Saziye Gazioglu

Job satisfaction in Britain: individual and job related factors

Recently there has been a resurgence of interest in the analysis of job satisfaction variables. Job satisfaction is correlated with labour market behaviour such as productivity, quits and absenteeism. In this paper four different measures of job satisfaction are related to a variety of personal and job characteristics. The data used are from the 28u2009240 British employees in the Workplace Employee Relations Survey, 1997. This data set is larger and more recent than in any previous studies. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not previously been used are considered: satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement; and satisfaction with respect from supervisors. The paper contributes to the literature by analysing job satisfaction with respect to industrial composition and occupations. One of the striking findings is that those in the education and health sectors are less satisfied with their pay but more satisfied with their sense of achievement. Further, it is found that employees who received job training were more satisfied than those who had no training opportunities. Unlike previous studies, it is found that married individuals have lower job satisfaction levels than the unmarried. Other results confirm those in the literature, such as women being more satisfied than men, and a U-shaped relationship between satisfaction and age.

Management-Employee Relations, Firm Size And Job Satisfaction

This paper investigates the job satisfaction in relation to managerial attitudes towards employees and firm size using the linked employer-employee survey results in Britain.We first investigate the management-employee relationships and the firm size using maximum likelihood probit estimation . Next various measues of job satisfaction are related to the management-employee relations via maximum likelihood ordered probit estimates. Four measures of job satisfaction that have not been used often are considered. They are satisfaction with influence over job; satisfaction with amount of pay; satisfaction with sense of achievement and satisfaction with respect from supervisors. Main findings indicate that management-employee relationships are less satisfactory in the large firms than in the small firms. Job satisfaction levels are lower in large firms. Less satisfactory management-employee relationships in the large firms may be a major source of the observed lower level of job satisfaction in them. These results have important policy implications from the point of view of the firm management while achieving the aims of their organizations in particular in the large firms in the area of management-employee relationships. Improving the management-employee relations in large firms will increase employee satisfaction in many respects as well as increase productivity and reduce turnover. The nature of the management-employee relations with firm size and job satisfaction has not been investigated before.

Stock market returns in an emerging financial market: Turkish case study

Increased globalization in financial markets implies that the percentage of all shares under foreign ownership in domestic stock markets has been rising. The recent speculative attacks on the foreign exchange market in November 2000, followed by February 2001, led Turkey into a deep economic crisis. Real stock returns as an important indicator for a forthcoming or pending financial crisis, using net capital flows have already been established in Gazioglu (2003). In this article we explore the effects of capital inflows and outflows to real exchange rates and the real stock market returns, before, and after the financial crisis. We investigate the relationship between real exchange rate, real stock returns and capital flows. We decompose the foreign flows into real assets and liabilities, in order to investigate the possible long-term effect of inflows and outflows. Empirical investigation shows that the long-term relationship only appears between the real exchange rates and the real bank liabilities owned by the foreigners. The first half of the sub-period, which is the pre-crisis period, is dominated by capital inflows and outflows. These affect the real exchange rate whereas the second sub-period, which is the post-crisis period, is dominated by unstable the capital inflow and outflows causing the decline of real stock market returns and the depreciation of the currency. The post-financial crisis period demonstrates a long-lasting effect on lowering the stock market returns. This confirms the theoretical findings of this article.

Stochastic Optimization Applied to Self-Financing Portfolio: Does Bequest Matter?

The paper studies stochastic optimization of an intertemporal consumption model to allocate financial assets between risky and risk-free assets. We use a stochastic optimization technique, in which utility is maximized subject to a self-financing portfolio constraint. The papers in literature have estimated the errors of Euler equations using data from financial markets. It has been shown that it is sufficient to test the first order Euler equation implied by the model. However, they all assume a constant consumption-wealth ratio that constrains the boundary conditions, hence influencing the coefficient of the risk premium. The main contribution of our paper is that we drop the assumption of a constant consumption-wealth ratio. We have an analytical solution using a utility maximization model with a stochastic self-financing portfolio. We introduce a terminal condition of wealth with and without bequests. We also simulate the stochastic optimization with a self-financing portfolio, distinguishing risk neutral investors (flow) from high risk averse investors (high). We show that the model with bequest has a higher level of wealth and a smoother decline of consumption over time than the model with no bequest at the end of the period. The model with no bequest has the same level of consumption and a sharp fall at the end of the period. Risk averse agents with high return assets have a higher amount of wealth than risk-neutral agents with lower return assets.

Interest rates and monetary policy

This article conducts a thorough intertemporal analysis of nominal interest rate based monetary policy. Its main contribution is to show how such a policy can have different effects depending on the assumptions made about the saving and borrowing behaviour of firms. We consider two cases: (i) consumers are savers and firms are borrowers and (ii) both consumers and firms are borrowers (the nation as a whole is borrowing from abroad). In one case we confirm conventional wisdom, but in the other case we find there may be unexpected and surprising results. Moreover, our analysis has important implications for both inflation and nominal exchange rate targeting policies.

Resource Discovery and Stock Market Hysteresis

This paper provides a possible explanation for stock market hysteresis following an resource discovery. We show the existence of a parallel stock market effect independent of the standard Dutch disease effect of a resource discovery. That is, there is a long run fall in the stock market value in response to the resource discovery. Furthermore, we show that a sufficiently large discovery may lead to a switch from a high to a low stock market value equilibrium. If the resource discovery proves subsequently to be unfounded, the economy will become stuck in the low stock market value state. In other words, there is stock market hysteresis.

Trust Game: Does Trust Begets Trustworthiness

In this paper we introduce a trust game and we test whether trust begets ‘trustworthiness’. We designed a trust game with unknown number of rounds to the player, which created cooperation and efficiency in the trust game. We compared the results of this investment game with the previous finding. We also investigate the gender differences in the trust game. Our findings suggest that the trust is higher in woman, whereas trustworthiness is higher in man. Confirming Ashraf et al (2003). Furthermore, we also found that Trust Begets Trustworthiness, contrary to other previous results.