No description available.

No / This article evaluates Tourinho's (1979) work as one of the earliest contributors to the real options literature. His model pioneered the application of risk neutrality to uncertain investments, but his originality of introducing an option-holding cost albeit to overcome the extraction paradox is rarely imitated. We claim that the combination of a convenience yield and an option-holding cost produces a more satisfying representation. Moreover, variations in the holding cost give rise to a host of investment decisions ranging from the standard real option solution for a zero-holding cost to a net present value solution for an infinite-holding cost. Not only does the holding cost mediate between these two poles, but it provides the option seller (usually a landowner or a government) with a policy instrument for influencing the extraction timing and thus the extraction profit of the option buyer. We derive the holding cost that optimizes the landowner's combined value of the option premium, holding costs and eventual royalties.

No / Surprisingly, the field of leisure economics is not, thus far, a particularly integrated or coherent one. In this Handbook a wide ranging body of international scholars get to grips with the core issues, taking in the traditional income/leisure choice model of textbook microeconomics and Becker’s allocation of time model along the way. They expertly apply economics to some usually neglected topics, such as boredom and sleeping, work–life balance, dating, tourism, health and fitness, sport, video games, social networking, music festivals and sex. Contributions from further afield by Veblen, Sctivosky and Bourdieu also feature prominently.

No / We develop a non-linear Markov error correction approach to examine the general co-integration relation between the H- and A-prices of cross-listed Chinese stock issuers across the period January 1999 to March 2009. We unravel three important dimensions of this relation. These pertain to (i) the long-run expectation of the H- (to A-price) discount; (ii) the level of short-run co-movement in prices; and (iii) the magnitude of error corrections. Findings point to significant improvements in all three areas. Policy and corporate governance change appears to be the principal force driving the efficiency gains. Weakening informational asymmetries underlie much of the change in the markets’ relative pricing. In contrast, sentiment effects strongly underpin the contemporaneous response and error correction adjustments. Finally, the escalating Global Financial Crisis of 2008 appears to have not only bolstered the A- and H-markets’ short-term pricing dynamic but also temporarily increased the long-term H-share discount.

No / Occupational health and safety (OHS) is under-researched in the sociology of work and employment. This deficit is most pronounced for white-collar occupations. Despite growing awareness of the significance of psychosocial conditions – notably stress – and musculoskeletal disorders, white-collar work is considered by conventional OHS discourse to be ‘safe’. This study’s locus is clerical processing in the UK public sector, specifically Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, in the context of efficiency savings programmes. The key initiative was lean working, which involved redesigned workflow, task fragmentation, standardization and individual targets. Utilizing a holistic model of white-collar OHS and in-depth quantitative and qualitative data, the evidence of widespread self-reported ill-health symptoms is compelling. Statistical tests of association demonstrate that the transformed work organization that accompanied lean working contributed most to employees’, particularly women’s, ill-health complaints.

No / The prevailing economic and budgetary climate is intensifying the search for methods and practices aimed at generating efficiencies in public sector provision. This paper investigates the increasingly popular bundle of techniques operating under the generic descriptor of lean, which promises to improve operational quality processes while simultaneously reducing cost. It offers a critical appraisal of lean as a fashionable component of public sector reform and challenges the received wisdom that it unambiguously delivers ‘efficiencies’. Quantitative and qualitative research in HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) centred on employees' experiences has indicated the extent to which work has been reorganized along lean principles. However, employees perceive that changes in organizational processes and working practices have unintentionally generated inefficiencies which have impacted on the quality of public service. These suggested outcomes raise wider concerns as lean working is adopted in other public sector organizations.

No / Using a two-stage quantile regression framework, we uncover significant asymmetries across quantiles for all coefficients in an otherwise standard New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) for the euro area. A pure NKPC specification accurately captures inflation dynamics at high inflation quantiles.

No / In this article we adopt a capabilities theory perspective to analyse 40 in-depth interviews (20 women, 20 men) exploring the careers of senior women and men in human resource management. Both groups felt driven by increasingly unconstrained demands of work, in the case of women paid and non-paid domestic work and for men primarily paid work, and perceptions of time autonomy (being able to exercise autonomy in allocating one's time) for both differed markedly. However, these senior women appeared to have negotiated a path which fitted with their realized functioning and quality of life goals and they measured success in their own terms. Senior men's working patterns and definitions of success remained largely traditional and for most the demands of work were dominant. However, there was evidence that male views were changing with some expressing a desire for a better balance with less time involved with work. Our findings highlight the importance of the family and we suggest that there is a need for the obligations of organizations in terms of their impact on the family unit to be stated and acted upon with the role of fathers as carers equally and explicitly expounded with that of mothers.

No / The article focuses on emotional labour and self-identity at the Irish-owned Aer Lingus airline from 1998 to 2008. It has been suggested that emotional labour is likely to be an increasingly important feature of frontline service jobs. However, in this case management has reduced the level of emotional labour requirement while work organization, recruitment policy and training have changed to focus on sales and lower labour costs, intensifying workloads and reducing cabin crew autonomy. Although some may suggest that a reduction in emotional labour requirement would be a positive outcome for employees, this is not how it has been perceived by some cabin crew. Long-serving cabin crew in particular see these changes as an attack on their professionalism and a challenge to their identity as skilled emotion workers.

No / This article examines why employer opposition is stimulated by the introduction of statutory union recognition provisions in Britain, Ireland and the US. It examines the impact of the provisions for encouraging union organizing, which in turn stimulates employer anti-unionism, which then negates the intention of the provisions.