Jolian McHardy

Workplace Performance, Worker Commitment, and Loyalty

Using matched employer-employee level data drawn from the 2004 UK Workplace and Employee Relations Survey, we explore the determinants of a measure of worker commitment and loyalty (CLI) and whether CLI influences workplace performance. Factors influencing employee commitment and loyalty include age and gender, whilst workplace level characteristics of importance include human resource practices. With respect to the effects of employee commitment and loyalty upon the workplace, higher CLI is associated with enhanced workplace performance. Our findings that workplace human resources influence CLI suggest that employers may be able to exert some influence over the commitment and loyalty of its workforce, which, in turn, may affect workplace performance.

Complementary Monopoly and Welfare: Is Splitting up so Bad?

We derive an original measure of dead-weight loss (DWL) in an m-sector complementary monopoly and show that with non-collusive pricing DWL may be seriously understated if demand complementarities are ignored, even when m is small. Since DWL generally increases with m and with less collusive pricing, separating monopoly into complementary monopoly (risking reduced price collusion) may be a bad static move. To illustrate, separating Microsoft into two non-collusive complementary monopolies may increase DWL from

Measuring the balance of intra-regional migration

4 billion to

On the intensity and balance of intra-European migration

7 billion (for 2002-3). However, we show that such a policy may be welfare improving with even relatively modest post-separation entry and Cournot quantity competition.

The long-run effect of a wage policy on employment ☆

An original index is introduced for measuring the extent of the overall bilateral balance of migration among countries within a region which allows comparisons of the balance over time as well as between regions and various possible sub-regions. It is shown that having constructed the index it is also possible to establish a weighting of the contribution of each country to the overall degree of migration balance within a region. The new index is applied to three sub-groupings of the European Union (EU): (a) a mix of nine northern and southern EU15 countries; (b) seven northern EU15 countries; and, (c) four southern EU15 countries. It is shown that in each case migration in the 1990s was highly balanced and improving significantly over time. However, there was a substantial difference between the northern and southern countries with the former enjoying significantly higher overall balance in migration than the latter, although the rate of improvement in balance was much higher amongst the southern countries. Finally, whilst the UK and Portugal were persistently low contributors to the overall balance in EU migration, Germanys contribution was the highest.

Gambling and credit: an individual and household level analysis for the UK

This paper seeks to examine changes in the balance of intra-European migration during the years 1985-99. We construct two indices for measuring intra-European migration between each member state and the rest of the EU15. Non-parametric tests indicate that there is a close and increasing relationship between real GDP per capita and the pattern of net migration within Europe. Further, statistical tests suggest that, on the whole, intra-European migration has actually become more balanced after the implementation of the Schengen agreement in 1995. A Chow test also reveals that 1995 is the break-year after which levels of intra-European migration shifted upwards.

Monopoly welfare losses and elasticity

Abstract Using two theoretical propositions and estimates of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labour for several developed countries, we show that the long-run effects of any wage policy aimed at creating jobs are likely to depend on the elasticity of demand for output rather than the elasticity of substitution. It follows that trade liberalisation, coupled with a policy of restraining the growth in real wages, would lead to a reduction in domestic unemployment only if the country enjoys an elastic demand for its product in the global market.

Employee Trust and Workplace Performance

We explore the relationship between gambling and the use of credit at the individual and household levels using representative pooled cross-section data from the UK Expenditure and Food Surveys (EFS) (2001–2007). Gambling and the use of credit are shown to be positively correlated at the household level. We find that both the incidence and amount of gambling vary according to household income and the positive association between gambling and credit is stable across household income. It is also apparent that there is strong intra-household correlation in both gambling activity and the use of credit, with stronger relationships in lower income households.

Competition and deregulation: Do air passengers get the benefits?

Abstract In this note it is shown that if constant marginal costs find linear demand are assumed then it is possible to derive a simple relationship between monopoly welfare losses as a proportion of the value of sales and the level of elasticity in the monopoly outcome.