bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of the Statistical Properties of Financial Variables in the USA, UK and Germany over the Business Cycle
Authors: Andreou Elena , Osborn Denise R. , Sensier Marianne
Published: March 2003

This paper presents business cycle stylized facts for the US, UK and German economies. We examine whether financial variables (interest rates, stock market price indices, dividend yields and monetary aggregates) predict economic activity over the business cycle, and we investigate the nature of any non‐linearities in these variables. Leading indicator properties are examined using cross‐correlations for both the values of the variables and their volatilities. Our results imply that the most reliable leading indicator across the three countries is the interest rate term structure, although other variables also appear to be useful for specific countries. The volatilities of financial variables may also contain predictive information for production growth as well as production volatility. Non‐linearities are uncovered for all financial series, especially in terms of autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity effects. Strong evidence of mean non‐linearity is also found for many financial series and this can be associated with business cycle asymmetries in the mean. This is the case for a number of American and British financial variables, especially interest rates, but the corresponding evidence for Germany is confined largely to the real long‐term rate of interest.
A Bayesian Analysis of Structural Changes with an Application to the Displacement Effect
Authors: Kozumi Hideo , Hasegawa Hikaru
Published: March 2003

In this paper we propose a new approach to the problem of structural change from a Bayesian point of view. Our approach is based on a hierarchical model with a Dirichlet process prior. A notable feature of the Dirichlet process is its discreteness which is useful for detecting structural changes. The approach developed in the paper is illustrated using simulated and real data sets. For the real data set, we examine possible structural changes in government expenditure in Japan using the annual data from 1957 to 1995. It is shown that two structural breaks occurred, before and after the first oil crisis.
Uncertainty and the Effectiveness of Monetary and Fiscal Policies
Authors: Choi E. Kwan , Beladi Hamid
Published: March 2003

This paper integrates the decision making of a firm facing production uncertainty into the theory of aggregate supply. This integration has two important policy implications. First, if the aggregate demand is not unitary price elastic, the presence of uncertainty reduces the aggregate supply, whether producers are risk neutral or risk averse. Second, given the assumption of decreasing absolute risk aversion an increase in interest rate reduces the aggregate supply, and hence the presence of production uncertainty reduces the effectiveness of fiscal policy whereas it increases that of monetary policy for affecting income.
Uncertainty, Strategic Decision‐making and the Essence of the Modern Corporation: Extending Cowling and Sugden
Authors: Dunn Stephen P.
Published: March 2003

This paper makes a positive contribution to Cowling and Sugden’s recent work on the theory of the firm. We focus on their novel definition of the firm as a ‘means of coordinating production from one centre of strategic decision‐making’. We extend this definition to account for the fact that strategic decision‐makers engaged in the coordination of production operate under conditions of ‘fundamental uncertainty’. The significance of such an extension is that it avoids many of the problems associated with Cowling and Sugden’s framework while reinforcing their main conclusions and providing a technical definition of the concept of strategy.
Depreciation Rates and Capital Stocks
Authors: Abadir Karim , Talmain Gabriel
Published: March 2003

Suppose we have observations ranging over t=0,1,...,T on real net investment and on real gross investment . We derive a method of calculating the depreciation rate for each of the periods and of estimating ‘the’ implied net capital stock . We then provide empirical examples of the procedure and analyse the results.
Portfolio diversification and excess comovement in commodity prices
Authors: Garrett Ian , Taylor Nick
Published: March 2003

We examine excess comovement in commodity prices and the extent to which this can be explained by the role of commodities in portfolio diversification. We estimate the proportion of investor wealth that should be allocated to commodities in order to maximize expected utility over time and examine whether periods of significant investment in commodities are correlated with excess comovement in commodity prices. Using the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index we find that commodities should form a large part of the optimal portfolios of US investors. However, while this result is robust to the level of risk aversion, it is not robust to the time period considered. We find that commodities only offer statistically significant increases in expected utility during the commodity booms of the early 1970s and the early 1990s. Interestingly, the significance of the commodity weight in the optimal portfolio corresponds to periods when there is also excess comovement in unrelated commodity prices. These findings suggest that commodities per se are treated as an investment class and apparently irrational excess comovement in commodity prices occurs when it is optimal for investors to hold commodities in their portfolios.
Can Fiscal Policy Improve Welfare in a Small Dependent Economy with Feedback Effects?
Authors: Costa Luís
Published: March 2003

I develop an intertemporal general equilibrium two‐sector model for a small dependent economy. Firms in the non‐tradable‐good sector are assumed to be large, both at the industry and the economy levels, and to compete over quantities. The exchange rate is fixed and financial capital is perfectly mobile. I study the effects of government purchases of goods on the macroeconomic short‐ and long‐run equilibria when entry is possible. Sufficient conditions for welfare improvement are also derived.
Testing For Government Intertemporal Solvency: A Smooth Transition Error Correction Model Approach
Authors: Cipollini Andrea
Published: March 2003

Applied macroeconomists have tested for the government intertemporal solvency condition by either testing for linear stationarity in the total government deficit series or testing for linear cointegration between total government spending and total tax revenues. A number of authors have focused, in particular, on structural breaks in the government deficit process. In this paper, we use a smooth transition error correction model to test and estimate a shift in the adjustment toward a linear cointegration relationship between the government spending to output ratio and the total tax revenues to output ratio. Estimation results show that government authorities react only to large (in absolute value) changes in the government spending to output ratio. Residual diagnostic tests are provided and they show that the model is not misspecified.
Monopoly versus R&D‐integrated Duopoly
Authors: Amir Rabah , Nannerup Niels , Stepanova Anna , Eguiazarova Eline
Published: March 2003

In the standard two‐stage framework of R&D/product market competition, this paper provides a performance comparison between monopoly and the cartelized research joint venture, using two well‐known models based on different versions of the R&D spillover process. According to the model with a wider scope of application, monopoly always leads to a higher propensity for R&D and, when R&D costs are low, to the best overall market performance. The results also allow for a comparison between the two underlying models of strategic R&D.
Inflation Targets as a Stabilization Device
Authors: Mahadeva Lavan , Sterne Gabriel
Published: March 2003

We highlight important aspects and consequences of using inflation targets during disinflation. Our illustrative theoretical model suggests annual revisions to short run are larger when the target is undershot than when the target is overshot. We confirm the result using cross–country panel estimates from a unique data set of inflation target misses in 60 countries in the 1990s. During disinflation the decision to change the target and policy instrument may sometimes be difficult to separate. Such short–term targets may be more akin to conditional forecasts than policy rules, but their publication nevertheless increases transparency and hence helps policymakers to achieve lower inflation.
Foreign Direct Investment, Infrastructure and the Welfare Effects of Labour Migration
Authors: Barry Frank
Published: March 2003

A model of a small open economy with open capital and labour markets is presented. Labour demand is based on capital mobility and increasing returns in production. Migration decisions are based on the relative attractiveness of regions in terms of the stock of infrastructure, including its tax cost and the degree of congestion, and the level of wages prevailing. Equilibria are not Pareto efficient because individuals do not take account of the impact of their actions on the level of wages prevailing, the extent of the tax base to finance infrastructural provision, or the degree of congestion. The model generates new insights into a range of policy issues that surfaced over the course of the recent Irish boom.
Term Structure Models Driven by General Lévy Processes
Authors: Eberlein Ernst , Raible Sebastian
Published: March 2003

As a generalization of the Gaussian Heath–Jarrow–Morton term structure model, we present a new class of bond price models that can be driven by a wide range of Lévy processes. We deduce the forward and short rate processes implied by this model and prove that, under certain assumptions, the short rate is Markovian if and only if the volatility structure has either the Vasicek or the Ho–Lee form. Finally, we compare numerically forward rates and European call option prices in a model driven by a hyperbolic Lévy motion with those in the Gaussian model.
Risk‐Sensitive Control and an Optimal Investment Model
Authors: Fleming W. H. , Sheu S. J.
Published: March 2003

We consider an optimal investment model in which the goal is to maximize the long‐term growth rate of expected utility of wealth. In the model, the mean returns of the securities are explicitly affected by the underlying economic factors. The utility function is HARA. The problem is reformulated as an infinite time horizon risk‐sensitive control problem. We study the dynamic programming equation associated with this control problem and derive some consequences of the investment problem.
Optimal Financing of a Corporation Subject To Random Returns
Authors: Sethi Suresh P. , Taksar Michael I.
Published: March 2003

We consider the problem of finding an optimal financing mix of retained earnings and external equity for maximizing the value of a corporation in a stochastic environment. We formulate the problem as a singular stochastic control for a diffusion process. We show that the value function satisfies a free‐boundary problem. We characterize the value function and show that the optimal policy can be characterized in terms of two threshold parameters. With asset level below the lower threshold, optimal policy is to finance the firm's growth by retaining all earnings and raising the required external equity financing. With asset level above the higher threshold, optimal policy is to pay all retained earnings as dividends and to bring in no new equity. Between the two thresholds, the optimal policy is to retain all earnings but not raise any external equity. We obtain an explicit solution for the value function when there is no brokerage commission in floating external equity. We provide economic interpretations of the results obtained in the paper.
Feminism and Women's Autonomy: the Challenge of Female Genital Cutting
Authors: Tietjens Meyers Diana
Published: March 2003

Feminist studies of female genital cutting (FGC) provide ample evidence that many women exercise effective agency with respect to this practice, both as accommodators and as resisters. The influence of culture on autonomy is ambiguous: women who resist cultural mandates for FGC do not necessarily enjoy greater autonomy than do those women who accommodate the practice, yet it is clear that some social contexts are more conducive to autonomy than others. In this paper, I explore the implications for autonomy theory of these understandings of the relation between culture, FGC, and women’s agency. I review the range of worldwide FGC practices – including “corrective” surgery for “ambiguous genitalia” in Western cultures as well as the various initiation rites observed in some African and Asian cultures – and the diverse cultural rationales for different forms of FGC. I argue that neither latitudinarian, value‐neutral accounts of autonomy nor restrictive, value‐saturated accounts adequately explain women’s agentic position with respect to FGC. I then analyze a number of educational programs that have enhanced women's autonomy, especially by strengthening their introspection, empathy, and imagination. Such programs, which engage women's autonomy skills without exposing them to autonomy‐disabling cultural alienation, promote autonomy‐within‐culture. This understanding of autonomy as socially situated, however, entails neither endorsement of FGC nor resignation to its persistence.
Richard Rorty: Philosophy by Other Means
Authors: Margolis Joseph
Published: March 2003

Richard Rorty’s argumentative strategy – variously termed “pragmatist,”“postmodernist,” and “postphilosophical”– is examined in some detail in the context of his treatment of philosophical issues in general and of the views of other philosophers in particular, for instance, Putnam, Davidson, Quine, Sellars, Dennett, and Frazer. Attention is paid particularly to the compatibility between pragmatist, “analytic,” and postmodernist modes of argument; Rorty’s “redescriptions” of alternative philosophical views; and the philosophical import of Rorty’s “abandonment” of philosophical argument.
The Global Scope of Justice
Authors: Gosepath Stefan
Published: March 2003

In this paper, I examine the question of the scope of justice, in a not unusual distributive, egalitarian, and universalistic framework. Part I outlines some central features of the egalitarian theory of justice I am proposing. According to such a conception, justice is – at least prima facie – immediately universal, and therefore global. It does not morally recognize any judicial boundaries or limits. Part II examines whether, even from a universalistic perspective, there are moral or pragmatic grounds for rejecting or limiting the global scope of justice. In particular, I scrutinize five universalistic objections: (1) the principle of “moral division of labor”; (2) the connection between cooperation and distributive justice; (3) the primacy of democracy; (4) the dangers of a world state; and (5) political‐pragmatic reasons. I intend to show that these objections cannot undermine the strong normative claims of global justice. At the most, political‐pragmatic reasons speak in favor of initially striving for somewhat less, in order to receive more general backing.
Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities and the Open Economy
Authors: Steedman Ian
Published: March 2003

The small open economy assumption cannot protect marginalist theory from the Sraffian critique. But a member of Sraffian ideas are not readily applicable in the open economy context.
1939–1958: Was Kaldor an Endogenist?
Authors: Rochon Louis‐Philippe
Published: March 2003

The place of monetary theory within Kaldor's contributions to economic theory has certainly received a considerable amount of attention. Recently, however, it has been implied that Kaldor introduced endogenous money as early as 1939, while conventional wisdom associates this concept with Kaldor's later contributions. This paper addresses this issue. It is argued that while Kaldor's views changed little from 1939 to 1958—the year when he presented his report to the Radcliffe Committee—they did not amount to a theory of money endogeneity. Rather, it is argued that his views were a variation on a monetarist theme, rather than its abandonment. His early views are then contrasted with his later theory, thereby emphasizing the important evolution in his approach to monetary theory.
Viability and Corridor Stability in Keynesian Supply‐Driven Growth
Authors: Flaschel Peter
Published: March 2003

In this paper we reconsider and generalize a two‐dimensional growth cycle model of Skott that is based on supply‐side adjustment mechanisms and a Kaldorian theory of income distribution. This model gives rise to degenerate Hopf bifurcations if behaviour (in terms of rates of growth) is linear close to the steady state. Furthermore full capacity limits lead to viable dynamics from the global point of view if the steady state is locally attracting and to corridor stability with persistent fluctuations when it is repelling. These findings can to some extent also be obtained for a three‐dimensional growth cycle extension of the Skott model, which includes real wage dynamics as in Rose's employment cycle, now turned into economically viable dynamics through appropriate non‐linearities in the assumed adjustment processes of output and prices in the case when the steady state is locally repelling.
A Generalized Oligopoly Model
Authors: Watt Richard
Published: March 2003

This paper generalizes and unifies the traditional quantity competition oligopoly models of Cournot and Stackelberg. Traditional oligopoly models predict that, under constant marginal costs, there will only be one market share (Cournot) or a single firm with a large market share and all others with the same market share (Stackelberg). Without altering the basic assumption set, in particular the assumptions of common marginal cost functions, perfect information and linear demand, the paper presents a general model that may be useful to explain many real‐life situations of oligopoly competition, where many different market shares may coexist. Finally, it is shown that certain existing social welfare results are robust to the generalization.
All That I Have to Say Has Already Crossed Your Mind
Authors: Koppl Roger , Barkley Rosser Jr J.
Published: March 2003

We present three arguments regarding the limits to rationality, prediction and control in economics, based on Morgenstern’s analysis of the Holmes–Moriarty problem. The first uses a standard metamathematical theorem on computability to indicate logical limits to forecasting the future. The second provides possible nonconvergence for Bayesian forecasting in infinite–dimensional space. The third shows the impossibility of a computer perfectly forecasting an economy with agents knowing its forecasting program. Thus, economic order is partly the product of something other than calculative rationality. The joint presentation of these existing results should introduce the reader to implications of these concepts for certain shared concerns of Keynes and Hayek.
The Politics of EPSDT Policy in the 1990s: Policy Entrepreneurs, Political Streams, and Children's Health Benefits
Authors: Sardell Alice , Johnson Kay
Published: March 2003

The Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program, which was designed to ensure that Medicaid‐eligible children receive comprehensive health services, is the only national attempt to provide a right to these services. The political factors that have shaped national EPSDT policy during the past decade are described, based on a conceptual framework developed by John W. Kingdon. The analysis focuses on the roles of two distinct sets of policy entrepreneurs: child health advocates and fiscally conservative governors. Their activities are described in relation to the larger political environment, or “political stream,” from the period of the expansion of Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women and children in the late 1980s to the enactment of a new State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) in 1997. The relative saliency of eligibility and benefit issues in children’s health policies had a major influence on the politics and outcomes.
How Good Is the Quality of Health Care in the United States?
Authors: Schuster Mark A. , McGlynn Elizabeth A. , Brook Robert H.
Published: March 2003

Studies over the past decade show that some people are receiving more care than they need, and some are receiving less. Simple averages from a number of studies indicate that 50 percent of people received recommended preventive care; 70 percent, recommended acute care; 30 percent, contraindicated acute care; 60 percent, recommended chronic care; and 20 percent, contraindicated chronic care. These studies strongly suggest that the care delivered in the United States often does not meet professional standards. Efforts to measure quality and report routinely on the results to the public at large would allow more definitive assessments of the status of the nation's health care and would enable us to single out the areas in need of improvement.
Purchasing Cooperatives for Small Employers: Performance and Prospects
Authors: Wicks Elliot K. , Hall Mark A.
Published: March 2003

Health insurance purchasing cooperatives were established in the early to mid‐1990s for the purpose of making health insurance more affordable and accessible for small employers. Extensive interviews at six cooperatives reveal that while some cooperatives enrolled large numbers of small employers, most have won only small market shares and a number have struggled for survival, not always successfully. They have allowed small employers to offer individual employees choice of health plans, but none has been able to sustain lower prices than are available in the conventional market. Among the important impediments to their success are limited support from health plans and conflicts over the role of insurance agents.
Theory and Practice in the Design of Physician Payment Incentives
Authors: Robinson James C.
Published: March 2003

Combining the economic literature on principal‐agent relationships with examples of marketplace innovations allows analysis of the evolution of methods for paying physicians. Agency theory and the economic principles of performance‐based compensation are applied in the context of imperfect information, risk aversion, multiple interrelated tasks, and team production efficiencies. Fee‐for‐service and capitation are flawed methods of motivating physicians to achieve specific goals. Payment innovations that blend elements of fee‐for‐service, capitation, and case rates can preserve the advantages and attenuate the disadvantages of each. These innovations include capitation with fee‐for‐service carve‐outs, department budgets with individual fee‐for‐service or “contact” capitation, and case rates for defined episodes of illness. The context within which payment incentives are embedded, includes such nonprice mechanisms as screening and monitoring and such organizational relationships as employment and ownership. The analysis has implications for health services research and public policy with respect to physician payment incentives.
Public Roles for the Medical Profession in the United States: Beyond Theories of Decline and Fall
Authors: Stevens Rosemary A.
Published: March 2003

The future role of national medical organizations as a moral voice in health policymaking in the United States deserves attention from both scholarly and strategic perspectives. Arguments for strengthening the public roles of organized professionalism include its long (if neglected) history of public service. Scholarship of the past 40 years has emphasized the decline of a profession imbued with self‐interest, together with associated hteories of organizational conflict. Through new concepts and language, a different version of organized medicine from that of the past might be invented for the future—one that draws on multiple medical organizations, encourages more effective cooperation with other health care groups, and builds on traditional professional agendas through adaptation and extension.
Evidence‐based Management: From Theory to Practice in Health Care
Authors: Walshe Kieran , Rundall Thomas G.
Published: March 2003

The rise of evidence‐based clinical practice in health care has caused some people to start questioning how health care managers and policymakers make decisions, and what role evidence plays in the process. Though managers and policymakers have been quick to encourage clinicians to adopt an evidence‐based approach, they have been slower to apply the same ideas to their own practice. Yet, there is evidence that the same problems (of the underuse of effective interventions and the overuse of ineffective ones) are as widespread in health care management as they are in clinical practice. Because there are important differences between the culture, research base, and decision‐making processes of clinicians and managers, the ideas of evidence‐based practice, while relevant, need to be translated for management rather than simply transferred. The experience of the Center for Health Management Research (CHMR) is used to explore how to bring managers and researchers together and promote the use of evidence in managerial decision‐making. However, health care funders, health care organizations, research funders, and academic centers need wider and more concerted action to promote the development of evidence‐based managerial practice.
The Veridicality Assumption
Authors: Harris Paul L.
Published: March 2003

Writers on cognitive development differ on whether children are naturally inclined to maintain a veridical conception of the world or whether such an inclination emerges only gradually in the course of development. In either case, however, it is assumed that there is a consistent premium on veridicality. I argue against that assumption. Three different contexts are examined in which successful cognitive performance depends on temporarily setting aside what is known to be the case: counterfactual thinking, syllogistic reasoning and the comprehension of connected discourse.
Consciousness and Higher‐Order Thoughts
Authors: Rowlands Mark
Published: March 2003

This paper argues that higher‐order thought (HOT) models of consciousness face serious logical problems. The precise form these problems take varies depending on whether HOT models are understood as attempts to explicate the concept of (intransitive state) consciousness or as attempts to identify the property in virtue of which mental states are (intransitively) conscious. Understood in the former way, HOT models face a problem of circularity. Understood in the latter way, such models face a problem of regress.
Social Cognition, Language Acquisition and The Development of the Theory of Mind
Authors: Garfield Jay L. , Peterson Candida C. , Perry Tricia
Published: March 2003

Theory of Mind (ToM) is the cognitive achievement that enables us to report our propositional attitudes, to attribute such attitudes to others, and to use such postulated or observed mental states in the prediction and explanation of behavior. Most normally developing children acquire ToM between the ages of 3 and 5 years, but serious delays beyond this chronological and mental age have been observed in children with autism, as well as in those with severe sensory impairments. We examine data from studies of ToM in normally developing children and those with deafness, blindness, autism and Williams syndrome, as well as data from lower primates, in a search for answers to key theoretical questions concerning the origins, nature and representation of knowledge about the mind. In answer to these, we offer a framework according to which ToM is jointly dependent upon language and social experience, and is produced by a conjunction of language acquisition with children's growing social understanding, acquired through conversation and interaction with others. We argue that adequate language and adequate social skills are jointly causally sufficient, and individually causally necessary, for producing ToM. Thus our account supports a social developmental theory of the genesis of human cognition, inspired by the work of Sellars and Vygotsky.

How are we to decide whether to take reason to be an essentially private thing that can, however, turn on a public display when it chooses to do so, or, like conversing, to be an essentially social skill, which can, however, be retained a while through periods of solitary confinement? (Annette Baier, The Commons of the Mind, p. 5).

The squirrel does not infer by induction that it is going to need stores next winter as well (Wittgenstein, On Certainty§ 287).

The problem of thought and language thus extends beyond the limits of natural science and becomes the focal problem of historical human psychology, i.e. of social psychology. Consequently, it must be posed in a different way (Vygotsky, Thought and Language, p. 51).

From the very first days of the child's development his activities acquire a meaning of their own in a system of social behaviour and, being directed towards a definite purpose, are refracted through the prism of the child's environment. The path from object to child and from child to object passes through another person. This complex human structure is the product of a developmental process deeply rooted in the links between individual and social history (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p. 30).
Truthfulness and Relevance in Telling The Time
Authors: Van Der Henst Jean–Baptiste , Carles Laure , Sperber Dan
Published: March 2003

Someone asked ‘What time is it?’ when her watch reads 3:08 is likely to answer ‘It is 3:10.’ We argue that a fundamental factor that explains such rounding is a psychological disposition to give an answer that, while not necessarily strictly truthful or accurate, is an optimally relevant one (in the sense of relevance theory) i.e. an answer from which hearers can derive the consequences they care about with minimal effort. A rounded answer is easier to process and may carry the same consequences as one that is accurate to the minute. Hence rounding is often a way of optimising relevance. Three simple experiments give support and greater precision to the view that relevance is more important than strict truthfulness in verbal communication.
Theories of Mind and ‘The Commonsense View’
Authors: Macdonald Cynthia
Published: March 2003

It is widely believed that people are sometimes directly aware of their own psychological states and consequently better placed than others to know what the contents of those states are. This (‘commonsense’) view has been challenged by Alison Gopnik. She claims that experimental evidence from the behaviour of 3– and 4–year–old children both supports the theory theory and shows that the belief in direct and privileged knowledge of one’s own intentional states is an illusion. I argue (1) that the experimental evidence is not inconsistent with the commonsense view and that Gopnik’s central thesis assumes a particularly crude perceptual account of self–knowledge to which that view is not committed, and (2) that the commonsense view is neutral as between the theory theory and other theories of mind.
Pointing at Jack, Talking about Jill: Understanding Deferred Uses of Demonstratives and Pronouns
Authors: Borg Emma
Published: March 2003

The aim of this paper is to explore the proper content of a formal semantic theory in two respects: clarifying first, which uses of expressions a formal theory should seek to accommodate, and, second, how much information the theory should contain. I explore these two questions with respect to occurrences of demonstratives and pronouns—the so–called ‘deferred’ uses—which are often classified as non–standard or figurative. I argue that, contrary to initial impressions, they must be treated as semantically identical to ordinary, perceptual uses of these expression–types, and that this finding has important repercussions for our view of the scope and limits of a semantic theory.
Microelectronics in the Clothing Industry: Firm Strategy and the Skills Debate
Authors: Lloyd Caroline
Published: March 2003

This article examines the impact of CAD/CAM on the UK clothing industry. It questions the extent to which computerisation has led to a greater choice over production strategy and argues that upskilling has not occurred.
‘Under the Clock’: Trade Union Responses to Cmputerised Control in US and Australian Grocery Warehousing
Authors: Wright Christopher , Lund John
Published: March 2003

In contrast to optimistic interpretations of contemporary work reorganisation, the example of computerised work monitoring in US and Australian grocery warehousing highlights a far more negative picture of work intensification, job stress and low trust relations. Despite significant variation in trade union response, the article argues such examples reinforce the need for strong and independent trade union regulation to limit the worst excesses of workplace rationalisation.
Management, technology and work in commercial broadcasting, c. 1979–98
Authors: McKinlay Alan , Quinn Brian
Published: March 2003

This article explores the relationship between management strategy, technological change and collective bargaining in the British commercial television industry. The demanning and deskilling potential of digital production technologies remained largely untapped until the second half of the 1980s. The termination of national collective bargaining that had regulated minimum crewing levels was the watershed in terms of work organisation.
Technology and the politics of change at work: the case of Dalebake Bakeries
Authors: Dawson Patrick , Gunson Nicky
Published: March 2003

A processual perspective is advocated in this article that develops a mutual shaping account of the relationship between technology and organization; and the case of Dalebake Bakeries is used to illustrate the importance of power and politics in understanding processes of change in the local reconfiguration of new technology at work.
Maintenance work, maintenance skills: the case of a major water company in the UK
Authors: Cooke Fang Lee
Published: March 2003

This article explores how maintenance work and the requirements of maintenance skills may have changed in a changing technological and organisational environment. A closer examination of the skill requirements for maintenance work in the case study firm has revealed a wider range of skill components than existing literature on maintenance skills has focused on. This paper argues that organisational change may lead to the requirement of new skills for maintenance work and that interpersonal skill may be an important skill element required.
The case for conserving oil resources: the fundamentals of supply and demand
Authors: Reynolds Douglas B.
Published: March 2003

This article summarises the evidence for an oil price shock and argues that oil producers, both OPEC and non‐OPEC, need to cut back oil production more, in order to conserve oil for the future and to avert sudden extreme movements in oil prices in the next five‐to‐ten years.

Four physical fundamentals determine long‐run changes in oil prices: supply, demand, technology and substitutes. We show that supply, technology and substitutes are limited and demand is growing strongly. As demand pushes against supply, prices will rise rapidly. It would be better to conserve oil now, in order to have a smoother transition to higher‐priced oil in the future.

In addition, oil is such a valuable resource for the worlds economies in general, that we should conserve it for future generations. The world, in its haste for economic growth, should support OPEC conservation efforts.
Women's Employment Transitions Around Childbearing
Authors: Dex Shirley , Joshi Heather , Macran Susan , McCulloch Andrew
Published: March 2003

The dynamics of women's labour supply are examined at a crucial stage of their lifecycle. This paper uses the longitudinal employment history records for the 3,898 33‐year‐old mothers in the Fifth Sweep of the 1958 National Child Development Study cohort in the United Kingdom. Models of binary recurrent events are estimated, which correct for unobserved heterogeneity, using SABRE software. These focus on women's first transition to employment after the first childbirth, and on the monthly transitions from first childbirth until censoring at the interview. Evidence of a polarization is found between highly educated, high‐wage mothers and lower‐educated, low‐wage mothers.
The Effect of School Size on Exam Performance in Secondary Schools
Authors: Bradley Steve , Taylor Jim
Published: March 2003

This paper investigates the relationship between school size and the exam performance of school pupils in their final year of compulsory education. Previous studies of this relationship have been seriously constrained by lack of appropriate data, but the publication of the School Performance Tables for all publicly‐funded schools in England since 1992 permits the construction and testing of a multivariate model which includes school size as one of the explanatory variables. After controlling for factors such as type of school, teaching inputs and eligibility for free school meals, the partial effects of school size on exam performance are estimated. The primary result is that there is a non‐linear relationship (in the form of an inverted‐U) between school size that maximizes the exam performance of schools is estimated to be about 1,200 for 11–16 schools and 1,500 for 11–18 schools. These estimates are considerably higher than the current mean size of schools.
New Men and New Women? A Comparison of Paid Work Propensities from a Panel Data Perspective
Authors: Booth Alison L. , Jenkins Stephen P. , Serrano Carlos Garcia
Published: March 2003

British Household Panel Survey data for waves 1–5 (1991–5) is used to compare paid work participation rates of men and women. Year‐on‐year persistence in paid work propensities is high, but greater for men than women. Non‐work persistence is higher for women. Using panel data probit regression models, we also investigate why men’s and women’s participation rates differ, comparing the roles of differences in observable characteristics and differences in rates of return to these characteristics, while also controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. Most of the difference in participation rates is accounted for by the differences in returns associated with the presence of children, especially young ones.
Multicointegration in Stock‐Flow Models
Authors: Engsted Tom , Haldrup Niels
Published: March 2003

Multicointegration, in the sense of Granger and Lee (1990), frequently occurs in models of stock‐flow adjustment and implies cointegration amongst I(2) variables and their differences (polynomial cointegration). The purpose of this article is two‐fold. First, we demonstrate that based on a multicointegrated vector autoregression (VAR) two equivalent error correction model (ECM) representations can be derived; the first is expressed in terms of adjustments in the flows of the variables (the standard I(2) ECM), and the second is expressed in terms of adjustments in both the stocks and the flows. Secondly, we apply I(2) estimation and testing procedures for multicointegrated time series to analyze data for US housing construction. We find that stocks of housing units started and completed exhibit poly‐ nomial cointegration (and hence the flows are multicointegrated) and the associated ECM’s are estimated. Lee (1992, 1996) also found multicointegration in this data set but without explicitly exploiting the I(2) property.
A Simple Artificial Regression Based Test of the Goodness of Fit of Binary Choice Models
Authors: Murphy Anthony
Published: March 2003

A test of the goodness of fit of a binary choice model is derived using the conditional moment testing approach. The test statistic may be calculated as the explained sum of squares or N:R2 in a simple artificial regression. The test statistic has reasonably good small sample properties since it is not based on the outer product gradient (OPG) form.
The Origins and Implications of the Breton Buckler Motif
Authors: Loveday Roy
Published: March 2003

The ‘buckler’ motif appears isolated in the naturalistic milieu of the earliest Breton art but there are problems with a symbolic interpretation. If instead it is considered in naturalistic terms it can be demonstrated to bear a close resemblance to a form of grain store made of straw rope that was used in parts of Ireland until this century. The likelihood of above ground grain storage in the Neolithic is considered and the potential archaeological evidence for such features is reviewed. Finally reasons are advanced for the motif being centred in the Morbihan region.
Bronze Age Field Systems in the Thames Valley
Authors: Yates David Thomas
Published: March 2003

In the last two decades excavation along the River Thames has shown the remarkable survival of Bronze Age field systems. A managed farming landscape emerged in this lowland area during the Middle Bronze Age and continued to develop until the end of the Late Bronze Age. In the latter period the field systems were divided into several regional groups in each of which there was a high status settlement and a concentration of river metalwork. They provide evidence for a predominantly pastoral economy in the Thames Valley on a scale which may have supported an increasingly hierarchical society. Settlements and field systems were abandoned during the Late Bronze Age, and by the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition new sites were largely confined to the extreme upper reaches of the Thames, an area which had been peripheral to the alliance and exchange system that had operated downstream.
New AMS Dates from the Lambourn Long Barrow and the Question of the Earliest Neolithic in Sourthern England: Repacking the Neolithic Package?
Authors: Schulting Rick J.
Published: March 2003

This paper reassesses the chronological status of the Lambourn long barrow, which has provided one of the earliest dates from a mortuary monument in Britain. Three new AMS dates on short‐lived material indicate that the construction and primary use phase of the monument lies within the period 3760–3645 cal BC, and that the earlier estimate obtained on charcoal (4555–3780 cal BC) is likely subject to the old wood effect, or is residual. This is followed by a consideration of the implications of the new dates in the context of the Mesolithic‐Neolithic transition, the timing of which remains poorly understood. It is argued that the evidence is increasingly pointing to a more rapid neolithization process, and that this had implications for the mechanisms involved.
The Tagus Middle Basin (Iberian Peninsula) from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (V‐I Millennium Cal. BC): The Long Way to Social Complexity
Authors: Muñoz Lóez‐Astilleros Kenia
Published: March 2003

This study is the result of surveys and excavations carried out in a selected area of the middle basin of the Tagus river (Southern Meseta, Iberian Peninsula). The analysis of palaeoecological data, material assemblages, settlement patterns, domestic structures, funerary evidence and socio‐economic context in the regional archaeological record from the Neolithic (5000 BC) to the beginning of the Iron Age (500 BC) allows us to identify several long‐term historic processes; particularly, two habitational, demographic and socio‐economic cycles, which contradict the traditional idea that the prehistory of inner Iberia presents almost no apparent change during these four millennia.
Brittany and the Atlantic Rim in the Later First Millennium BC
Authors: Cunliffe Barry
Published: March 2003

Recent work on the Iron Age of Brittany, in particular on the ceramics and the decorated stone stelae, has emphasized the distinctive nature of Armorican culture while demonstrating links with Continental Europe. We argue that it is possible to recognize changing axes of communication between the Atlantic faÂµade and more easterly areas first along the Loire, later along the Seine and finally, as the result of Greek exploration, along the Garonne. These changes are considered against the background of the developing socio‐economic systems of west central and Mediterranean Europe.
Olive oil production on bronze age Crete: nutritional properties, processing methods and storage life of Minoan olive oil
Authors: Riley F.R.
Published: March 2003

Archaeological studies on olive oil produced in Crete in the Bronze Age focus primarily on aspects such as the period when olive cultivation became widespread, the number of olive trees cultivated, or the quantity of oil stored in the Minoan palaces. Olive oil is however an organic substance, a perishable product, the nutritional and storage properties of which are determined by environmental, agronomic, processing and storage conditions. In this paper archaeological, environmental and biochemical evidence is combined to present a comprehensive picture of the potential quality, nutritional and storage properties of Minoan olive oil. The comparative evidence presented suggests that Minoan olive oil was equal in quality to the cold‐pressed virgin olive oils produced today, and as such, the oil was nutritionally important in the Bronze Age and a valuable trade commodity.
The China–United States Bilateral Trade Balance: How Big Is It Really?
Authors: Fung K. C. , Lau Lawrence J.
Published: March 2003

There are huge discrepancies between the official Chinese and US estimates of the bilateral trade balance. The discrepancies are caused by different treatments accorded to re‐exports through Hong Kong, re‐export markups, and trade in services. Deficit‐shifting between China, on the one hand, and Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the other, owing to direct investment in China from Taiwan and Hong Kong, is partly responsible for the growth in the China–US bilateral trade deficit. The 1995 China–US bilateral balance of trade in goods and services, adjusted by both re‐exports and re‐export markups, may be estimated as US$23.3 billion, a large deficit but considerably smaller than the often‐cited official US figure of US$33.8 billion.
Competition, Incentives, and Productivity in Chinese Township and Village Enterprises
Authors: Nugent Jeffrey B. , Perrigne Isabelle M. , Qiu Jicheng
Published: March 2003

Alternative explanations for the success of Chinese TVEs in the face of ambiguous property rights and incomplete markets are critically reviewed. The paper argues that, increasingly, competitive product markets and managerial incentives constitute the most plausible explanations. In view of the general lack of empirical tests for many of these explanations, the study tests for the relevance and relative importance of these factors with a sample of 200 large TVEs. Cross‐section results for 1985 and 1989 provide relatively strong support for the relevance of product market competition, bonuses, proxies for technology access and local infrastructure on productivity. The effects on productivity of proxies for labor market and financial market competition, however, appear to be weak.
Partial Communication in a Voluntary‐Contribution‐Mechanism Experiment
Authors: Kinukawa Shinya , Saijo Tatsuyoshi , Une Masashi
Published: March 2003

This paper presents results of a voluntary‐contribution‐mechanism experiment with partial communication. It was found that the trend of mean investments depended on whether a communication network was connected and on how fast all subjects could share information. When each subject could communicate with two other subjects and the network was connected, the mean investment increased from 33 percent to 58 percent of the optimal investment. On the other hand, when each subject could communicate with only one other subject and the network was not connected, the mean investment decreased from 34 percent to 19 percent of the optimal investment.