Suchergebnisse

There are three reasons for promoting mutual building societies: they are less prone than banks to pursue risky speculative activity; a mixed system produces a more stable financial sector; and a stronger mutual sector enhances competition within the financial system. The banking crisis highlighted the importance of retaining diverse models of financial service providers, and while mutuals were affected by the recession, they were not themselves responsible for causing the recession, as were private banks. The UK Government needs to secure a financial return for the failed financial institutions it nationalised and a low level of overall economic risk for the taxpayer. Given a trade-off, the long-run benefits of financial sustainability and reduced risk, plus enhanced competition, need to be given proper weighting compared with any short run gain through a trade sale and the repayment of the government's support. This paper focuses on the case of Northern Rock as the most suitable candidate for remutualisation, and whose disposal is under current consideration, but the analysis applies more widely.

THE RECENT GLOBALIZATION OF MARKETS AND THE ACCOMPANYING INTENSIFICATION OF INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION HAVE BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH EXTENSIVE DEREGULATION OF ECONOMIES AS WELL AS WITH MEASURES TO REDUCE TAXES AND GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE. THIS ARTICLE RECONSIDERS THE THEORETICAL BASIS OF THIS DEBATE AND DRAWS OUT IN PARTICULAR THE IMPLICATIONS FOR GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN THE CONTEXT OF INNOVATIVE PROCESSES THAT REQUIRE VARIETY AND EXPERIMENTATION.

DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY IS STILL DOMINATED BY LAISSEZ-FAIRE ECONOMICS, DESPITE THE FAILURE OF SUCH POLICY ANALYSIS IN THE 1980S TO HAVE BROUGHT ABOUT THE SORT OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND HIGH EMPLOYMENT WITNESSED THROUGH THE 1950S AND 1960S. THE DOMINANT FEATURE OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE THEORY IS THE ASSUMED SUPERIORITY OF FREE TRADE AND NON-INTERVENTION. IN THIS PAPER THE AUTHORS ARGUE THAT THE NEO-CLASSICAL CASE FOR FREE TRADE IS BASED ON INAPPROPRIATE ASSUMPTIONS; RELAX THESE ASSUMPTIONS AND THE CASE FOR NON-INTERVENTION GOES WITH THEM. THIS PAPER ARGUES THAT TO RETURN TO A SITUATION OF REASONABLE STABILITY AND BALANCED GROWTH FOR INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES, AND FOR THE WORLD ECONOMY AS A WHOLE, INCREASED MANAGEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL TRADING AND MONETARY SYSTEMS WILL BE REQUIRED.

Mutual and Employee-owned businesses (MEOBs) continue to experience a revival in the UK, be it through the growth of building societies and financial mutuals, or the success of employee-owned businesses (see Co-operatives UK 2013a; EOA 2013). In addition, government has promoted MEOBs by transferring public services into new corporate forms, citing reports of resilience and long-term success of MEOBs. Yet despite these developments, there appears to be some ambiguity as to how to evaluate the performance of MEOBs. The lack of a coherent framework that takes the values, principles and structures into account when assessing outputs and outcomes results in a narrow understanding of MEOB performance, often focused on quantitative measures irrespective of the values and principles held by these types of organisations, and indeed their purpose. In an effort to advance such work, this paper seeks to outline a framework to evaluate mutual and employee-owned businesses taking account of a variety of dimensions that affect how MEOBs do business, and the outcomes they produce, to broaden the idea of performance by joining up values and principles that are at the centre of the mutual model with the outputs and outcomes that are being created.