FINANCIAL MARKET VARIABLES DO NOT PREDICT REAL ACTIVITY

The past decade has seen an extensive empirical reassessment of the information content of financial market variables sensitive to monetary policy. Particularly provocative are recent papers suggesting that some interest rates and interest rate spreads contain more information about economic activity than monetary aggregates. This paper reviews important methodological pitfalls in these studies. We then show that none of the commonly employed measures of monetary policy contain incremental information useful in forecasting real economic activity. Two conclusions are possible. Either monetary policy innovations have no significant real effects, or we (collectively) have failed in our efforts to measure monetary policy. ( JEL E52)     

PRICE PREDICTION ERRORS AND REAL ACTIVITY: A REASSESSMENT

Rational expectations, natural-rate macro-models in which aggregate demand disturbances affect the real sector through price prediction errors, while powerful and tractable analytical tools, are often perceived to be of questionable empirical relevance. This paper reexamines the empirical role of price prediction errors in determining the level of real aggregate activity. The approach is distinguished by accounting for aggregate supply-side disturbances and by more careful treatment of natural rates. Contrary to some previous studies, we find considerable empirical support for the hypothesis that demand-driven price level surprises are positively and significantly correlated with aggregate real economic activity.     

Organizational Self‐Censorship: Corporate Sponsorship,Nonprofit Funding,and the Educational Experience*

La dépendance croissante du secteur privé envers la commandite a eu des conséquences sur la gouvernance des organismes sans but lucratif (OSBL). La recherche traditionnelle sur le financement a pris un angle d'observation essentiellement positif, montrant que les OSBL peuvent trouver des occasions d'influencer les intérêts de leurs bailleurs de fonds de manière à ce qu'ils deviennent plus compatibles avec la mission de l'OSBL. Dans cet article, les auteurs s'inspirent de ce travail en fournissant un examen plus nuancé de l'intermédiaire dans l'OSBL. Plus précisément, les auteurs introduisent une forme négative d'intermédiaire connue sous le nom d'autocensure organisationnelle. En examinant l'autocensure, ils montrent que les OSBL devraient plutôt redéfinir leurs propres buts de manière à attirer les bailleurs de fonds du secteur privé. Increasing reliance on corporate sponsorship has impacted the governance of nonprofit organizations. Traditional research on funding has taken a predominately positive vantage point, expressing that nonprofit organizations may find opportunities to influence their funder's interests such that they become more compatible with the nonprofit organization's mission. In this article, we build upon this work by providing a more nuanced examination of agency in the nonprofit organization. Specifically, we introduce a negative form of agency known as organizational self‐censorship. By examining self‐censorship, we reveal that nonprofit organizations may instead redefine their own goals in order to appeal to private sector funders.     

The Ethical Implications of Current Theoretical Developments in Social Work

Correspondence to Dr Mel Gray, Department of Social Work, University of Natal, King George V Ave, Durban 4001, South Africa. Summary The paper examines the ethical implications of current theoreticaldevelopments in social work and discusses important ways inwhich efforts at understanding within social work can be guidedby moral values. At the present time, there are a variety oftheories through which the world of social work can be understood.In attempting to achieve as accurate an understanding of socialwork reality as possible, it is suggested that social work needsto move beyond empirical rigidity, technological approachesand ideological dogma to a critical, reflective epistemologicalstance which takes account of the profession's worthwhile ideals.To this end, the paper discusses the notion of the autonomousmoral self and examines the implications of critical and constructivistthinking on this notion of selfhood. It considers what it meansto develop an adequate understanding of social work realityand re-examines the meaning of objectivity. Finally, it highlightsthe need for reflection on, and an appreciation of, the allencompassing nature of morality.     

Folk Poetry and Working Class Identity in Ulster: An Analysis of James Orr's 'The Penitent'.

Abstract This paper explores changing patterns of collective identity amongst rural industrial producers in the North of Ireland through an extended analysis of a single poem, The Penitent', written by the weaver poet James Orr in 1800. Working-class identities were founded as much on the experience and creation of difference as on the perception of sameness. Rural industrial producers responded to the social and economic upheavals of the time by emphasizing the cultural values of sobriety, respectability and dignity. In doing so they sought to establish a social space which would differentiate them from those whose independence and well-being was eroding.