Central America: Labor Reports and Child Labor Reports Pursuant to the Trade Act of 2002, Section 2102(c)(8)-(9)

[Excerpt] These comments are in response to the “Request for Information Concerning Labor Rights in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua and their Laws Governing Exploitative Child Labor” published at 68 Fed. Reg. 19580 (April 21, 2003). This Request for Information was issued pursuant to Section 2102(c)(8) and (9) of the Trade Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-210, which requires the President, with respect to any proposed trade agreement, to submit to Congress a “meaningful labor rights report” and a “report describing the extent to which the country or countries that are parties to the agreement have in effect laws governing exploitative child labor.

U.S. Retailers: Responsible for the Global Sweatshop Crisis

This report provides an overview of the global sweatshop system, and offers a closer look at some of the more “prominent perpetrators” within the system, including: Ann Taylor, Abercrombie & Fitch, Eddie Bauer, Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, and J. Crew

U.S. Investors’ Response to Philippine Capital Market Liberalization: Evidence from the First Philippine Fund

This paper investigates the impact of liberalization of international investment restrictions in the Philippines on the discounts of the First Philippine Fund (FPF) closed-end country fund. In particular, it investigates whether such restrictions are binding and how U.S. investors see the announced relaxation of restrictions. The overall results suggest evidence supporting the hypothesis that changes in the FPF’s discounts are associated with the announcements of changes in restrictions in international investment.capital markets, liberalization, investment

Has Foreign Entry Made Domestic Banks More Efficient?

Has foreign entry indeed made domestic banks more efficient? Unite's and Sullivan's study, based on a sample of 16 expanded commercial banks (ECBs) and general macroeconomic data for the Philippines for the period 1990-1998, on the whole, supports the view of a general weakening of relationship-style banking brought about by the liberalization of foreign presence in the Philippine banking sector. This has consequences, of course, to the practices in the domestic banking industry. Read more in this Policy Notes.financial liberalization, foreign bank entry, domestic banks, expanded commercial banks

Predicting Petty Corruption in the Public Sector through Household Survey Non-Compliance

Corruption is a phenomenon in which many South Africans are well versed. While it continues to headline the news, the true extent of corruption is difficult to determine. Perception based indices have been proven to be inaccurate and experience-based data is also likely to incorrectly estimate the level of corruption. Forensic economics have come forward to fill this gap. These methods, however, are not always feasible as they rely on special datasets which are often difficult to come by. Using the National Income Dynamics Survey (NIDS) Waves 3, 4 and 5, this paper measures the difference in income underreporting between the public and private sectors. This difference is argued to represent the relative level of petty corruption in the public sector. Estimation results show an increasing trend in petty corruption over the period 2012-2017 with the public sector underreporting their income by, on average, 31.71%. Petty corruption is highest in law enforcement and the general government sectors. Evidence shows spatial variation in petty corruption with rural areas having the highest levels of underreporting. Petty corruption is also found to vary across the income distribution as levels of underreporting increase with income

The Perrymander, Polarization, and Peyote v. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 accomplished what the Fifteenth Amendment alone could not: safeguarding minority voting rights. One of the Act’s key enforcement provisions, Section 2, has helped protect not only minorities’ access to the polls but also their right to an undiluted vote against potentially discriminatory means such as legislative redistricting. By prohibiting minority vote dilution even when a legislative redistricting plan is drawn strictly for political gain, Section 2 has also become one of the only checks on partisan gerrymandering. Yet a certain confluence of circumstances puts Section 2 at risk of being either struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional or eviscerated, leaving the narrower interpretation of Section 2 that Chief Justice Roberts advocated when he worked at the Justice Department. These circumstances—the polarization of Congress, the ideological disposition of the Supreme Court, and the changing composition of the electorate—threaten to squelch the minority vote just as it amasses the potential to swing presidential elections and, thus, the futures of the political parties

American Vulture Campaign

In the American Vulture Campaign, UNITE-HERE calls for a boycott of American Eagle Outfitters, as the company has failed to uphold its own code of conduct. AEO, the largest client of National Logistics Services (NLS), has ignored its commitment to solely working with contractors who respect workers rights, particularly the right of employees to associate freely

The Goddard Space Flight Center ergonomics program

Since the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Cardiovascular Screening Program started in 1984, we have made many changes to accommodate the growing number of participants. As a result of these changes, screening of KSC employees has become more efficient and productive. Various aspects of the program are covered

The Influence of Group Affiliation and Ownership Structure on Emerging Market IPOs: The Case of the Philippines

In this paper we report initial returns and long-run performance of IPOs in the Philippines over the period 1987-1997. Within this context we investigate the differential effects on IPO returns of offer size, firm age, industry, market timing, ownership structure, and company affiliation. We find average initial returns of 22.69% for a sample of 104 company IPOs over an 11-year period, 1987 through 1997, and three-year aftermarket adjusted returns of -5.44% for a subset of 65 of these companies. Factors commonly found to affect the level of IPO underpricing are not found significant in the Philippines. Instead, we find that firms affiliated with a corporate group are subject to greater IPO underpricing than unaffiliated firms. We attribute this to affiliated firms issuing IPOs accompanied by a lower degree of information disclosure

Women on Top: Diversity in Gender and Education Profiles of Top Management and Board of Directors of Philippine Publicly Traded Firms

Women have been making headway when it comes to occupying corporate board and senior management positions in companies all over the world, particularly in the Philippines. Stylized facts released by international reports point to the surprising prevalence of women holding leadership positions among Philippine firms. Hence, this descriptive study bridges a gap in the Philippine corporate governance literature by using data on around 250 PSE-listed firms to examine gender diversity composition and trends among CEOs, boards, and top management teams in Philippine publicly traded firms on a five-year interval (i.e. 2003, 2008, 2013) and for the most recent year (i.e. 2014). Additionally, we provide information on the educational profile of CEOs of PSE-listed firms. Our study confirms the existence of a gender gap among governing and managing bodies of Philippine public firms, but observes a gradual improvement in the representation of women in key leadership positions. We also find that most CEOs of PSE-listed firms share a common educational background in terms of undergraduate and graduate degrees received and tertiary schools attended