Griggs' Folly: An Essay on the Theory, Problems, and Origin of the Adverse Impact Definition of Employment Discrimination and a Recommendation for Reform

This Article examines the adverse impact theory of employment discrimination under Title VII. The author begins by discussing the development of adverse impact in the case law, and by scrutinizing its theoretical underpinnings. He demonstrates that Congress did not intend to mandate adoption of adverse impact theory when it established Title VII. The author then argues that the Courts have exceeded their authority under Title VII by embracing the theory of adverse impact. He concludes that the courts should therefore return to a narrower theory of employment discrimination, namely, a theory based on the legal concept of “intent.”

ILR Impact Brief - Employment Arbitration: Emergence of a New Profession

The ILR Impact Brief series highlights the research and project based work conducted by ILR faculty that is relevant to workplace issues and public policy. Brief #1 highlights the authors' research on employment arbitration, including a survey of the National Academy of Arbitrators.

Cancer survivors at work : Work-related problems and factors associated with their employment, work ability and social support from the work community

Due to the improved prognosis of many forms of cancer, an increasing number of cancer survivors are willing to return to work after their treatment. It is generally believed, however, that people with cancer are either unemployed, stay at home, or retire more often than people without cancer. This study investigated the problems that cancer survivors experience on the labour market, as well as the disease-related, sociodemographic and psychosocial factors at work that are associated with the employment and work ability of cancer survivors. The impact of cancer on employment was studied combining the data of Finnish Cancer Registry and census data of the years 1985, 1990, 1995 or 1997 of Statistics Finland. There were two data sets containing 46 312 and 12 542 people with cancer. The results showed that cancer survivors were slightly less often employed than their referents. Two to three years after the diagnosis the employment rate of the cancer survivors was 9% lower than that of their referents (64% vs. 73%), whereas the employment rate was the same before the diagnosis (78%). The employment rate varied greatly according to the cancer type and education. The probability of being employed was greater in the lower than in the higher educational groups. People with cancer were less often employed than people without cancer mainly because of their higher retirement rate (34% vs. 27%). As well as employment, retirement varied by cancer type. The risk of retirement was twofold for people having cancer of the nervous system or people with leukaemia compared to their referents, whereas people with skin cancer, for example, did not have an increased risk of retirement. The aim of the questionnaire study was to investigate whether the work ability of cancer survivors differs from that of people without cancer and whether cancer had impaired their work ability. There were 591 cancer survivors and 757 referents in the data. Even though current work ability of cancer survivors did not differ between the survivors and their referents, 26% of cancer survivors reported that their physical work ability, and 19% that their mental work ability had deteriorated due to cancer. The survivors who had other diseases or had had chemotherapy, most often reported impaired work ability, whereas survivors with a strong commitment to their work organization, or a good social climate at work, reported impairment less frequently. The aim of the other questionnaire study containing 640 people with the history of cancer was to examine extent of social support that cancer survivors needed, and had received from their work community. The cancer survivors had received most support from their co-workers, and they hoped for more support especially from the occupational health care personnel (39% of women and 29% of men). More support was especially needed by men who had lymphoma, had received chemotherapy or had a low education level. The results of this study show that the majority of the survivors are able to return to work. There is, however, a group of cancer survivors who leave work life early, have impaired work ability due to their illness, and suffer from lack of support from their work place and the occupational health services. Treatment-related, as well as sociodemographic factors play an important role in survivors' work-related problems, and presumably their possibilities to continue working.

Economic theory informing approaches to phoenix activity in small business: A neo-Schumpeterian analysis

The adequacy and efficiency of existing legal and regulatory frameworks dealing with corporate phoenix activity have been repeatedly called into question over the past two decades through various reviews, inquiries, targeted regulatory operations and the implementation of piecemeal legislative reform. Despite these efforts, phoenix activity does not appear to have abated. While there is no law in Australia that declares ‘phoenix activity’ to be illegal, the behaviour that tends to manifest in phoenix activity can be capable of transgressing a vast array of law, including for example, corporate law, tax law, and employment law. This paper explores the notion that the persistence of phoenix activity despite the sheer extent of this law suggests that the law is not acting as powerfully as it might as a deterrent. Economic theories of entrepreneurship and innovation can to some extent explain why this is the case and also offer a sound basis for the evaluation and reconsideration of the existing law. The challenges facing key regulators are significant. Phoenix activity is not limited to particular corporate demographic: it occurs in SMEs, large companies and in corporate groups. The range of behaviour that can amount to phoenix activity is so broad, that not all phoenix activity is illegal. This paper will consider regulatory approaches to these challenges via analysis of approaches to detection and enforcement of the underlying law capturing illegal phoenix activity. Remedying the mischief of phoenix activity is of practical importance. The benefits include continued confidence in our economy, law that inspires best practice among directors, and law that is articulated in a manner such that penalties act as a sufficient deterrent and the regulatory system is able to detect offenders and bring them to account. Any further reforms must accommodate and tolerate legal phoenix activity, at least to some extent. Even then, phoenix activity pushes tolerance of repeated entrepreneurial failure to its absolute limit. The more limited liability is misused and abused, the stronger the argument to place some restrictions on access to limited liability. This paper proposes that such an approach is a legitimate next step for a robust and mature capitalist economy.

Posted Workers and Free Movement of Services in the European Union – the Impact on National Employment and Immigration Law

This thesis examines posting of workers within the free movement of services in the European Union. The emphasis is on the case law of the European Court of Justice and in the role it has played in the liberalisation of the service sector in respect of posting of workers. The case law is examined from two different viewpoints: firstly, that of employment law and secondly, immigration law. The aim is to find out how active a role the Court has taken with regard these two fields of law and what are the implications of the Court’s judgments for the regulation on a national level. The first part of the thesis provides a general review of the Community law principles governing the freedom to provide services in the EU. The second part presents the Posted Workers’ Directive and the case law of the European Court of Justice before and after the enactment of the Directive from the viewpoint of employment law. Special attention is paid to a recent judgment in which the Court has taken a restrictive position with regard to a trade union’s right to take collective action against a service provider established in another Member State. The third part of the thesis concentrates, firstly, on the legal status of non-EU nationals lawfully resident in the EU. Secondly, it looks into the question of how the Court’s case law has affected the possibilities to use non-EU nationals as posted workers within the freedom to provide services. The final chapter includes a critical analysis of the Court’s case law on posted workers. The judgments of the European Court of Justice are the principal source of law for this thesis. In the primary legislation the focus is on Articles 49 EC and 50 EC that lay down the rules concerning the free movement of services. Within the secondary legislation, the present work principally concentrates on the Posted Workers’ Directive. It also examines proposals of the European Commission and directives that have been adopted in the field of immigration. The conclusions of the case study are twofold: while in the field of employment law, the European Court of Justice has based its judgments on a very literal interpretation of the Posted Workers’ Directive, in the field of immigration its conclusions have been much more innovative. In both fields of regulation the Court’s judgments have far-reaching implications for the rules concerning posting of workers leaving very little discretion for the Member States’ authorities.

Stereochemical restrictions on the occurrence of amino acid residues in the collagen structure

The primary structure of collagen is characterized by the repeating tripeptide sequence (Gly-R2-R3)n. The results of theoretical studies, carried out using contact criteria to compute the stereochemically allowed orientations for various side chains at locations 2 and 3, are reported here. It is found that side chains with only γ-atoms, as in valine, serine and threonine, or with only one δ-methyl group, as in isoleucine, can occur equally well at locations 2 and 3, as is actually the case in collagen. Side chains with two Cδ-atoms, as in leucine and phenyl-alanine, can also be accommodated at both positions. However, if they occur as R3 their freedom of orientation is severely restricted in the presence of a proline residue as R2 in a neighbouring chain. If water molecules bound to the chains of the triple helix are assumed to be present, then location 3 is virtually impossible for leucine and phenylalanine residues. Location 2 is, however, unaffected, and their presence as R2 can help to shield the water molecules from disturbance by the solvent medium. This may be the reason for the preferential occurrence of Leu and Phe residues in location 2 in the collagen triplets, although the polypeptides (Gly-Pro-Leu)n and (Gly-Pro-Phe)n form collagen-like structures.

Welfare effects of aid under quantitative trade restrictions

The paper examines the effects of tied-aid on the welfare of both the donor and the recipient countries. We depart from the previous literature by assuming preexistence of quantitative trade distortions. To mitigate these distortions the donor country provides aid that is tied to the rationed good. Conditions for the presence of the transfer paradox and of the enrichment of both countries are derived and interpreted under the stability of the system. Furthermore, we show that whereas untied aid cannot increase global welfare, tied-aid unambiguously does so.

Conformational restrictions of peptides via backbone modification: Solution and crystal-state analysis of Boc-L-Pro-DZPhe-Gly-NH2

An N-alpha-protected model tripeptide amide containing, in the central position, an alpha,beta-dehydrophenylalanine (Z-configurational isomer), Boc-L-Pro-DELTA-Z-Phe-Gly-NH2 (Boc, tert-butyloxycarbonyl), has been synthesized by solution methods and fully characterized. IR absorption and H-1 NMR studies provided evidence for the occurrence of a significant population of a conformer containing two consecutive, intramolecularly H-bonded (type II-III') beta-bends in solution. However, an X-ray diffraction analysis clearly indicates that only the type-II beta-bend structure survives in the crystal state.

A Cointegration Approach to Topics in Empirical Macroeconomics (summary section only)

Mikael Juselius’ doctoral dissertation covers a range of significant issues in modern macroeconomics by empirically testing a number of important theoretical hypotheses. The first essay presents indirect evidence within the framework of the cointegrated VAR model on the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor by using Finnish manufacturing data. Instead of estimating the elasticity of substitution by using the first order conditions, he develops a new approach that utilizes a CES production function in a model with a 3-stage decision process: investment in the long run, wage bargaining in the medium run and price and employment decisions in the short run. He estimates the elasticity of substitution to be below one. The second essay tests the restrictions implied by the core equations of the New Keynesian Model (NKM) in a vector autoregressive model (VAR) by using both Euro area and U.S. data. Both the new Keynesian Phillips curve and the aggregate demand curve are estimated and tested. The restrictions implied by the core equations of the NKM are rejected on both U.S. and Euro area data. These results are important for further research. The third essay is methodologically similar to essay 2, but it concentrates on Finnish macro data by adopting a theoretical framework of an open economy. Juselius’ results suggests that the open economy NKM framework is too stylized to provide an adequate explanation for Finnish inflation. The final essay provides a macroeconometric model of Finnish inflation and associated explanatory variables and it estimates the relative importance of different inflation theories. His main finding is that Finnish inflation is primarily determined by excess demand in the product market and by changes in the long-term interest rate. This study is part of the research agenda carried out by the Research Unit of Economic Structure and Growth (RUESG). The aim of RUESG it to conduct theoretical and empirical research with respect to important issues in industrial economics, real option theory, game theory, organization theory, theory of financial systems as well as to study problems in labor markets, macroeconomics, natural resources, taxation and time series econometrics. RUESG was established at the beginning of 1995 and is one of the National Centers of Excellence in research selected by the Academy of Finland. It is financed jointly by the Academy of Finland, the University of Helsinki, the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, Bank of Finland and the Nokia Group. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Essays on Stock Option Compensation and the Role of Incentives and Risk (summary section only)

Managerial pay-for-performance sensitivity has increased rapidly around the world. Early empirical research showed that pay-for-performance sensitivity resulting from stock ownership and stock options appeared to be quite low during the 1970s and early 1980s in the U.S. However, recent empirical research from the U.S. shows an enormous increase in pay-for-performance sensitivity. The global trend has also reached Finland, where stock options have become a major ingredient of executive compensation. The fact that stock options seem to be an appealing form of remuneration from a theoretical point of view combined with the observation that the use of this compensation form has increased significantly during the recent years, implies that research on the dynamics of stock option compensation is highly relevant for the academic community, as well as for practitioners and regulators. The research questions of the thesis are analyzed in four separate essays. The first essay examines whether stock option compensation practices of Finnish firms are consistent with predictions from principal-agent theory. The second essay explores one of the major puzzles in the compensation literature by studying determinants of stock option contract design. In theory, optimal contract design should vary according to firm characteristics. However, in the U.S., variation in contract design seems to be surprisingly low, a phenomenon generally attributed to tax and accounting considerations. In Finland, however, firms are not subject to stringent contracting restrictions, and the variation in contract design tends, in fact, to be quite substantial. The third essay studies the impact of price- and risk incentives arising from stock option compensation on firm investment. In addition, the essay explores one of the most debated questions in the literature, in particular, the relation between incentives and firm performance. Finally, several strands of literature in both economics and corporate finance hypothesize that economic uncertainty is related to corporate decision-making. Previous research has shown that risk tends to slow down firm investment. In the fourth essay, it is hypothesized that firm risk slows down growth from a more universal perspective. Consistent with this view, it is shown that risk not only tends to slow down firm investment, but also employment growth. Moreover, the essay explores whether the nature of firms’ compensation policies, in particular, whether firms make use of stock option compensation, affects the relation between risk and firm growth. In summary, the four essays contribute to the current understanding of stock options as a form of equity incentives, and how incentives and risk affect corporate decision-making. By this, the thesis promotes the knowledge related to the modern theory of the firm.

An Expenditure-Based Estimation of Self-Employment Income Underreporting in Finland

This paper estimates the extent of income underreporting by the self-employed in Finland using the expenditure based approach developed by Pissarides & Weber (1989). Household spending data are for the years 1994 to 1996. The results suggest that self-employment income in Finland is underreported by some 27% on average. Since income for the self-employed is about 8 % of all incomes in Finland, the size of this part of the black economy in Finland is estimated to be about 2,3% of GDP.

The Effect of Obesity on Wages and Employment: The Difference Between Having a High BMI and Being Fat

In this paper, we re-examine the relationship between overweight and labour market success, using indicators of individual body composition along with BMI (Body Mass Index). We use the dataset from Finland in which weight, height, fat mass and waist circumference are not self-reported, but obtained as part of the overall health examination. We find that waist circumference, but not weight or fat mass, has a negative effect on wages for women, whereas all measures of obesity have negative effects on women’s employment probabilities. For men, the only obesity measure that is significant for men’s employment probabilities is fat mass. One interpretation of our findings is that the negative wage effects of overweight on wages run through the discrimination channel, but that the negative effects of overweight on employment have more to do with ill health. All in all, measures of body composition provide a more refined picture about the effects of obesity on wages and employment.