Employment Relations - Are social partnership agreements a sign of union and management weakness?

Nikki James Tutor: Dr Ian Kessler Essay Week 4 Employment Relations Are social partnership agreements a sign of union and management weakness? Social Partnership, "represents an attempt to define a role for trade unionism which balances its central concern to represent employees' interests with a productivist appeal to employers and government." (Claydon, 1998) Social partnership, according to the Trade Union Congress (TUC) is based on four main elements. These elements are: ) employment security in return for acceptance of new working practices 2) collective employee voice in organisational decision-making through wider consultation 3) fair financial rewards 4) investment in training (Claydon, 1998, Monks, 1998) The idea of a partnership is that the concerns of both employers and employees are addressed. Employers and employees can then identify the issues that are common goals, to create a 'win-win' situation. They can also negotiate conflicts, for example by workers accepting new working practices in return for higher employment security, in fact Monks (1998) identifies this example as the heart of the partnership approach. This is the first prong of the partnership concept. An example is the 1996 agreement at Blue Circle where employees received guarantees of employment security provided they were prepared to undertake a range of jobs. The second prong

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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Explain the concept of dynamic inconsistency - Is the condition of the government aiming at a level of output above the level consistent will full employment crucial?

Questions 3: Explain the concept of dynamic inconsistency. Is the condition of the government aiming at a level of output above the level consistent will full employment crucial? Does the introduction of an electoral cycle, with uncertainty over the outcome of the elections exacerbate the problem? To understand the concept if time inconsistency the optimal policy of government and wage and price setters needs to be considered. It would seem obvious that it is preferable for both of these organisations to operate within an economy characterised by low inflation and full employment. But Kydland and Prescott argue that there is an incentive for the government to cheat and deviate from the plan that was agreed with the wage and price setters. Since these wage and price setters are rational they realise that this is the case (if it has occurred once before), and they adjust their expectations to incorporate the expectation that the government will cheat. But if wage and price setters lock themselves into contracts, committing themselves to SRAS0 (short run aggregate supply curve), in the diagram below, then the government incentive to cheat leads to a movement from point A to B so that the government can benefit from higher inflation (with higher monetary growth). The benefit can be seen from the fact that the government is now on a higher indifference curve since it has

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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What Determines the Level of the Interest Rate in the UK?

What Determines the Level of the Interest Rate in the UK? Show How Changes in the Interest Rate can affect Economic Growth. Through the essay, I will explain how the money market determines the level of interest rate set in the UK and show how economic growth is affected by changes in the interest rate, referring to inflation and the monetary transmission mechanism. Interest rates is the price people pay for money and because economic activity takes place according to how much money goes through the economy, the rate that the interest is set at influences how much money is spent. It is money that is exchanged for goods and services, it is how much goods and services are measured by and it is the value that can be held to pay for goods and services at a later date - the most important item in economy. In layman's terms, a change in interest rates encourages or discourages borrowing, and therefore economic growth increases or decreases accordingly. The definition of interest rate is simply the opportunity cost of holding wealth in either the form of money or an asset bearing interest (Parkin et al, 2005). If people do not have enough money, which is a necessity as it is a means of payment for nearly all good and services, they would have access to money from a lender, who would put a price on the loan they borrow; an example of the interest rate. As the interest rate is

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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The price of oil has recently reached new highs and Britain now has some of the highest taxes on petrol in Europe. Examine the impact on the consumer demand for car, bus, and train travel of a further increase in the costs of motoring. In your essay, you

Economics Level 1 Q1) The price of oil has recently reached new highs and Britain now has some of the highest taxes on petrol in Europe. Examine the impact on the consumer demand for car, bus, and train travel of a further increase in the costs of motoring. In your essay, you should make use of economic concepts such as demand, price elasticity, and income elasticity. Matriculation Number: 0509206 Tutorial Group: 11 Words count: 1258 Tutor's Name: Hilary Macleod Introduction: Why does the price of oil keep escalating over the past century, and recently reach new peaks? In general, the answer to the question is directed to few main contributing factors that are unexpected closure of oil production, on-going Iraq war, destructive natural disaster and further increment of government taxes on petrol. These factors closely play a part in affecting the supply and demand of oil in the commodity market where the consequence of these factors often raised the price of oil. Taking an illustrative example, one can observe clearly that the unexpected closure of a major oil production (Anadarko Petroleum Corporation) in Gulf of Mexico due to the storm of Hurricane Rita (www.oilonline.com, 2005) has significant impact on reducing world's supply of oil where the reduction in supply ultimately increases the price of oil even when the demand for oil remains unchanged. Economists usually

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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Low Inflation

Low inflation over the past decade Introduction The last ten years has produced the lowest average level of inflation for decades which has been fantastic for the UK economy. This report will elaborate on what we mean by inflation as the persistent increase in the price levels in the economy and will also be looking at the causes of inflation such as demand-pull inflation, cost-push inflation, and expectations of inflation. All with the knowledge that inflation is a macroeconomic problem faced by nations. Measuring inflation as the rate of inflation annually is also explained. In assessing why inflation has been so low we shall look at the various scenario that have helped keep inflation low such as tight margins in the distribution sector, fall in domestic and imported goods prices, and the use of policies by the government to control inflation. Such policies include fiscal policy, monetary policy, inflation targeting, and supply side policy. The main inflationary pressures in the economy have also been outlined like the rising oil prices, the rising food prices and the rapid economic growth. The economic effects of high levels of inflation are included to explain the cost of inflation such as redistribution of income and reduced economic growth. Economics and Macroeconomics Economics as I know is the social science which deals the production of goods and service with

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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Examine the impact of the international oil-price rise of 1973 on the economies of Western Europe

Christopher Marshall EH 1602 Tutor: Dr. Smith Towards A New Europe 1939-1992 Examine the impact of the international oil-price rise of 1973 on the economies of Western Europe The international oil-price rise of 1973 had a significant impact on the economies of Western Europe because it was the catalyst that aggravated existing and accumulating problems already present in the economic structure. There had been a decline in world economic growth in the late 1960s, and though there was rapid economic recovery in Western Europe by 1973, the economy was still unstable and had inherited problems. I believe this caused the decline of economic growth. The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had increased the initial price of oil by four times by 1974. Europe's largest economies were severely hit, and in 1975 recession was widespread for the first time in post-war Europe. Though exports and productivity continued to grow, measures taken to combat the crisis could not manage the interplay of problems related to the economic sector. These problems included stagnation output; stagflation, which described the combination of high levels of inflation and unemployment; and balance of payments deficits. Also, there was a radical change in the management of western economies: the Keynesian demand strategy could not survive the magnitude of the oil crisis and was

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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India's Growth Prospects: Revisited

September, 2004 India's Growth Prospects: Revisited A couple of years ago I published a paper in EPW on India's medium-term growth prospects (Acharya:2002b) in which I concluded that "On a balance of considerations, it might be reasonable to expect growth in the next five years to fluctuate in the range of 4 to 6 percent, perhaps averaging close to 5 percent." A few months later the Tenth Five Year Plan was published, boldly projecting 8 percent growth for the period, 2002/3-2006/7, despite the anemic performance of 4 percent expansion in the first year, 2002/3, of the Plan. The drumbeat of growth optimism continued in ensuing months fuelled by the strong economic recovery of 2003/4 and a spate of analytical papers (including in EPW) extolling India's medium and long-term growth prospects. The drumroll reached a crescendo in the early spring of 2004 with the "India Shining" campaign. While the totally unexpected election results of May, 2004 have taken much of the shine off the shining campaign, the academic optimists still march boldly on (for example, Kelkar:2004 and Rodrik and Subramanian:2004). In the light of such growth optimism of the past two years should I revise the more moderate medium-term growth outlook presented in my earlier paper? That is the issue I address in this brief paper. I. Short-term Factors As noted

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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What determines the choice of an optimal exchange rate regime? Identify a set of conditions that would constitute a case against fixed exchange rate regimes.

Optimum Currency Areas 3 a) What determines the choice of an optimal exchange rate regime? Identify a set of conditions that would constitute a case against fixed exchange rate regimes. There are two broad types of exchange rate regimes. These are flexible and fixed. The regimes between them consist of a currency union, currency board, adjustable peg, crawling peg, basket peg, target zone and managed float. Economic theory suggests that the larger the economy the stronger the case for a flexible exchange rate regime. This is due to the fact that a large economy is likely to be more open to international currency movements. A fixed exchange rate would be unsustainable in such an environment. A flexible exchange rate is also extremely useful when wages and thus prices are sticky downwards. Any external shocks can be dealt with by changing the exchange rate rather than the domestic price level. A fixed regime would not allow this with the only option being a deflationary policy to increase competitiveness. A government cannot use monetary policy when their currency has a constant value. If fiscal policy is the main tool used to establish economic stability rather than monetary strategy, a fixed exchange rate will be easier to introduce. Similarly a fixed exchange rate is also more suited to economies where foreign trade makes up a large percentage of GDP. A fixed exchange rate

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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The day we will never forget in our life.

Jaimin Shah January 23, 2003 College Writing Pam Cross. Instructor Topic 1 The day we will never forget in our life. It was September 11, 2001 seemed like a normal day. I was attending my 1st class in high school of my senior year at Absegami High School, Atlantic County. I was all happy because I was having a study room and I was having a nap of half an hour. I had my all homework done. I had nothing to do. It seemed like a perfect normal day. Then I went to another class. It was about 8:15 or 8:30. Suddenly a teacher comes from another class and says there is a big crash of airplane on World Trade Center. On September 11th the initial reaction was "oh my god". To be quite honest when the teacher said the news on about the tragedy I would not let me believe the story. But when I came home I turned on the news and saw the footage. Unlike a regular teenager i was glued to the T.V. My thoughts and sympathy are still with the great Country over there even though it has over a year now since the attacks. It seemed like it was just a small plane but unfortunately it wasn't. But later on another plane gets crashed on another tower of WTC. It wasn't an accident but those planes were intended to hit the two towers. Then everyone was scared about the people who were in those two towers and two planes. I was about to get out of the school and runaway because everyone was scared

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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Discuss the benefits and problems of the European single currency, the Euro

Discuss the benefits and problems of the European single currency, the Euro The Euro was launched in 1999, replacing a wide range of currencies throughout continental Europe with a single currency of equal value in all nations. The main aim of the single currency was to assist in the movement of trade and labour, by making it easier for businesses and individuals to compare costs, prices and salaries across the entire EU. However, as will be shown below, the Euro has not always had the desired benefits, and has in fact led to some serious issues due to the lack of structural flexibility in many of the Eurozone countries. The major benefit of the Euro is that it offered common stability across a large portion of the European Union, helping weaker currencies such as the Franc and Lira by coupling them to the stronger ones such as the DeutscheMark. As such, this prevented the previous swings in currency value which periodically affected several European currencies, and thus helped stabilise the value of the high volume of trade within the European single market. Indeed, until the launch of the Euro, it was argued that the common market in the EU has delivered very few gains in productivity or efficiency, as trade in the market still had to take place with different currencies and the same exchange rate exposure risks. However, the Euro has made it easier to compare wages,

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Business and Administrative studies
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