of debt equally we find that this penalty is effectively negated for firms exhibiting carbon risk awareness our results are robust when we consider alternate measures of carbon awareness disclosure through alternative medium to the cdp and firms annual cash investment in new capital assets using cleaner technology our results highlight not only the importance of carbon awareness as a business strategy for polluting firms but also its importance to lenders exposed to their clients default and reputational risk the debt market appears to incorporate historical carbon emissions and forward looking indicators of carbon performance

bank acquisition and stockholders wealth abstract bank mergers are a control mechanism for reallocating resources because regulation has a pervasive influence on bank decision making unlike industrial firms bank mergers are subject to regulatory approval bank shareholder returns are analyzed at the time of federal reserve approval of mergers to assess whether regulation reduces differential information between bank managers and outsiders or reduces managers ability to take advantage of differential information empirical tests indicate there are negative returns to acquiring banks for external mergers but normal returns for internal mergers emergency mergers generate positive returns before and upon announcement more negative results occur in states with branching restrictions and in cases when equity financing is used

a sectoral explanation of per capita income convergence and divergence estimating verdoorn s law for countries at different stages of development this paper estimates the verdoorn law the relationship between productivity and output growth for manufacturing industries for 70 developed and developing countries it tests the hypothesis that the various manufacturing industries exhibit different values of the verdoorn coefficient and hence different degrees of increasing returns broadly defined the paper analyses especially whether or not these estimates vary according to the level of a country s economic development controlling for such factors as human capital and the level of technology it is found that this is the case countries in the early stages of development would benefit from specialising in low tech manufacturing and consumption goods as these industries have larger verdoorn coefficients than in the more developed countries however as countries reach higher stages of development it is advantageous for them to specialize in the high tech manufacturing industries and the capital goods industries these have relatively high values of the verdoorn coefficient compared with the less developed countries it is concluded that the composition of industries that leads to the fastest growth of manufacturing productivity differs depending upon the level of economic development

asian transnational corporations and labor rights vietnamese trade unions in taiwan invested companies according to the reports in the past decade some asian subcontractors mainly taiwan hong kong and korea transnational corporations tend to be labor abusive in their overseas investment destinations like china or southeast asia taking vietnam as an example this paper raises questions as to why taiwanese transnational companies can control workplace unions in a trade union supportive regime given the government s constraint of political rights and the individualized workplace unions the function of trade unions in vietnam is destined to be limited the trade unions turn out be an arm of management rather than representing workers interests in these transnational companies this article also explores the influence of the newly developed codes of conducts from western buyers in the survey of three companies which are required to follow the codes of conduct by buyers trade unions had no more freedom than those in companies without codes of conduct the paper discusses the implications of this research offering strategies for labor rights improvements

a credit score system for socially responsible lending ethical banking microfinance institutions or certain credit cooperatives among others grant socially responsible loans this paper presents a credit score system for them the model evaluates social and financial aspects of the borrower the financial aspects are evaluated under the conventional banking framework by analysing accounting statements and financial projections the social aspects try to quantify the loan impact on the achievement of millennium development goals such as employment education environment health or community impact the social credit score model should incorporate the lender s know how and should also be coherent with its mission this is done using multi criteria decision making mcdm the paper illustrates a real case a loan application by a social entrepreneur presented to a socially responsible lender the decision support system not only produces a score but also reveals strengths and weaknesses of the application

goodwin cycles and the bopc growth paradigm a macrodynamic model of growth and fluctuations abstract the paper builds a non linear macrodynamic model to study the relation between the functional distribution of income technological progress and economic growth in the short term the interaction between the productivity regime the demand regime and the distributive conflict generates cyclical paths a la goodwin in the long term output growth rate is constrained by the balance of payments a la thirlwall in which the elasticities of foreign trade are modeled as a function of the complex relation between the wage share and the innovation capabilities of theeconomy

an analysis of intra industry differences in the effect of regulation the case of deposit rate ceilings abstract this study examines the impact of deposit rate ceiling changes on the market value of commercial banks and stock savings and loan associations statistically significant increases in market value are found on announcement of the removal of ceilings on large denomination certificates of deposit in contrast retail commercial banks and savings and loans experienced declines in value on announcement of the elimination or relaxation of deposit rate ceilings on small denomination consumer accounts in addition for all events analyzed significant differences were found in the effect of ceiling changes on the market value of wholesale and retail commercial banks

kaldor s technical progress function and verdoorn s law revisited kaldor put forward his technical progress function as an alternative to the neoclassical aggregate production function it is shown that verdoorn s law is its empirical counterpart although allowing for increasing returns to scale however both may be derived from an aggregate cobb douglas production function but aggregation problems and the cambridge capital theory controversies have shown theoretically that aggregate production functions in all probability do not exist moreover the only reason that estimations of aggregate production functions give good results is the existence of an accounting identity this article reconsiders the technical progress function and verdoorn s law especially in the light of these problems nevertheless it is shown that estimates of the law do in fact provide insights into the growth process very similar to those of kaldor but viewed from another perspective

migration intermediaries and codes of conduct temporary migrant workers in australian horticulture over recent decades developments in network governance have seen governments around the world cede considerable authority and responsibility to commercial migration intermediaries for recruiting and managing temporary migrant labour correspondingly a by product of network governance has been the emergence of soft employment regulation in which voluntary codes of conduct supplement hard enforceable legal employment standards this paper explores these developments in the context of temporary migrant workers employed in australian horticulture first the paper analyses the growing use of temporary migrant labour in this industry it then describes how different types of intermediaries interact with this workforce the paper then outlines both hard and soft employment regulations and contrasts them with actual employment conditions questioning how a network governance approach has affected this vulnerable workforce the paper concludes that changes in network governance of migration and employment relations have emasculated formal legal regulation leaving market forces to operate without effective or ethical constraints at the expense of the public good

embedding csr values the global footwear industry s evolving governance structure many transnational corporations and international organizations have embraced corporate social responsibility csr to address criticisms of working and environmental conditions at subcontractors factories while csr codes of conduct are easy to draft supplier compliance has been elusive even third party monitoring has proven an incomplete solution this article proposes that an alteration in the supply chain s governance from an arms length market model to a collaborative partnership often will be necessary to effectuate csr the market model forces contractors to focus on price and delivery as they compete for the lead firm s business rendering csr observance secondary at best a collaborative partnership where the lead firm gives select suppliers secure product orders and other benefits removes disincentives and adds incentives for csr compliance in time the suppliers csr habit should shift their business philosophy toward pursuing csr as an end in itself regardless of buyer incentives and monitoring this article examines these hypotheses in the context of the athletic footwear sector with nike inc and its suppliers as the specific case study the data collected and conclusions reached offer strategies for advancing csr beyond the superficial and often ineffectual code of conduct stage