During the past decade, Corporate Responsibility – the voluntary engagement of business for social and environmental ends above legally mandated minimum standards – has risen to prominence, if not pre-eminence in global economic governance. However, Corporate Responsibility is not uniformly distributed: the timing, extent and quality of CR varies significantly across countries. Germany is said to be a ‘laggard’ in Corporate Responsibility. This paper both describes and tries to explain this state of affairs, by focusing on business-led Corporate Responsibility associations, coalitions and intermediaries. Examining these, I find that German firms’ stance towards CR has been characterized by ambivalence. For example, German firms joined the EBNSC (since 2000: CSR Europe) in large numbers in the mid-1990s, only to cancel their memberships a few years later. I argue that this ambivalence can be explained with reference to Germany’s institutional framework, corporate governance and regulatory standards, which until recently left less ‘space’ for German companies to engage in CR initiatives compared with their counterparts in the U.K. and U.S.A. The increasing liberalization of the German economy during the past fifteen years has been accompanied by a growing dynamism of CR in Germany, and I present causal mechanisms which link CR and liberalization. The German case suggests that Corporate Responsibility may be emerging as a substitute, rather than a complement, to institutionalized forms of solidarity.
{"title":"The Political Economy of Corporate Responsibility in Germany, 1995-2008","authors":"Daniel Kinderman","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2229690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2229690","url":null,"abstract":"During the past decade, Corporate Responsibility – the voluntary engagement of business for social and environmental ends above legally mandated minimum standards – has risen to prominence, if not pre-eminence in global economic governance. However, Corporate Responsibility is not uniformly distributed: the timing, extent and quality of CR varies significantly across countries. Germany is said to be a ‘laggard’ in Corporate Responsibility. This paper both describes and tries to explain this state of affairs, by focusing on business-led Corporate Responsibility associations, coalitions and intermediaries. Examining these, I find that German firms’ stance towards CR has been characterized by ambivalence. For example, German firms joined the EBNSC (since 2000: CSR Europe) in large numbers in the mid-1990s, only to cancel their memberships a few years later. I argue that this ambivalence can be explained with reference to Germany’s institutional framework, corporate governance and regulatory standards, which until recently left less ‘space’ for German companies to engage in CR initiatives compared with their counterparts in the U.K. and U.S.A. The increasing liberalization of the German economy during the past fifteen years has been accompanied by a growing dynamism of CR in Germany, and I present causal mechanisms which link CR and liberalization. The German case suggests that Corporate Responsibility may be emerging as a substitute, rather than a complement, to institutionalized forms of solidarity.","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131166361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Brazil’s balance of payments has been calculated since 2001 in accordance with criteria suggested in the 5th edition of the International Monetary Fund’s Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5). The Balance of Payments account can be divided into two groups: (i) current account transactions and (ii) the capital and financial account. The current account includes transactions arising from trade in goods and services and remuneration for factors of production (such as interest and dividends). The capital and financial account includes private capital (direct investments, credits to buyers and suppliers, debt securities, etc.), the error and omissions account and compensatory capital (international reserves, exceptional debt financing and arrears).
{"title":"An Overview of Brazil's Balance of Payment","authors":"R. Cysne, Paulo Gustavo Grahl","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2388121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2388121","url":null,"abstract":"Brazil’s balance of payments has been calculated since 2001 in accordance with criteria suggested in the 5th edition of the International Monetary Fund’s Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5). The Balance of Payments account can be divided into two groups: (i) current account transactions and (ii) the capital and financial account. The current account includes transactions arising from trade in goods and services and remuneration for factors of production (such as interest and dividends). The capital and financial account includes private capital (direct investments, credits to buyers and suppliers, debt securities, etc.), the error and omissions account and compensatory capital (international reserves, exceptional debt financing and arrears).","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2008-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127584527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We find evidence of threshold behavior in current account adjustment for the G7 countries, such that the dynamics of adjustment towards equilibrium depend upon whether the current-account/ net-output ratio breaches estimated, country specific current account surplus or deficit thresholds. Both the speeds of adjustment and the size of the thresholds are found to differ significantly across countries. In addition, we also find evidence of shifts in means and variances of exchange rate changes, stock returns, and interest differentials that coincide with the current account adjustment regimes identified by the model.
{"title":"Are There Thresholds of Current Account Adjustment in the G7?","authors":"Richard Clarida, Manuela Goretti, Mark P. Taylor","doi":"10.3386/W12193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W12193","url":null,"abstract":"We find evidence of threshold behavior in current account adjustment for the G7 countries, such that the dynamics of adjustment towards equilibrium depend upon whether the current-account/ net-output ratio breaches estimated, country specific current account surplus or deficit thresholds. Both the speeds of adjustment and the size of the thresholds are found to differ significantly across countries. In addition, we also find evidence of shifts in means and variances of exchange rate changes, stock returns, and interest differentials that coincide with the current account adjustment regimes identified by the model.","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"65 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2006-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130275783","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ever since the 1990s, legislated gender quotas have been adopted across the world as a means to increase the number of women in elected bodies. In recent years, legislated gender quotas have also been adopted to rectify the under-representation of women on company boards. Sweden diverges from this trend. Despite the fact that Sweden has been recognized as a model of gender equality, being ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world and having achieved gender balanced political assemblies, legal gender quotas have not been enacted, neither in the political sphere nor in the economic sphere. This paper analyses women’s path to power in Sweden. It studies the adoption of special measures and provides an assessment of the factors that facilitate or hinder increases in the proportion of women decision-makers in the political and economic sectors. By applying feminist institutional theory, the dynamics of institutional configurations facilitating or hindering change is investigated. It is argued that the interplay of institutions in the political sector operated in a mutually reinforcing way, thereby constituting a good fit, while the interaction of institutions in the economic sector functioned in a conflicting way. It is also claimed that women’s movement organisations (working both within and outside of the political parties) represented critical actors in implementing party quotas in Sweden. Such coordinated efforts did not exist in the corporate sector. There, the forces of resistance were much stronger than the forces for change, thereby hindering the introduction of a legal corporate gender quota.
{"title":"Gender Quota Spill-Over in Sweden: From Politics to Business?","authors":"Lenita Freidenvall","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2665250","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2665250","url":null,"abstract":"Ever since the 1990s, legislated gender quotas have been adopted across the world as a means to increase the number of women in elected bodies. In recent years, legislated gender quotas have also been adopted to rectify the under-representation of women on company boards. Sweden diverges from this trend. Despite the fact that Sweden has been recognized as a model of gender equality, being ranked among the most gender equal countries in the world and having achieved gender balanced political assemblies, legal gender quotas have not been enacted, neither in the political sphere nor in the economic sphere. This paper analyses women’s path to power in Sweden. It studies the adoption of special measures and provides an assessment of the factors that facilitate or hinder increases in the proportion of women decision-makers in the political and economic sectors. By applying feminist institutional theory, the dynamics of institutional configurations facilitating or hindering change is investigated. It is argued that the interplay of institutions in the political sector operated in a mutually reinforcing way, thereby constituting a good fit, while the interaction of institutions in the economic sector functioned in a conflicting way. It is also claimed that women’s movement organisations (working both within and outside of the political parties) represented critical actors in implementing party quotas in Sweden. Such coordinated efforts did not exist in the corporate sector. There, the forces of resistance were much stronger than the forces for change, thereby hindering the introduction of a legal corporate gender quota.","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121665367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 1900-01-01DOI: 10.4337/9781845428242.00017
V. Storr
Anarchy, simply put, means a society without government. Unfortunately, when most people use the word, they typically make it mean something like chaos, or civil unrest; they equate anarchy with Hobbes's jungle where life is 'poore, nasty, brutish and short'. Anarchy, for them, is the penchant for society's destruction maintained by disaffected suburban youth who have an affinity with rock 'n' roll, drugs and black fingernail polish. It is children at play without adult supervision; it is streets without stop lights; it is the Wild Wild West with no sheriff or marshal. Few take anarchy seriously as an alternative socio-economic system to the one that we presently enjoy. And even fewer find it a viable or even desirable alternative to what we call 'democratic capitalism'. Professor Hogarty is no exception (neither, by the way, are any of the other authors in Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy).
{"title":"Defining Anarchy as Rock 'N' Roll: Rethinking Hogarty's Three Cases","authors":"V. Storr","doi":"10.4337/9781845428242.00017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4337/9781845428242.00017","url":null,"abstract":"Anarchy, simply put, means a society without government. Unfortunately, when most people use the word, they typically make it mean something like chaos, or civil unrest; they equate anarchy with Hobbes's jungle where life is 'poore, nasty, brutish and short'. Anarchy, for them, is the penchant for society's destruction maintained by disaffected suburban youth who have an affinity with rock 'n' roll, drugs and black fingernail polish. It is children at play without adult supervision; it is streets without stop lights; it is the Wild Wild West with no sheriff or marshal. Few take anarchy seriously as an alternative socio-economic system to the one that we presently enjoy. And even fewer find it a viable or even desirable alternative to what we call 'democratic capitalism'. Professor Hogarty is no exception (neither, by the way, are any of the other authors in Explorations in the Theory of Anarchy).","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126537327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) regulatory oversight of securities and financial markets has increased considerably over time. However, the wisdom of this model has recently been challenged by the Hayne Royal Commission as ASIC’s enforcement activities were found to be relatively toothless. Accordingly, many criticised the agency and called for further ASIC reform. After the Global Financial Crisis, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) faced similar criticisms of regulatory failure. As such, this paper analyses the SEC regulatory structure, enforcement activities, and governmental resources and compares certain indicators of effectiveness such as the number of employees, budgets, and enforcement activities with those of ASIC over the past quarter-century. By comparing ASIC with the world’s biggest capital market regulator, the SEC, this paper analyses the viability of further reform of ASIC, and argues that ASIC is woefully under-resourced to engage in increased enforcement action.
随着时间的推移，澳大利亚证券和投资委员会(ASIC)对证券和金融市场的监管大大增加。然而，这种模式的智慧最近受到了海恩皇家委员会(Hayne Royal Commission)的挑战，因为ASIC的执法活动被发现相对无力。因此，许多人批评该机构，并呼吁进一步改革ASIC。全球金融危机之后，美国证券交易委员会(SEC)也面临着类似的监管不力批评。因此，本文分析了SEC的监管结构、执法活动和政府资源，并将过去25年来的某些有效性指标(如员工数量、预算和执法活动)与ASIC进行了比较。通过将ASIC与世界上最大的资本市场监管机构美国证券交易委员会(SEC)进行比较，本文分析了ASIC进一步改革的可行性，并认为ASIC在加强执法行动方面资源严重不足。
{"title":"Role and Effectiveness of ASIC Compared with the SEC: Shedding Light on Regulation and Enforcement in the United States and Australia","authors":"Zehra G. Kavame Eroglu, Karen Powell","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3612987","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3612987","url":null,"abstract":"Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s (ASIC) regulatory oversight of securities and financial markets has increased considerably over time. However, the wisdom of this model has recently been challenged by the Hayne Royal Commission as ASIC’s enforcement activities were found to be relatively toothless. Accordingly, many criticised the agency and called for further ASIC reform. After the Global Financial Crisis, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) faced similar criticisms of regulatory failure. As such, this paper analyses the SEC regulatory structure, enforcement activities, and governmental resources and compares certain indicators of effectiveness such as the number of employees, budgets, and enforcement activities with those of ASIC over the past quarter-century. By comparing ASIC with the world’s biggest capital market regulator, the SEC, this paper analyses the viability of further reform of ASIC, and argues that ASIC is woefully under-resourced to engage in increased enforcement action.","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130309633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper offers a Bayesian decision-theoretic approach to policy evaluation in rational expectation models. First, we show how to correctly assess and rank simple policy rules under the welfare loss minimization criterion in the presence of uncertainty about the model’s structural parameters. We consider a Bayesian policymaker who assesses the effectiveness of policy actions by comparing the distributions of welfare losses using stochastic dominance orderings. Second, we propose a new Bayesian testing procedure for verifying the k-degree stochastic dominance relation. Third, we apply our approach to a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, estimated for the U.S. economy. We show that using stochastic dominance to rank simple policy rules yields different rankings than using well-established robust approaches. The contemporaneous monetary policy rule that reacts to inflation and the output gap, with an interest rate smoothing mechanism, minimises the welfare loss for all decision-makers who admit infinite degree stochastic dominance preferences.
{"title":"Designing Optimal Macroeconomic Policy Rules Under Parameter Uncertainty: A Stochastic Dominance Approach","authors":"Mariusz Górajski, Zbigniew Kuchta","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3915515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3915515","url":null,"abstract":"This paper offers a Bayesian decision-theoretic approach to policy evaluation in rational expectation models. First, we show how to correctly assess and rank simple policy rules under the welfare loss minimization criterion in the presence of uncertainty about the model’s structural parameters. We consider a Bayesian policymaker who assesses the effectiveness of policy actions by comparing the distributions of welfare losses using stochastic dominance orderings. Second, we propose a new Bayesian testing procedure for verifying the k-degree stochastic dominance relation. Third, we apply our approach to a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model, estimated for the U.S. economy. We show that using stochastic dominance to rank simple policy rules yields different rankings than using well-established robust approaches. The contemporaneous monetary policy rule that reacts to inflation and the output gap, with an interest rate smoothing mechanism, minimises the welfare loss for all decision-makers who admit infinite degree stochastic dominance preferences.","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"57 4","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114116800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Conventional thinking about the 1938 Basic Agreement at Saltsjobaden between organized labor and capital in Sweden holds that it was one of the consequences of a shift in the balance of power between workers and employers to the latter’s disadvantage. But detailed archival evidence and analysis shows that it was in fact part and parcel of an evolving cross-class alliance of unions and employer associations primarily in export and other traded goods sectors against militant and high-paid workers in sheltered sectors, especially the building and construction trades. Those relatively high wages were earned at the expense of workers producing traded goods, especially in engineering. Evidence about employers’ use of the multi-sectoral sympathy lockouts to bring both labor peace and cross-sectoral wage uniformity indicates that the unions dominating the labor confederation actually welcomed the militant interventions, whose main purpose was to give them a legitimate pretext to intervene against and discipline militancy and wage setting in the sheltered sectors. Details in and about the 1938 Basic Agreement confirm the argument about a growing cross-class alliance between capital and labor, not a shift in the balance of power.
{"title":"Solidarity across Classes: The Swedish Employers' Mass Lockouts and the Spirit of Saltsjöbaden","authors":"Peter A. Swenson","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2961300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2961300","url":null,"abstract":"Conventional thinking about the 1938 Basic Agreement at Saltsjobaden between organized labor and capital in Sweden holds that it was one of the consequences of a shift in the balance of power between workers and employers to the latter’s disadvantage. But detailed archival evidence and analysis shows that it was in fact part and parcel of an evolving cross-class alliance of unions and employer associations primarily in export and other traded goods sectors against militant and high-paid workers in sheltered sectors, especially the building and construction trades. Those relatively high wages were earned at the expense of workers producing traded goods, especially in engineering. Evidence about employers’ use of the multi-sectoral sympathy lockouts to bring both labor peace and cross-sectoral wage uniformity indicates that the unions dominating the labor confederation actually welcomed the militant interventions, whose main purpose was to give them a legitimate pretext to intervene against and discipline militancy and wage setting in the sheltered sectors. Details in and about the 1938 Basic Agreement confirm the argument about a growing cross-class alliance between capital and labor, not a shift in the balance of power.","PeriodicalId":378721,"journal":{"name":"PSN: Other Comparative Capitalism (Topic)","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129440346","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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