Downsizing in America
Author: Julian N May
"Downsizing in America offers a range of compelling hypotheses to account for adoption of downsizing as an accepted business practice. In the short run, many companies experiencing difficulties due to decreased sales, cash flow problems, or declining securities prices reduced their workforces temporarily, expanding them again when business conditions improved. The most significant trigger leading to long-term downsizing was the rapid change in technology. Companies rid themselves of their least skilled workers and subsequently hired employees who were better prepared to work with new technology, which in some sectors reduced the size of firms at which production is most efficient." "Baumol, Blinder, and Wolff also reveal what they call the dirty little secret of downsizing: it is profitable in part because it holds down wages. Downsizing in America shows that reducing employee rolls increased profits, since downsizing firms spent less money on wages relative to output but it did not increase productivity. Nor did unions impede downsizing. The authors show that unionized industries were actually more likely to downsize in order to eliminate expensive union labor. In sum, downsizing transferred income from labor to capital - from workers to owners." Downsizing in America combines an investigation of the underlying realities and causes of workforce reduction with an insightful analysis of the consequent shift in the balance of power between management and labor, to provide us with a deeper understanding of one of the major economic shifts of recent times - one with far-reaching implications for all American workers.
New interesting textbook: Dictators or Principles of Political Economy and Taxation
Financial Optimization
Author: Stavros Andrea Zenios
The use of mathematical models in financial management is today common business practice. The state of the art is constantly being advanced by academia and refined by industry. This book achieves two objectives. First, it brings together the (apparently) diverse fields of finance and management science/operations research. It presents a variety of techniques used in complex problems for financial management: optimization, simulation, stochastic programming and supercomputing. Second, it links current industrial practices with academic research to a degree unparalleled by any previous publication in the field.
Table of Contents:
| List of contributors | ||
| Foreword | ||
| Preface | ||
| Acknowledgments | ||
| Pt. I | General overview | |
| 1 | Some financial optimization models: I Risk management | 3 |
| 2 | Some financial optimization models: II Financial engineering | 37 |
| 3 | New "financial market equilibrium" results: implications for practical financial optimization | 72 |
| 4 | Empirical tests of biases in equity portfolio optimization | 80 |
| Pt. II | Models | |
| 5 | An economic approach to valuation of single premium deferred annuities | 101 |
| Commentary | 132 | |
| 6 | The optimal portfolio system: targeting horizon total returns under varying interest-rate scenarios | 136 |
| 7 | Optimization tools for the financial manager's desk | 176 |
| 8 | A flexible approach to interest-rate risk management | 189 |
| 9 | Currency hedging strategies for US investment in Japan and Japanese investment in the US | 210 |
| Commentary | 236 | |
| Pt. III | Methodologies | |
| 10 | Incorporating transaction costs in models for asset allocation | 243 |
| 11 | Bond portfolio analysis using integer programming | 260 |
| 12 | Scenario immunization | 290 |
| 13 | Mortgages and Markov chains: a simplified evaluation model | 309 |
| 14 | Parallel Monte Carlo simulation of mortgage-backed securities | 325 |
| Index | 344 |
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