Rolf Mirus

Some Implications of Student Evaluation of Teachers

Professor Mirus asserts th at there is a need to explore the extent to which student evaluation of teachers is subject to manipulation by the instructor. He comments on the possible impact on teacher ratings of increasing section sizes, scheduling of classes during “odd hours,” the type of material taught, and whether or not the course is required. His statistical analysis revealed that requiring a course had no negative impact, nor did class size, scheduling classes during odd hours, or giving courses a quantitative orientation. There was a “strong indication,” however, that the expected grade was a major determinate of the professors rating.

Canada's Irregular Economy

Concern has increased in Canada and elsewhere over the part of economic activity that escapes traditional measurement methods. If the irregular economy is large, economic policies are likely based on misleading figures for GNP, GNP growth rates, unemployment, and inflation. The equity, efficiency, and self-assessment aspect of the tax system is also brought into question. This paper, based on methods similar to those used for the United States, provides three estimates of Canadas irregular economy. Estimates range from 5 to 20 per cent of total economic activity. The potential size of the problem suggests that it deserves much more attention.

Why countertrade? An economic perspective

Countertrade is a peculiar form of transaction allegedly popular in less developed countries and in centrally planned economies. It attracted much interest in the past decade. As the landscape of economic systems drastically changed recently, one wonders what the fate of countertrade will become. In this article we review various motivations for countertrade. We argue that the validity of many popular explanations is suspect. We contend that countertrade exemplifies bundled market transactions, a phenomenon generally observed when transaction difficulties are encountered. The bundling is a contractual arrangement that alleviates the market-for-lemons problem, the principal-agency problems, difficulties in the protection of property rights, and time-inconsistency problems. Bundled transactions will remain as long as the transaction difficulties exist. Terminology may change, but the economic do not.

The relevance of the invoicing currency in intra-firm trade transactions

Abstract This paper extends the invoicing currency literature to the theory of multinational firms. Even with strong tax credit provisions net payments and receipts associated with intra-firm trade usually do not consolidate to zero. The statistical behavior of the resulting transactional value is affected by the decision on the invoicing currency. Thus, a carefully chosen invoicing currency can create foreign exchange exposure which offsets some other risks of the firm. The paper examines how and under what conditions this insight is relevant to a risk-averse multinational enterprise. A preliminary empirical study generates evidence which supports our ideas.

On The Mode of International Expansion: The Role of Agency Costs

We examine the mode of international expansion as an equilibrium governance contract between home country and host country factor owner. The focus is on agency costs, a form of transactions costs. Two phenomena are shown to be related to the agency costs imposed by factor owners: (i) the choice of different modes of international expansion by one firm in different locations, and (ii) the simultaneous occurrence of several forms of foreign involvement in the same location. We attempt to characterize the dynamic relationship between the mode of an offshore operation and changes in factor market conditions that affect agency costs.

Front-Loading protection: canada's approach to phasing out the multi-fiber arrangement

One of the most significant achievements of the GATT Uruguay Round was the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). The agreement specifies the gradual phasing out of the nearly twenty-year-old Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) in a manner that grants the importing (industrialized) countries considerable discretion. Although three liberalization steps have been dictated for the ten-year transition period leading up to a final liberalization step in 2005, there are no rules on when heavily protected products must be liberalized. Using Canada as a case in point, we show that political economy as well as rent-seeking considerations characterize the decisions regarding the products selected for the initial liberalization step. Our main finding is that through administrative discretion the 16% of import volume to be liberalized in phase one translated into a mere 11.3% of the value of textile and clothing imports. Thus the liberalization can be said to be only 70% effective.

Binational panels in the settlement of trade disputes: A Canadian perspective of the review of dumping and subsidy determinations under the Canada-U.S

Abstract The dispute settlement mechanism of Chapter 19 of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was of key significance for Canadas signing that Agreement, because increasing exposure of Canadian exports to charges of dumping and/or subsidization had become of major concern to government officials. This paper describes the FTAs binational dispute settlement process and evaluates the effects of this change in administrative practice on the timeliness, quality, and consistency of reviews of dumping, subsidization, and injury findings during its first five years of operations. The conclusion is that the experience in these respects has generally been positive for both parties and this successful institutional innovation therefore has been justifiably included in the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Buy-Back in International Trade: A Rationale

ConclusionWhen a technology proprietor cannot exploit his advantage by means of ownership of a production facility abroad, a sales contract with “buy-back provisions” may, in fact, be a trade-enhancing resolution to a situation of information-asymmetry between buyer and seller. The important implication is that not all forms of countertrade can be summarily dismissed as inefficient. Just as foreign direct investment can be seen to be a response to environmental or market imperfections, “buy-back” may be a way to deal with institutional or regulatory obstacles such as the prohibition of foreign ownership.

New Partners for Canada: Alberta Perspective on Bilateral Trade

There can be no question that regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTA) are becoming increasingly important in the global international trade regime. While multilateral trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) are inherently difficult because of the need to achieve consensus between all of the now 151 member states of WTO, bilateral FTAs seem quicker to negotiate and offer more flexibility for partner countries. This is not to say that bilateral FTAs are preferable to progress in multilateral trade negotiations. Multilateral trade liberalization has the benefit of bringing down trade barriers globally and dealing with all aspects of trade, including agriculture. The disadvantage of bilateral FTAs is that they create a ‘spaghetti bowl’1 of trade preferences and the necessity of complex ‘rules of origin’ to determine applicable tariff rates. However, the increasing prevalence of regional and bilateral FTAs is a trend that has become impossible to ignore in determining a country’s trade policy. Even Japan, which long argued that the growth in bilateral FTAs threatened the overall global progress in trade liberalization by drawing resources away from the multilateral process of the WTO, reversed its policy and has become an enthusiastic negotiator of FTAs in the Asian region and as far away as Mexico and Chile. The risk for countries left behind in the race to accumulate FTAs is that their export products will be disadvantaged in foreign markets by higher tariffs than are applied to exports from competitors which benefit from FTAs.

An empirical evaluation of the rationality of eurocurrency market expectations

Abstract This paper is concerned with testing the rationality of the Eurocurrency markets expectations of future spot rates. Whereas most previous studies have concentrated on analyzing spot rates, we develop and test an observable expectations series. The results show that although two of the three expectations series examined are unbiased, all three series ignore information readily obtainable from past spot rates.