rent seeking and the transformation of employment relationships the effect of corporate restructuring on wage patterns determinants and inequality a key debate in research on corporate restructuring is whether this widespread and extensive transformation process made contemporary employment relationships more open with firms relying largely o

the transition to the knowledge economy labor market institutions and income inequality in advanced democracies the transition from fordism to the knowledge economy in the world s advanced democracies was underpinned by the revolution in information and communications technology ict the introduction and rapid diffusion of ict pushed up wages for college educated workers with complementary skills and allowed top managers and ceos to reap greater rewards for their own talents despite these common pressures income inequality did not rise to the same extent everywhere income in the anglo saxon countries remains particularly unequally distributed to shed new light on this puzzle the authors carry out a panel data analysis of eighteen oecd countries between 1970 and 2007 their analysis stands apart from the existing empirical literature by taking a comparative perspective the article examines the extent to which the relationship between the knowledge economy and income inequality is influenced by national labor market institutions the authors find that the expansion of knowledge employment is positively associated with both the 90 10 wage ratio and the income share of the top 1 percent but that these effects are mitigated by the presence of strong labor market institutions such as coordinated wage bargaining strict employment protection legislation high union density and high collective bargaining coverage the authors provide robust evidence against the argument that industrial relations systems are no longer important safeguards of wage solidarity in the knowledge economy

the effect of multiple extrinsic cues on quality perceptions a matter of consistency building on past research this article illustrates when a price quality relationship holds in the presence of multiple extrinsic cues when intrinsic information is scarce the relationship is more pronounced when a positive price cue is paired with a positive second cue e g strong warranty positive country of origin or strong brand when the two cues are inconsistent consumers find the negative cue more salient and overweight it in their evaluations this interaction is moderated by the presence of abundant levels of intrinsic attribute information our predictions are replicated across five studies and the underlying process is supported

agriculture led growth foodgrains versus export crops in madagascar abstract this article compares the growth generating power of alternative agricultural development strategies in madagascar projections from a semi input output model and a recently developed social accounting matrix suggest that both paddy and export crops stimulate strong linkages with other sectors of the malagasy economy but since paddy output can be increased at lower cost investment in rehabilitating small irrigated rice perimeters generates 40 to 100 more gdp than a comparable investment in coffee production paddy also generates greater employment and a more equitable income distribution

the role of price in multi attribute product evaluations the potentially multifaceted role of price in product evaluations is investigated with an empirical analysis of surveyed beliefs attitudes and intentions regarding automobile brands it is found that price beliefs both influence and are influenced by beliefs about a brand s quality thereby contributing to the attribution definition process however price is not a significant determinant of overall attitude it is also found that price becomes a negative factor when behavioral intentions are involved lending support to an economic interpretation of price

the price elasticity of mass preferences i compare the price elasticity of economic and political preferences my central hypothesis is that willingness to pay whether expressed verbally or through cash transactions is more price elastic for economic consumption goods than for public goods i find that increases in price greatly diminish the proportion of people willing to pay for consumer goods such as housing or hardback books whereas the proportion willing to pay more in taxes to support a public good such as environmental protection or shelter for the homeless is much less responsive to changes in price i conclude by discussing the theoretical and political implications of willingness to pay for public and private goods

risky business the decline of defined benefit pensions and firms shifting of risk since the early 1980s employment in the united states has undergone significant transformation as the large corporations that once safeguarded employees with stable jobs and rewards for loyalty have replaced these employment relationships with ones based on cost containment and flexibility one important consequence of these developments is that firms have abdicated their role as a critical risk bearer in society although evidence suggests that firms have increasingly shifted market risks onto their workforce to date there have been few detailed analyses exploring what factors have driven this phenomenon this study adds to our understanding of why firms have transferred risk to their employees by examining the decline of a highly institutionalized practice wherein large u s firms used to bear retirement risk the defined benefit db pension plan through a detailed analysis i show that variance in the presence power and interests of shareholders and employees at the firm level differentially affect a firm s willingness to shift the risk of retirement onto its workers specifically i demonstrate empirically that different types of shareholders have differential effects on a firm s retirement practices suggesting that the changing equity ownership structure of large u s firms has played a key role in how risk is allocated between workers and firms declines in employee power have also played a role because firm levels of unionization positively affect rates of db participation for both unionized and nonunionized workers

contextual influences on perceptions of merchant supplied reference prices two contextual variables that have theoretical roots in information processing attribution and social judgment theories were manipulated along with three levels of merchant supplied reference price in a 2 2 3 analysis of variance design results support the hypothesized effects of consistency and distinctiveness as contextual variables that influence internal price standards and purchase evaluations the three price levels resulted in a curvilinear pattern of results for the purchase evaluation and source credibility dependent variables as hypothesized however contrary to assimilation contrast theory the impact of the merchant supplied reference price on estimates of normal and fair prices was monotonic

impacts of climate change on self sufficiency of rice in china a cge model based evidence with alternative regional feedback mechanisms abstract climate change would pose a direct and severe challenge to china s rice production and self sufficiency here we use global trade analysis project gtap model to evaluate the impacts of climate change on the self sufficiency of rice in china due to 2 c rise in temperature and further analyze the impact and transmission mechanisms of climate change through market and trade our simulation method switches different regional mechanisms in the gtap model by employing alternative closures and scenarios our results suggest that the fluctuation in rice price is much larger than that of rice production the active regional feedback mechanism has much larger effects than the passive one in assessing climate change impacts with the passive regional feedback mechanism single regional general equilibrium srge and multi regional general equilibrium with china s shock mrge c china s rice export would decrease by more than 8 and import would increase by over 5 which leads to a decrease in rice self sufficiency by more than 0 06 percentage points with the active regional feedback mechanism multi regional general equilibrium with global shock mrge w climate change will increase china s rice export by 2 7 as rising rice exports to south korea overweight the export decrease to other countries concurrently china s rice import would decrease by 0 04 which leads to a slight increase in rice self sufficiency as a whole climate change will not severely threaten china s rice self sufficiency by the decomposition analysis climate change impacts on china s rice self sufficiency mainly depend on the changes in china s domestic rice production interestingly the source of china s rice import will switch from vietnam to pakistan under mrge w which derives from the input structure of paddy rice and rice sectors in different countries

food grain policy in the republic of korea the economic costs of self sufficiency governments in many countries have manipulated agricultural prices to achieve a variety of social economic and political objectives these policies which often conflict with the prescriptions of neoclassical trade theory have led economists toward attempts to estimate the welfare losses associated with government intervention in the marketplace of more interest to many governments is the performance of changes in policy aimed at attaining specific national goals this paper addresses the case of food grain policy in the republic of korea and assesses the impacts of the change in grain price policy that occurred at the end of the 1960s in particular the success of price policy in attaining self sufficiency and raising farm incomes is evaluated the implications for consumers producers foreign exchange earnings and price stability are also analyzed it is worth noting here that through policy nations pursue a wide range of noneconomic objectives that are impossible to quantify in considering the findings of this analysis the reader should be cognizant of these other objectives and implications that are not specifically included

external demand constraints for agricultural exports an impediment to structural adjustment policies in sub saharan african countries abstract structural adjustment programmes are being promoted throughout the developing countries the recommended policy package including price as well as non price policies is geared towards export growth and a long term sustainable balance of payments there is considerable scepticism however whether developing countries can indeed benefit from an export oriented growth strategy first rigidities in domestic output supply responses could preclude significant export growth second external demand side constraints could impede export revenue growth if a jointly promoted export led strategy resulted in world market price deterioration analysis reveals that in the case of sub saharan africa neither of the above factors should cause a failure of structural adjustment policies however the outcome of adjustment policies could be improved if commodity and country specific factors were taken into consideration

agricultural diversification and export promotion in sub saharan africa abstract declines in world commodity prices have emphasized the need in africa for diversification away from a few agricultural exports market reforms are not enough high transfer costs and imperfect factor markets imply that many consumer goods frequently including food staples are non tradables raising the possibility of major demand constraints in agriculture commodity specific zone specific and sequenced production and marketing policies are necessary to speed supply response of agricultural exports to market reforms then supply responsiveness must be increased for non tradable wage goods especially in non export producing zones to cope with new domestic demand created by export growth

the trade off between economic efficiency and food self sufficiency in using sudan s irrigated land resources abstract a shift in sudan s food production strategy towards more reliance on the irrigated sector for food supply has been induced by the severe food shortages following the early 1980s drought and reduced availability of food aid coupled with the high yield potential of irrigated wheat under modern technology revealed by recent research results this led to significant expansions in the areas of irrigated food crops especially wheat after 1989 this paper used domestic resource cost analysis to examine whether the expansion in irrigated wheat production represents the most efficient option for using sudan s irrigated land resources as compared to cotton the country s most important cash crop competitor at the 1993 prices medium staple cotton dominated various wheat technologies in terms of economic efficiency an efficiency frontier was constructed to evaluate the sensitivity of competitiveness results to changes in productivity gains and price shifts wheat yields currently achieved by average farmers on the scheme need to increase by more than 50 for wheat to compete with cotton at the 1996 prices in other words currently one ha of exported cotton generates economic returns that are sufficient to import about 50 more wheat than can be domestically produced from the same ha under average farmers practices in gezira in addition to its superiority over wheat in economic efficiency terms cotton has larger employment benefits than wheat being the more labour intensive enterprise this means that expanding irrigated wheat production in gezira for food self sufficiency at the expense of cotton reduces employment opportunities in addition to compromising economic efficiency priority should therefore be given to increased investment in research on improving cotton production technology marketing and lint quality on the other hand it is important to introduce more effective policy measures for faster adoption of improved wheat technologies to close the gap between potential and current yield levels

the growth of executive pay this paper examines both empirically and theoretically the growth of us executive pay during the period 1993 2003 during this period pay has grown much beyond the increase that could be explained by changes in firm size performance and industry classification had the relationship of compensation to size performance and industry classification remained the same in 2003 as it was in 1993 mean compensation in 2003 would have been only about half of its actual size during the 1993 2003 period equity based compensation has increased considerably in both new economy and old economy firms but this growth has not been accompanied by a substitution effect i e a reduction in non equity compensation the aggregate compensation paid by public companies to their top five executives during the considered period added up to about 350 billion and the ratio of this aggregate top five compensation to the aggregate earnings of these firms increased from 5 per cent in 1993 5 to about 10 per cent in 2001 3 after presenting evidence about the growth of pay we discuss alternative explanations for it we examine how this growth could be explained under either the arm s length bargaining model of executive compensation or the managerial power model among other things we discuss the relevance of the parallel rise in market capitalizations and in the use of equity based compensation copyright 2005 oxford university press

examining managerial displacement the research reported used a longitudinal analysis to compare the displacement experience of managers with that of other employees and to examine the factors associated with managerial job loss jo

financialization and u s income inequality 1970 2008 focusing on u s nonfinance industries we examine the connection between financialization and rising income inequality we argue that the increasing reliance on earnings realized through financial channels decoupled the generation of surplus from production strengthening owners and elite workers negotiating power relative to other workers the result was an incremental exclusion of the general workforce from revenue generating and compensation setting processes using time series cross section data at the industry level we find that increasing dependence on financial income in the long run is associated with reducing labor s share of income increasing top executives share of compensation and increasing earnings dispersion among workers net of conventional explanations such as deunionization globalization technological change and capital investment the effects of financialization on all three dimensions of income inequality are substantial our counterfactual analysis suggests that financial

social class and income inequality in the united states ownership authority and personal income distribution from 1980 to 2010 this study outlines a theory of social class based on workplace ownership and authority relations and it investigates the link between social class and growth in personal income inequality since the 1980s inequality trends are governed by changes in between class income differences changes in the relative size of different classes and changes in within class income dispersion data from the general social survey are used to investigate each of these changes in turn and to evaluate their impact on growth in inequality at the population level results indicate that between class income differences grew by about 60 since the 1980s and that the relative size of different classes remained fairly stable a formal decomposition analysis indicates that changes in the relative size of different social classes had a small dampening effect and that growth in between class income differences had a large inflationary effect on trends in personal income inequality

china s food economy to the twenty first century supply demand and trade this paper accounts for the structural changes now taking place in china and suggests that china is not likely to become either an enormous importer or exporter of grain ultimately though china s grain balances will depend on decisions made by chinese policymakers rather than natural resource constraints p v this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

feeding and fueling china in the 21st century abstract this paper addresses the questions to what extent will china become a significant net importer of food and fuel in the foreseeable future and what will be the impact of that import demand growth on international markets it first summarizes what standard trade and development economics and the experiences of other asian economies suggest we should expect of china and then examines china s experience to date before turning to some forecasts for the next decade or so our review suggests that before long china will become a significant net importer of both food and fuels especially petroleum contrary to chinese fears however becoming more interdependent with the rest of the world need not be threatening and it may even offer more supply security for china in the long run

the economic costs of food self sufficiency in china abstract despite the surge in agricultural output since the late 1970s a comparison of china s resource endowments with those of its trading partners suggests that with continued rapid income growth food imports will again expand unless relative domestic prices are raised quantitative analysis of price policies which would achieve self sufficiency in the 1990s indicates net economic costs ranging between 2 3 of gnp annually these results are however particularly sensitive to the relatively undocumented changes taking place in the dependence of china s rapidly growing livestock sector on feed grains

revenge of the managers labor cost cutting and the paradoxical resurgence of managerialism in the shareholder value era 1984 to 2001 institutional changes associated with the rise of shareholder value capitalism have had seemingly contradictory effects on managers and managerialism in the united states economy financial critiqu

fair trade or trade fair international food trade and cross border macronutrient flows abstract this study examines global food trade from a nutritional perspective paying particular attention to its implications for food security in low income countries by describing food trade in terms of the quantities of three essential macronutrients carbohydrates lipids and proteins embedded in food the analysis goes beyond a simple description of trade values quantities or caloric content as is common in the literature furthermore the study provides estimates of the implicit price of each macronutrient their evolution over time and their implications in terms of north south food trade the data show that over the 1996 2014 period the volume of macronutrients exchanged on international markets has more than doubled with carbohydrates accounting for over 60 of trade flows but proteins and lipids growing at a faster pace proteins were found to be the most expensive macronutrient followed by lipids and carbohydrates in general macronutrients embedded in animal and processed products are more expensive than those in vegetal and unprocessed food the results also suggest that the participation in international food trade has positive effects on low income countries aggregate food availability and food access two pillars of food security indeed low income countries register a net inflow of all macronutrients and take advantage of nutritional arbitrages available on international food markets due to macronutrients price differentials

food self sufficiency making sense of it and when it makes sense food self sufficiency gained increased attention in a number of countries in the wake of the 2007 08 international food crisis as countries sought to buffer themselves from volatility on world food markets food self sufficiency is often presented in policy circles as the direct opposite of international trade in food and is widely critiqued by economists as a misguided approach to food security that places political priorities ahead of economic efficiency this paper takes a closer look at the concept of food self sufficiency and makes the case that policy choice on this issue is far from a straightforward binary choice between the extremes of relying solely on homegrown food and a fully open trade policy for foodstuffs it shows that in practice food self sufficiency is defined and measured in a number of different ways and argues that a broader understanding of the concept opens up space for considering food self sufficiency policy in relative terms rather than as an either or policy choice conceptualizing food self sufficiency along a continuum may help to move the debate in a more productive direction allowing for greater consideration of instances when the pursuit of policies to increase domestic food production may make sense both politically and economically

the dilemma of cheap food and self sufficiency the case of wheat in iran self sufficiency in wheat has been one of the major goals of iranian agricultural policies since the revolution of 1979 even so the country failed to achieve this goal by the early 2000s despite a satisfactory growth in wheat production this paper addresses this failure and the political difficulties in introducing reforms that would reduce the need for import first the production and consumption of wheat are examined the conclusion is that the cheap bread policy has mainly been responsible for the imbalances between domestic supply and demand and the continued reliance on wheat imports moreover the paper argues that the subsidy program is an expensive safety net for the needy and shows that the iranian government has intended to reform the program since the early 1990s however subsidy reforms are politically sensitive especially in developing countries where subsidies are considered very important both for supporting the poor and for political stability an analysis of the iranian attempts at subsidy reform suggests that they have not yet succeeded mainly due to such political considerations

are ceos really paid like bureaucrats a common view is that there is little correlation between firm performance and ceo pay using a new fifteen year panel data set of ceos in the largest publicly traded u s companies we document a strong relationship between firm performance and ceo compensation this relationship is generated almost entirely by changes in the value of ceo holdings of stock and stock options in addition we show that both the level of ceo compensation and the sensitivity of compensation to firm performance have risen dramatically since 1980 largely because of increases in stock option grants

china s past and future role in the grain trade china s grain production consumption and trade are key factors in the world grain market in the 1960s china emerged as a major wheat importer and observers expect this situation to continue mainly because china has 20 of the world s population but only 7 of the earth s arable land in the early 1980s china was the second largest importer of wheat in the world ranking behind the ussr china s wheat imports then dropped off sharply in the mid 1980s but rose again in the late 1980s and this trade behavior created much uncertainty surrounding its future role in the grain trade the purpose of this article is to analyze china s historical role in the world grain markets to study the impact of the 1979 economic reforms on china s grain production consumption and trade 2 and to evaluate the probable participation of china in the grain trade in future years china is so large that regional differences in climate level of development and growth rates in grain production are substantial because of this regional heterogeneity this article attempts a disaggregated analysis of china s grain economy

food in sub saharan africa trends and policy challenges for the 1990s abstract the food situation in africa can be expected to become increasingly serious as the end of the century approaches the gap between domestic supply and food needs in rapidly widening yield increasing technology becomes essential in view of land scarcity in high potential areas and sustainability problems in marginal zones the concern of governments for food self sufficiency however must not divert attention from the primary objective of household food security which is essentially a question of households real income accelerated rural growth and improved rural health and sanitation services accessible to the poor are central elements for household food security improvement

sadcc food security strategies evolution and role abstract over the last seven years the scope of strategies promoted by the sadcc food security program has broadened steadily at first there was an almost complete preoccupation with food production the program now includes projects related to cereal market stabilization regional trade and food aid most recently consumption objectives have been made an explicit concern of the program this paper traces the evolution of policy underlying this expansion of interest cooperation between sadcc member states rests on the principle that more can be achieved by joint effort than by individual states acting alone however experience to date suggests that it is easier to define the benefits of regional collaboration than to capture them the sadcc food security program requires technical and financial capacity in order to pursue its objectives but the success of collaborative ventures rests to a more critical extent on the level of confidence which exists among member states

does firm size matter anymore the new economy and firm size wage effects researchers have long known that large firms pay higher wages than small firms for workers with similar measured characteristics however an agreed upon explanation for this firm size wage effect fswe has not been reached recent changes in the economy provide new leverage for testing competing theories for the effect while questions about the existence and nature of the new economy provide new motivation for exploring this topic this study uses the 1988 2003 current population survey and finds that the fswe has declined by about one third over the study period examining the competing explanations for the fswe this study finds that while the sorting of workers by traits unions and industry factors all contribute to some portion of the effect in cross section they fail to explain why it has declined over time market power explanations also fail to find support shifts in organizational structures particularly a decline of internal labor markets appear to best fit the results these findings

consumption patterns and their effects on land required for food abstract vast amounts of land are required for the production of food but the area suitable for growing crops is limited in this paper attention is paid to the relationship between food consumption patterns and agricultural land requirements land requirements per food item that were determined in a previous study are combined with data on the per capita food consumption of various food packages varying from subsistence to affluent leading to information on land requirements for food large differences could be shown in per capita food consumption and related land requirements while food consumption expenditure and the physical consumption of specific foods change rapidly over time a difference of a factor of two was found between the requirements for existing european food patterns while the land requirement for a hypothetical diet based on wheat was six times less than that for an existing affluent diet with meat it is argued that in the near future changes in consumption patterns rather than population growth will form the most important variable for total land requirements for food trends towards the consumption of foods associated with affluent lifestyles will bring with them a need for more land lifestyle changes changes in consumer behavior on a household level can be considered as powerful options to reduce the use of natural resources such as agricultural land

chapter 11 pricing models in marketing publisher summary this chapter brings together a set of diverse efforts in the recent literature on the modeling of price decisions and related questions in marketing there has been an impressive growth in the array of topics investigated in the literature various trends in the development of pricing models are evident from the foregoing review first one trend has been to develop theoretical models to describe observed pricing strategies in the marketplace and to derive conditions under which certain strategies are optimal this trend is clearly evident when one considers the area of dynamic pricing models another trend is an attempt to develop pricing models in which certain aspects of consumer behavior e g asymmetric response to price increases versus price decreases are incorporated this development is quite recent and does offer a large potential a third dominant direction is the use of game theoretic models for developing equilibrium pricing strategies

through the contested terrain implementation of downsizing announcements by large u s firms 1984 to 2005 since the 1980s leading u s firms have announced massive downsizing plans in the name of maximizing shareholder value but some observers are skeptical about how serious firms are in implementing

the rise of finance and firm employment dynamics this article sheds light on the ongoing employment stagnation in the united states by investigating the links between the rise of finance and firm employment dynamics during the 1982 2005 period i argue that the rise of finance marginalized the role of labor in revenue generating and sharing processes which led to employment stagnation among the largest nonfinancial firms in the united states evidence suggests that increasing investment in financial assets depresses the workforce size the growing dependence on debt reprioritizes the order of distribution heightening the need for workforce reduction the increasing rewards for shareholders generate a downsize and distribute spiral in which labor expense becomes a primary target of cost cutting strategies further analysis indicates that production and service workers are more vulnerable to shifts associated with the rise of finance than managers and professionals

effect of product line pricing characteristics on product evaluations examining the issue of product line pricing from a behavioral perspective this article reports an investigation of the relationship between the price structure of a product line and consumers evaluations of a product model within the line a 2 2 4 factorial design utilizing multiple dependent variables was conducted and replicated to test hypotheses derived from behavioral research results indicate that while the price characteristics of a product line influence consumer evaluations of a product model within the line the price characteristics do not operate independently rather they interact further the research suggests that several dependent variables that are usually considered separately in price research are actually dimensions of similar constructs