earnings effects of labor organizations in 1890 analyzing data from extensive surveys of u s nonfarm families in 1889 90 predominantly families from eastern states the authors of this paper show that workers affiliated with labor organizations had earnings that were 22 percent higher than the earnings of other workers an effect comparable in magnitude to estimates for modern unions wage differentials varied considerably across the eight industries studied and across skill levels within each industry

the direction of developing country trade empirical evidence of differences between south south and south north trade abstract declining market opportunities in northern markets led to views that greater south south trading might provide an alternative growth stimulus this paper analyses the characteristics of south south trade in manufactures and recent changes in the level of such trade to help clarify the potential of greater self reliance within the south south south trade is found to be more intensive in the use of both physical and human capital hence less rational from the static comparative advantage viewpoint than south north trade there is indirect but strong evidence that exporting countries with greatest orientation towards the south are those with greater distortions less rapid movements up the ladder of comparative advantage and weaker export performance finally it is observed that the recent boom in south south trade is largely explained by simple market size effects very rapid growth of rich oil exporters and the faster gnp growth of developing compared to developed countries the paper concludes that while south south trade of about the present magnitude one of greater developing country exports is certainly rational there is little evidence to support views that greater south south trade should be especially promoted arguments of dynamic comparative advantage may favor south south trade but so far these have been more speculative and not yet well researched empirically

taxes and bank capital structure this paper shows that a reduction in tax discrimination between debt and equity funding leads to better capitalized financial institutions the paper exploits exogenous variation in the tax treatment of debt and equity created by the introduction of a tax shield for equity the results demonstrate that a more equal treatment of debt and equity increases bank capital ratios driven by an increase in common equity the change also leads to a significant reduction in risk taking for ex ante low capitalized banks overall the findings suggest that tax shields could be a valuable and innovative policy tool for bank regulators

rewards to academia the remuneration of vice chancellors and principals this paper models the financial remuneration to vice chancellors and principals at uk higher education institutions after describing the alternative theoretical underpinnings for the determination of pay an earnings function is estimated utilizing institutional and personal characteristics the model suggests only a partial linkage of managerial and performance related indicators to remuneration levels this suggests substantial scope for reorientation of rewards towards such indicators rather than relying on an efficiency wage this would appear particularly appropriate given the present and continued disclosure of this information together with the increased focus on performance indicators relating to teaching and research within the uk higher education sector

towards a new trade policy between the usa and middle east countries estimating trade resistance and export potential at the time of the conclusion of free trade areas ftas between the usa and middle east and north african mena countries there is a lack of literature concerning the measurement of the current us export position with regards to these countries and the us export potential in this area from recent developments of gravity models this paper derives an estimable equation which includes various trade resistance variables notably border effects multilateral resistance as well as specific bilateral effects the model is tested in order to scrutinise the impact of these variables on us exports to mena countries as well as the us export potential in this area to that end a selection of panel data specifications is proposed mainly hausman and taylor models as well as arellano and bond dynamic models results unambiguously indicate that as compared to the other oecd countries the usa suffers from a substantial trade integration deficit with mena countries this is reflected by the strongly negative values of the us mena bilateral fixed effects as well as the high bilateral border effects in addition the estimated actual potential us export ratio to these countries is only 0 76 therefore implementing an fta between the usa and mena countries may allow the former to progressively improve its export position in this area this would also help mena countries diversify their supplying sources

do corporations sell houses for less a test of housing market efficiency this paper examines the popular notion that houses sold by corporations as a part of the employee relocation process sell at a discount we argue that such discounts conradict the notion of an efficient market in which indentical houses have the same expected sales price we test for corporate individual owned house price homogeneity using data from a metropolitan area in the us the evidence supports our single price hypothesis corporate houses do not sell for less than they would if sold by individuals

the market valuation of the fgis grain quality characteristics the issue addressed in this paper is whether the grain quality factors used by the federal grain inspection service in determining the quality grades of wheat exported by the united states including test weight dockage moisture content percentage of foreign material percentage of shrunken and broken kernels and protein content are characteristics that influence the price of wheat for export using shiplot data on the transactions price for hard red winter wheat hard red spring wheat and soft white wheat and the associated quality characteristics covering the period january 1990 to october 1991 and exported to 63 countires the results suggest that only the test weight and the protein content are characteristics consistently valued by the market

labour productivity in the british and south wales coal industry 1874 1914 naked to the waist hot and grimy with labour they squatted on their heels for a few minutes and talked seeing each other dimly by the light of the safety lamps while the black coal rose jutting around them and the props of wood stood like little pillars in the low black very dark temple the day passed pleasantly enough there was an ease a go asyou please about the day underground a delightful camaraderie of men shut off alone from the rest of the world in a dangerous place and a variety of labour holing loading timbering and a glamour of mystery and adventure in the atmosphere d h lawrence 1955 the above quote from d h lawrence while perhaps over emphasizing glamour and adventure illustrates one important aspect of colliery work the intensity of a collier s effort was primarily self imposed it was the work intensity combined with other factors that determined labour productivity in the coal mines a number of articles have addressed the problem of labour productivity in coalmining during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries two of the most important being a j taylor s 1961 examination of productivity and technological change in britain and r h walters 1975 analysis of the same topic for south wales 1 in addition there is a rich and growing literature on the broader problem of the existence of a climacteric a downward shift in the performance of the british economy in the late nineteenth century often attributed to the failure of british entrepreneurs as represented by their seeming unwillingness to adopt the best available techniques of production 2 the purpose of this paper is to specify and estimate an empirical model of labour productivity in coalmining as well as to provide some suggestive evidence regarding the performance of entrepreneurs in this major industry 3 we believe our results provide added insight into the determination of labour productivity during this period lending support to those who argue that the failure of british entrepreneurs has yet to be proved while providing mixed evidence regarding conclusions drawn by economic historians

valuation of the quality characteristics of japanese soybean imports the implicit prices of the physical and intrinsic characteristics of soybeans exported by the united states are estimated the results suggest that the us grades and standards assigned to a shipment either do not provide information valued by the market or the existence of us grades and standards has resulted in the definition of a standard of quality that is met by all exporters additionally in japan there are two identifiable soybean markets a premium food bean market and a crushing market the soybeans going into the food market for processing can be identified by their lower oil content lower percentage of split and damaged beans and a lower amount of foreign material as well as smaller shipment sizes

the integration of the market for soybeans and soybean products abstract this article addresses the question of whether soybeans soybean meal and soybean oil produced in the usa and exported were part of a single world geographic market during the decade of the 1980s an answer to this question is sought using an approach to defining a geographic market based on the notion of instantaneous causality the empirical results based on prices for soybeans soybean meal and soybean oil for three spatially diffuse locations suggest that there was but a single identifiable world market for these commodities over the period of study this has implications for the continued presence of soybean production subsidies and discussions on international agreements designed to reduce or eliminate these subsidies

paying for mitigation a multiple country study a contingent valuation study conducted in china sweden and the united states was used to investigate citizens willingness to pay wtp for reducing co2 emissions we find that a majority of the respondents in all three countries believe that the mean global temperature has increased over the last 100 years and that humans are responsible for the increase the share of americans that believes these statements is smaller and a relatively larger share of americans also believes that nothing can be done to stop climate change sweden has the highest wtp while china has the lowest jel q51 q54

when quality signals talk evidence from the turin hotel industry abstract this study analyzes the relationship between quality signals and price setting through the application of hedonic price functions the model proposals also include variables relating to land use policies and tourism development strategies a simultaneous equation model endogenously estimates quality signals this method is appropriate for analyzing emerging urban destinations as characterized by the presence of an expanding hotel industry the results are based on a dataset of 145 hotels in turin italy the empirical findings reveal that reputation based quality signals help explain tariff levels price proposals also include a premium for quality assured hotels defining some limits of the current hotel classification system the empirical evidence has significant marketing implications for the hospitality industry s competitiveness since the results clarify the impact of quality signals on price level

trade policy and distortions in intra asian trade this paper analysis wheather the level of tariffs and non tariff barriers affect the pattern of inter industry trade within asia the heckscher ohlin theorem is based on the assumption of efficient resource allocation however markets in many developing countries protect the domestic production by trade barriers we would therefore expect the pattern of production and trade not to reflect comparative advantages perfectly it is found that import charges and non tariff barriers have a significant positive impact on capital intensities in net export

comparative advantage in manufactured goods a re appraisal japanese input coefficients are used to investigate the pattern of comparative advantage in the exportation of manufactured products in a cross country framework estimates are made for the imports of manufactured products as well as for net exports also alternative techniques of estimation are utilized and an attempt to explain the residuals in the regression equations and to indicate the predictive power of these equations is made the paper shows that patterns of comparative advantage in manufactured goods can be explained by reference to commodity characteristics and country characteristics in turn intercountry differences in the extent of trade orientation the concentration of exports and foreign direct investment explain part of the residuals of the cross country regression equations finally it has been found that the method applied permits projecting the factor intensity of trade for individual countries

effectiveness of rca institutions to limit local externalities using foreclosure data to test covenant effectiveness residential community associations rcas are said to be an efficient institutional agreement to limit local spillovers while several studies have identified a positive marginal effect of rca rules none have explicitly measured the effectiveness of these institutions to limit local externalities this study measures this effectiveness by estimating how the direct and spillover price impacts caused by foreclosure differ by rca status using a spatial hedonic model that controls for selection bias using propensity score methods and coarsened exact matching we find that foreclosed rca properties experience smaller direct foreclosure discounts and produce smaller spill over effects than their non rca counterparts

end use performance uncertainty and competition in international wheat markets the input characteristic model icm is expanded in this paper to account for technical coefficient uncertainty the model is used to analyze effects of price and quality on competition in the u k wheat import market results are used to identify critical quality characteristics and impacts of technical coefficient uncertainty on import demand the expected values for most characteristics of u s wheat have greater variances than those of canadian wheat results show that both the characteristic s level and variance are important in determining import market shares

look who s talking the impacts of the intrahousehold allocation of mobile phones on agricultural prices abstract using data from the philippines we study the impact of mobile phones on the prices agricultural producers receive for their cash crop we first look at the impact on price of mobile phone ownership at the household level because this masks a considerable amount of heterogeneity we then look at the impact on price of the intrahousehold allocation of mobile phones we find that whether the household owns a mobile phone has no impact on price but whether a farmer or spouse owns a mobile phone is associated with a 5 to 8 per cent increase in price

unions industrial concentration and wages a re examination market structure or industrial concentration has long been recognized as an important influence on industrial output employment and profits it has also been recognized that some proportion of the profits from concentration may be diverted into wages through collective bargaining yet the precise nature of these relationships has received little attention although it has important implications for the evaluation of wage structure and the welfare loss arising from monopoly empirical studies of the impact of unions and industrial concentration on wages weiss 1966 jones and laudadio 1975 dalton and ford 1977 long and link 1983 follow a similar format after a brief verbal justification for the ability of unions to win higher wage increases when the employer is earning oligopoly profits these studies specify a wage equation of the general form

payment source and the cost of hospital care evidence from a multiproduct cost function with multiple payers abstract this study investigates the capacity of hospitals to vary the intensity of their services based on patients expected sources of payment while the concept of price discrimination by hospitals based on payer generosity cost shifting has been discussed extensively the notion that hospitals can adjust payer specific marginal costs to reflect differences in reimbursement policies has not been studied in depth to examine this issue this analysis employs a multiproduct cost function with hospital outputs defined as admissions by payment source controlling for the distribution and severity of illness casemix for each payer marginal costs of casemix adjusted discharges are obtained and compared for medicare medicaid private payers and a residual category that includes uncompensated care we find that indeed payer specific marginal costs generally reflect payer generosity

hedonic prices for a nondurable good the case of breakfast cereals numerous studies have estimated hedonic price functions for durable goods in this paper the authors apply the methodology to breakfast cereals a nondurable good they employ maximum likelihood to estimate the hedonic price functions using data from three large supermarkets the price function depends on characteristics that provide taste nutrition and convenience to consumers and the estimates yield insights into pricing policies consumer preferences and consumer use of information copyright 1991 by mit press