THE BUS INDUSTRY IN DANGER

After seeking to placate the local government lobby while retaining the benefits of private enterprise, the Labour government's policy for bus services is slipping into a dangerous compromise which will neglect the market while seizing assets from commercial operators. Behind this lies a policy leading to the return of bus services to public ownership.     

FREEDOM AND ITS ENEMIES: PROBLEMS OF RE‐ESTABLISHING FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT1

The experience of living in non‐free communist societies may have made the people of Eastern Europe particularly sensitive to the weakening and ultimately the loss of freedom. Many see such a process currently taking place in a Europe that increasingly places group rights and entitlements above the rights of individuals. Such a process has been driven by a growing belief in the inevitability of market failure, a desire to use the state for personal gain and a fear of openness, freedom and competition.     

FREEHOLDS AND FREEDOM: THE IMPORTANCE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY IN PROMOTING AND SECURING LIBERTY

In the seventeenth annual IEA Hayek Memorial Lecture, the author examines the historical connection between individual property and individual liberty. Freehold ownership has been essential to the progress of freedom among the English‐speaking peoples. Accordingly, the protection of private property should be given high priority in our system of law.     

LIFE-CYCLE ANALYSIS AND POLICY OPTIONS: THE CASE OF THE EUROPEAN PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY

As part of the shift in emphasis in environmental policy from clean-up to avoidance, environmental policy instruments that specify preferred technological directions for an industry are increasingly being used. Take-back requirements and mandatory recycling are cases in point. These directly affect the mix of materials and the technologies used by an industry. These effects reverberate throughout the industry and influence market conditions for everyone both up- and downstream in the supplier/client chains. As these chains frequently cross international frontiers, environmental policy-making is becoming increasingly significant in influencing competitive structures and international trade patterns. Concerns are that policy-making may lock in inappropriate technologies and that the policy process may be manipulated for industrial or trading advantage. Using fibre recycling in the European pulp and paper sector as a case study, it is shown how these concerns are manifest and also that materials accounting and operational research techniques exist to mitigate them. It is concluded that there is a need to establish agreed environmental impact evaluation methodologies to provide guidance on the robustness of policy-making and a basis for consistent, predictable and defensible policy-making.     

MANUFACTURING REFORM AND THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR: THE CASE OF THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY*

This research assesses current changes in the nature of the supervisory role in the automobile industry. It locates these changes in the context of a transition from mass production to lean or just-in-time production. the emergence of a supervisory role, with supervisors performing critical functions as effective managers of integrated work areas is explored by focusing on two lean producers, Nissan UK and Mazda's Flat Rock plant in the US. Noting the increased responsibility of the supervisor under lean production, the extent of the supervisors’enhanced status and authority are considered. However, a case study of an established vehicle producer in the UK, involving interviews with a sample of forty supervisors draws out the structural and organizational difficulties faced by existing manufacturers in their attempts to reformulate the role of the supervisor.     

BANKRUPTCY, THE CREDIT CARD AND AMERICAN FREEDOM

Over the past 30 years, the USA has enhanced economic freedom in a paradigmatic way. This was accomplished through its unique 1978 bankruptcy law legislation, which itself had been necessitated by the previous over-use of the credit card. Curiously, this expansion of economic freedom is reminiscent of some nineteenth-century calls for social justice.     

The London Business School with Gower Publishing: Forecast Release: EARNINGS AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE CAR INDUSTRY: THE BEST AND WORST OF BRITISH INDUSTRY

The Chancellor has described the cost in terms of lost output and higher unemployment of getting inflation down as ‘well worth paying’. Yet the trade-off so far is a miserable 1.25 per cent off the underlying rate of growth of earnings for an unemployment increase approaching 600,000, some 2–3 per cent off the underlying rate of inflation for a 3 per cent drop in GDP and a 7 per cent fall in manufacturing output. The question is clear: why is it that in the UK we seem to have to pay such a high price in terms of lost output and higher unemployment to make only modest progress on reducing wage and price inflation? One possible answer is in terms of the NAIRU; another stems from the way in which we measure retail price inflation. Using the example of the car industry as a backdrop, we examine the relationship between unemployment and inflation and ask whether there is a role for government to play in improving the trade-off. Our conclusion is that the present non-interventionist stance is probably appropriate but that the government should be doing more to educate both sides of the wage bargain - a challenge picked up by the Prime Minister in his recent speech to the CBI. This is especially appropriate at the present time, because price inflation is falling but wage inflation is lagging behind. It is not a cut in real wages that is required but an equi-proportionate deceleration in both wages and prices. By joining the ERM, we will ultimately obtain German rates of inflation; low wage settlements would both shorten the time-scale and reduce the unemployment cost of convergence.     

THE ORANGE BOOK,THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS AND ECONOMIC FREEDOM

Despite the Liberal Democrat's party heritage and despite the efforts of those who wrote The Orange Book, the party still has difficulty embracing economic liberalism. The state is often seen as benign or even virtuous and there is huge caution when it comes to taxation, public service reform and deregulation which results from other priorities being put before economic growth. Indeed, even some of The Orange Book authors have produced mixed results when they have had opportunities in the coalition government.     

THE CZECH REPUBLIC: PROGRESS TOWARDS FREEDOM AND A MARKET ECONOMY

The Czech Republic has made good progress towards a market economy, though its experience shows that it is easier to change the political system than the economic system. It shows also that public expectations tend to be too high: economic transformation cannot be costless and rapid as is often assumed. The Czech Republic wishes to participate in European integration though it has reservations about the degree of regulation, harmonisation and bureaucratisation in the EU.     

THE DYNAMICS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN INDUSTRY AND POLITICS. THE INTRODUCTION OF ECOTAXES IN BELGIUM

In 1993 the Belgian Government introduced product charges on drink containers, batteries, certain industrial packaging, paper and disposable razors and cameras. Simultaneously, an expert commission was installed to follow up the implementation process and to propose new ecotaxes. Because the preparation of the law was not well done and only limited knowledge and experience existed, the implementation encountered serious difficulties. The commission revised the law in a global and systematic way in co-operation with the actors involved: industry, environmentalists and the administration. The methodology that was followed is explained and some important conclusions with respect to the interaction between business, politics and science considered. There is a great gap between textbook theory and the realities of the implementation process.