Labour Market Regulation,Flexibility and Employment

ABSTRACT: Chronic unemployment and slow employment growth in some countries have led to calls for more labor-market “flexibility”. This paper defines the flexibility issue in terms of legally-mandated “severance”, a generalized employment cost linked to seniority. A mandated severance benefit can stand for a variety of programs including employer-provided employment guarantees, payments which must be made to laid-off workers, and compensation for wrongful discharge. Such a mandated cost can be seen as a payroll tax on the employer, raising the issue of tax incidence. Employers often take the view that labor costs are given and that mandated costs are simply add-ons to pre-existing cost levels. However, the literature on tax incidence suggests that a significant portion of “employer-paid” payroll taxes are shifted to labor in the form of lower wages. Such shifting should reduce the dis-employment effects attributed to severance. A model is provided of a firm upon which a severance mandate is imposed. Even at the micro level, the firm can shift some of the cost of severance to employees by lowering wages — although at the expense of higher turnover costs associated with increased quit rates. At the macro level, to the extent that firms reduce employment, there could be still further downward wage adjustments which would shift the severance burden to labor and mitigate the dis-employment effect. Ultimately, if the natural rate of unemployment is raised by severance mandates, the age-old question is raised of why wages do not fall in the face of labor surpluses. The true inflexibility to be explained, therefore, is in wage determination.     

Energy modelling for technology assessment: the MARKAL approach

The primary objective of energy policy in many countries is to change the structure of their energy systems so as to reduce the dependence on imported oil. A large amount of funds is spent on energy research and development. The technologies competing for such funds have widely varying characteristics. These relate to costs and benefits, technical performance, environmental effects, the requirements for land, water and materials and the impact on employment. It is necessary to analyse these effects in some detail before decisions on technology programmes can be made. A complete assessment of the possible value of a particular technology cannot be made on an individual basis. It is necessary to consider many technologies simultaneously, competing against each other for various shares of the energy market. However, analysing the behaviour of the entire energy system requires the handling of an extensive amount of data and can only be done effectively with the help of a computerised system. The model, MARKAL, described in this paper is a multi-period linear programming model which has been developed and applied by 15 OECD countries for the purpose of energy technology research and development planning. Examples of the use of the model for this purpose are given both for the group as a whole and for individual countries. The model is structured so that an exogenously specified set of end-use demands must be satisfied given available technologies and energy supplies. The model allows for substitution possibilities in both the energy supply and demand sectors. A feature of the model is the use of varying objective functions such as minimum discounted costs, oil imports, or environmental effluents. These can be used individually or in combination in trade-off situations. The broader question of the use of energy modelling for technology assessment, including its limitations, is also discussed with particular reference to the insights that can be gained from the MARKAL model. Information from the MARKAL model has been used by the International Energy Agency to assist it in formulating a strategy for energy research development and demonstration.     

A managerial and personal control model: predictions of work alienation and organizational commitment in Hungary

This article examines the influence of managerial and personal control upon work-related alienation and organizational commitment in the Eastern-European nation of Hungary. The research identifies the extent to which Western management theory and practices are relevant to transitional economic nations such as Hungary. We chose leadership and job characteristics as managerial control mechanisms and locus of control as a personal mechanism of control. These categories of control variables have well-established associations to attitudes and behaviors in the Western management literature, but limited evidence has been generated in Hungary. A survey among 395 Hungarian workers in five companies found that leadership, job characteristics, and individual locus of control explained work-related alienation but did not explain organizational commitment. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Alliance governance choices: Disentangling the effects of uncertainty and alliance experience

This article analyses the interaction between alliance experience and behavioural uncertainty to improve our understanding of alliance governance. We investigate the extent to which the effect of alliance experience on governance choices is explained by a reduction in “mundane” transaction costs or by a reduction in “opportunistic” transaction costs. Based on more than 12,000 firm experiences with equity and non-equity alliances, we demonstrate a reduction in mundane transaction costs over time by firms reusing the same governance structure in successive alliances. We also find that in high behavioural uncertainty alliances, firms rely on their experience as a substitute for equity governance to reduce opportunistic transaction costs.     

基于临界价格的易变质产品生产企业 RFID技术投资决策

RFID技术可以优化易变质产品的流通速度,降低变质率对该类企业收益的影响。现代市场是开放型的系统,然而当前RFID技术投资成本过高,因此迫切需要研究开放系统下不同成本的易变质产品生产企业投资RFID技术的可行性。本文建立了不同成本易变质产品生产企业未投资RFID技术时的竞争博弈价格模型和合作博弈价格模型,分析了变质产品数量对产品定价的影响,得出竞合模式下保持企业较高收益且对新企业不产生吸引力的临界价格。在临界价格基础上,分析了投资RFID技术对易变质产品生产企业收益的影响,得出企业可承担的最大RFID标签成本,为该类企业RFID技术的投资提供了科学决策的依据。最后,通过数值模拟分析验证了所建立的模型。     

Selection and Comparative Advantage in Technology Adoption

This paper investigates an empirical puzzle in technology adoption for developing countries: the low adoption rates of technologies like hybrid maize that increase average farm profits dramatically. I offer a simple explanation for this: benefits and costs of technologies are heterogeneous, so that farmers with low net returns do not adopt the technology. I examine this hypothesis by estimating a correlated random coefficient model of yields and the corresponding distribution of returns to hybrid maize. This distribution indicates that the group of farmers with the highest estimated gross returns does not use hybrid, but their returns are correlated with high costs of acquiring the technology (due to poor infrastructure). Another group of farmers has lower returns and adopts, while the marginal farmers have zero returns and switch in and out of use over the sample period. Overall, adoption decisions appear to be rational and well explained by (observed and unobserved) variation in heterogeneous net benefits to the technology.     

基于智能电网技术的能源网络供应链买电策略研究

智能电网的提出不仅是电网技术本身发展的需要，更是各国能源和经济发展战略层面的需要。可再生能源作为清洁能源的突出代表，其分布式发电系统是智能电网发展的必然趋势。但是，由于天气等因素导致的可再生能源高度不确定性和间歇性却给智能电网系统的稳定带来很大挑战。为了应对这一挑战，并发挥可再生能源的成本优势，本文从微观运营的角度，研究带有可再生能源供给的"多对多"能源网络供应链的买电决策问题，求得能源集成商的最优买电量，以及能源短缺成本、发电厂产能、可再生能源不确定性等参数对最优解的影响。本文发现，发电厂产能对能源集成商使用可再生能源的策略有直接影响。并且，可再生能源产能较大的能源集成商因为规避不确定性风险反而会提高买电量。本文的结论能帮助智能电网节省用电成本，为实现节约型、可靠型和稳定型电网系统提供一定参考。     

Risk-Management and Risk-Analysis-Based Decision Tools for Attacks on Electric Power

Incident data about disruptions to the electric power grid provide useful information that can be used as inputs into risk management policies in the energy sector for disruptions from a variety of origins, including terrorist attacks. This article uses data from the Disturbance Analysis Working Group (DAWG) database, which is maintained by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), to look at incidents over time in the United States and Canada for the period 1990-2004. Negative binomial regression, logistic regression, and weighted least squares regression are used to gain a better understanding of how these disturbances varied over time and by season during this period, and to analyze how characteristics such as number of customers lost and outage duration are related to different characteristics of the outages. The results of the models can be used as inputs to construct various scenarios to estimate potential outcomes of electric power outages, encompassing the risks, consequences, and costs of such outages.     

Informed Public Preferences for Electricity Portfolios with CCS and Other Low‐Carbon Technologies

Public perceptions of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and other low‐carbon electricity‐generating technologies may affect the feasibility of their widespread deployment. We asked a diverse sample of 60 participants recruited from community groups in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to rank 10 technologies (e.g., coal with CCS, natural gas, nuclear, various renewables, and energy efficiency), and seven realistic low‐carbon portfolios composed of these technologies, after receiving comprehensive and carefully balanced materials that explained the costs and benefits of each technology. Rankings were obtained in small group settings as well as individually before and after the group discussions. The ranking exercise asked participants to assume that the U.S. Congress had mandated a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants to be built in the future. Overall, rankings suggest that participants favored energy efficiency, followed by nuclear power, integrated gasification combined‐cycle coal with CCS and wind. The most preferred portfolio also included these technologies. We find that these informed members of the general public preferred diverse portfolios that contained CCS and nuclear over alternatives once they fully understood the benefits, cost, and limitations of each. The materials and approach developed for this study may also have value in educating members of the general public about the challenges of achieving a low‐carbon energy future.     

基于批量流的多阶段生产系统的优化问题研究

考虑一个多阶段生产系统,在每个阶段上生产批量被分成若干个子批量进行加工,子批量可以相等也可以不相等,同时每个阶段上在相邻子批量之间可以有空闲。每个阶段上子批量的数目可以不相等。文中首先以系统总变动成本为目标函数对这样一个系统建立对应的模型,提出了求解这一问题的启发式方法,通过数值算例验证了这一方法的有效性。此外,还讨论了重启成本、空闲成本和对应于子批量的调整成本对系统总变动成本、生产批量以及子批量数目的影响。     

OPTIMAL PROJECT SEQUENCING WITH RECOURSE AT A SCARCE RESOURCE

We develop a dynamic prioritization policy to optimally allocate a scarce resource among K projects, only one of which can be worked on at a time. When the projects' delay costs differ, the problem (a “restless bandit”) has not been solved in general. We consider the policy of working on the project with the highest expected delay loss as if the other project was completely finished first (although recourse is allowed). This policy is optimal if: (1) the delay cost increases with the delay regardless of the performance state, (2) costs are not discounted (or, discounting is dominated by delay costs), (3) projects are not abandoned based on their performance state during processing at the scarce resource, and (4) there are no stochastic delays. These assumptions are often fulfilled for processing at specialized resources, such as tests or one‐off analyses.     

From Global Knowledge Management to Internal Electronic Fences: Contradictory Outcomes of Intranet Development

This paper considers the adoption of intranet technology as a vehicle for encouraging organization-wide knowledge sharing within a large, global bank. Ironically, the outcome of intranet adoption was that, rather than integrate individuals across this particular organization, the intranet actually helped to reinforce the existing functional and national boundaries with 'electronic fences'. This could be partly explained by the historical emphasis on decentralization within the bank, which shaped and limited the use of the intranet as a centralizing, organization-wide tool. This is possible because the intranet can be described as an interactive and decentred technology, which therefore has the potential for multiple interpretations and effects. Thus, while the intranet is often promoted as a technology that enables processes of communication, collaboration and social coordination it also has the potential to disable such processes. Moreover, it is argued that to develop an intranet for knowledge-sharing requires a focus on three distinctive facets of development. These different facets may require very different, sometimes contradictory, sets of strategies for blending the technology and the organization, thus making it extremely difficult for a project team to work effectively on all three facets simultaneously. This was evidenced by the fact that none of the independent intranet-implementation projects considered actually managed to encourage knowledge-sharing as intended, even within the relatively homogeneous group for which it was designed. Broader knowledge-sharing across the wider organizational context simply did not occur even among those who were working on what were defined as 'knowledge management' projects. A paradox is that knowledge-sharing via intranet technologies may be most difficult to achieve in contexts where knowledge management is the key objective.     

Governance strategy and costs: board compensation in Sweden

Shareholders are not identical, but differ in their objectives and actions. One difference is the level of delegation of the principal functions to the board, which we suggest can be observed through the level of directors’ compensation. We analyze the difference in board compensation through the concept of governance strategy and suggest two distinct categories of shareholder strategies: the company governance strategy and the financial governance strategy. These strategies create different distributions of governance costs, which we separate into principal costs and agency costs. We claim that the financial governance strategy adopts a higher level of delegation, which implies that the principal costs are assumed by the corporation and that agency costs are higher. This in turn can explain the higher compensation for the directors of the board compared to compensation under the company governance strategy. We test our hypothesis using a three-year panel of Swedish listed corporations and find that shareholders pursuing a financial governance strategy are associated with higher levels of board compensation. These findings suggest the existence of differences in governance strategies, reflected in governance costs through board compensation, among different types of shareholders in a corporation.     

具有遗憾值约束的鲁棒供应链网络设计模型研究

考虑不确定性环境,研究战略层次的供应链网络鲁棒设计问题,目标是设计参数发生摄动时,供应链性能能够保持稳健性。基于鲁棒解的定义,建立从上游供应商选择到下游设施选址-需求分配的供应链网络设计鲁棒优化模型;提出确定遗憾值限定系数上限和下限的方法,允许决策者调节鲁棒水平,选择多种供应链网络结构;通过模型分解与协调,设计了供应链节点配置的禁忌搜索算法。算例的计算结果表明了禁忌搜索算法具有良好的收敛特性,以及在处理大规模问题上的优越性;同时也反映了利用鲁棒优化模型进行供应链网络设计,可以有效规避投资风险。     

Social Influence,Risk and Benefit Perceptions,and the Acceptability of Risky Energy Technologies: An Explanatory Model of Nuclear Power Versus Shale Gas

Risky energy technologies are often controversial and debates around them are polarized; in such debates public acceptability is key. Research on public acceptability has emphasized the importance of intrapersonal factors but has largely neglected the influence of interpersonal factors. In an online survey (N = 948) with a representative sample of the United Kingdom, we therefore integrate interpersonal factors (i.e., social influence as measured by social networks) with two risky energy technologies that differ in familiarity (nuclear power vs. shale gas) to examine how these factors explain risk and benefit perceptions and public acceptability. Findings show that benefit perceptions are key in explaining acceptability judgments. However, risk perceptions are more important when people are less familiar with the energy technology. Social network factors affect perceived risks and benefits associated with risky energy technology, hereby indirectly helping to form one's acceptability judgment toward the technology. This effect seems to be present regardless of the perceived familiarity with the energy technology. By integrating interpersonal with intrapersonal factors in an explanatory model, we show how the current “risk–benefit acceptability” model used in risk research can be further developed to advance the current understanding of acceptability formation.     

火力发电企业离散决策及其对碳排放权价格影响

随着碳交易市场的建立,对于参与减排企业,如何制定合理的减排决策从而降低减排成本成为了一个重要问题。在有效市场下,参与减排企业的边际成本将直接影响碳排放权价格的走势。以往研究大多基于连续时间模型,运用动态优化原理解决此类问题。而事实上,企业的决策过程是离散的,这是由于碳排放权不能跨期交易,如果简单连续化会使得企业有过度减排的可能,与现实不符。基于此,本文以电力企业为例,运用动态优化方法,建立电力企业的离散减排决策模型,从而得出企业的最优边际减排成本,为政府调控碳排放权市场提供理论指导。为了验证模型,本文采用深圳碳排放权的相关实际数据进行数值模拟。研究表明,当企业做出离散减排决策时,企业的减排成本及边际减排成本与初始排放量、配额、单位惩罚成本、减排决策次数等因素相关。企业的离散决策会使得企业的边际减排成本波动加大,进而可能引起碳排放权市场的动荡,但企业的离散决策更有利于企业完成减排任务。     

Robust decisions in power system investments

The Turkish electrical system has been studied, particularly for the near term investment programme. The objective of the study was to determine the most likely investment alternatives for the next ten-year period, from a cost effectiveness point of view. A dynamic linear programming model was used in representing the national energy system, with special emphasis on the electricity sector. Hydro, coal, nuclear and oil-fired power plants as well as their interconnection investments were modelled. A 27-year planning horizon was defined. The scenario approach was utilized in establishing the effects of different factors, such as foreign currency requirements of projects, nuclear plant costs and nuclear fuel costs, demand growth rates for electricity as well as other fuels, availability of foreign currency and skilled manpower, and the development rates of coal mines, coal power plants and nuclear power plants. After analyzing the results of 24 different scenarios, robust plans for developing the power system are suggested. Other investments that are subject to the realization of certain conditions are also indicated.     

Alternative technologies and the rising cost of energy

There is no doubt that future fuel costs will be higher than at present in real terms. This is not just because oil and natural gas will command scarcity prices as supplies are restricted or depleted. It is also because substitutes for oil and gas such as SNG and electricity are more highly processed fuels and are therefore more expensive therm for therm. Some improvement of this situation will be achieved by spending more on systems for using these fuels more efficiently, and by insulation: but total annual costs will still be considerably greater than at present. This is also true for renewable technologies.     

On the Inefficiency of Political Exchange

A classic argument in economic theory is that in a world of zero transaction costs the free bargaining among parties spontaneously leads to an efficient allocation of resources. Attempts have been made by many economists to apply such an argument to the field of politics. In contrast to market exchanges, political exchanges have been widely criticized on ethical grounds. Going beyond the well-known moral criticism regarding the exchange of votes, the paper attempts to demonstrate how in politics, ethics and economics can go hand in hand. Specifically, it proposes an unusual perspective on transaction costs, by arguing that the enhancement of such costs can be required to achieve efficient results in specific circumstances, where the free bargaining among parties conflicts with the public issue to be addressed. This suggests the basic idea that, while in markets transaction costs should be reduced, in politics, they may require to be enhanced.