This paper is concerned with the relation between workforce skills and high-quality production. Detailed investigations of specific products sampled from three industries indicate that the average British-made product embodied fewer quality-features than its German-made counterpart, and that...

This paper examines whether convergence is occurring at the industry level in 11 EU countries from 1960 to 1993. Both time series and non-parametric (σ-convergence) methods are applied. Using time series analysis we test whether there is within sector convergence towards a common steady state....

The economic impact of unions has received increasing attention in the literature. However, the channels through which unions impinge on performance are seldom identified. This paper examines the impact of industrial conflict on output and factor productivity in a panel of British manufacturing...

This study tests for the existence of labour market segmentation by exploiting the variation in industrial structure across 59 labour market areas, as defined by MSAs. By creating an index of the relative explanatory power of standard and segmented earnings function models for each area,...

This paper applies the recently developed cointegration techniques to test for a long-run equilibrium among real wages and the average productivity of labour as implied by profit maximisation in the Greek manufacturing sector. We find evidence for a profit-maximising equilibrium and for...

Claims of labour market discrimination against Catholics run to the heart of the Northern Ireland conflict. This paper assesses British Government led moves to promote fair employment in the region. It argues that initial policies to promote labour market balance were weak and ineffectual but...