Extremism: Root Causes and Strategic Use in Conflicts

This paper examines the interaction between root causes, domestic policy considerations and the use of extremism as a strategic tool in an external conflict. Within a two-country three-stage game, we show that, in general, domestic policies will be used strategically to achieve the desired level of extremism. We also show that the level of extremism decreases and social/economic conditions improve when a country becomes wealthier, more powerful, more socially concerned, less nationalistic, relatively less concerned with external considerations and when the value of the contested asset decreases. These effects are due to external strategic considerations, rather than domestic ones.Extremism, Root Causes, Credible Threats, Bargaining, Power, Social/Economic Conditions

Wages, Fringe Benefits and Efficiency in Union-Firm Bargaining

This paper provides an efficient union-firm bargaining solution within the right to manage framework, by separating efficiency and distribution considerations through bargaining over wage and fringe benefits. We show that without insurance considerations, efficiency is achieved by equating the wage and workers’ opportunity cost and providing the union with a surplus share in accordance with its bargaining power. We also show that with insurance considerations, the optimal contract, again, equates the wage and workers’ opportunity cost, but it also provides full insurance. There is empirical evidence that fringe benefits are, indeed, common and play an important role in union contracts.Price Union Contracts, Efficient Bargaining, Right to Manage

Capital Structure with Opportunistic Stakeholders' Coalitions

This paper shows that stakeholders' multilateral opportunistic behaviour during financial distress may lead to premature liquidation of the firm. Consequently, the firm will use its capital structure to mitigate the costs of such opportunism. Specifically, the firm will reduce its debt so that the probability of multilateral opportunism is zero; namely, it will use only safe debt. The paper predicts that the debt-equity ratio will decrease with risk, the number of contracts, the difficulty in writing them and in achieving franchising arrangements, the supplier's importance in opportunistic coalitions and a decrease in the firm's size, or the supplier's adjustment costs.Incomplete Contracts, Opportunistic Behaviour, Bankruptcy, Capital Structure.

The Effects of Foreign Price Uncertainty on Australian Production and Trade

This paper provides a framework for the empirical analysis of the role of uncertain international prices for the Australian economy’s production sector and its international trade. We model the movement of traded goods prices via a bivariate GARCH model and embed this within an expected utility maximizing model of the production sector. We find that the empirical results are consistent with expected utility maximization and that the hypothesis of risk neutrality is soundly rejected. Estimates of the effects of changes in expected prices and volatility of traded goods prices upon production decisions and the return to capital are presented and discussed, as are the impacts of changes in output growth of Australia’s major trading partners. The overall conclusion is that price uncertainty matters for the Australian production sector.Price uncertainty, production under risk, expected utility maximization, international trade