RE: literature on business ethics / corporate responsibility
The FT ran an article this week on business ethics I think Thursday or Friday. David -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Jacob W Bræstrup Sent: 10 February 2002 10:15 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: literature on business ethics / corporate responsibility Armchairs, A friend of mine is looking for a very short (1 page) article on business ethics / corporate responsibility for a course at the university. It must have appeared in a journal / periodical. I boasted that the list would be able to come up with a couple of suggestions in no time... well... is it?? - jacob braestrup ps: I know the request is somewhat bizarre (the length), but that's universities for you - hope someone can help pps: already checked the cato journal on-line: no luck!
Re: literature on business ethics / corporate responsibility
You could always raise the query at our community on who's true fair view http://www.quicktopic.com/12/D/YCi5LrQCCMGaD.html though I expect a bible rather than a one-pager is what's needed after Andersen/Enron chris macrae, [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.normanmacrae.com - Original Message - From: Jacob W Bræstrup [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 10 February 2002 10:15 AM Subject: literature on business ethics / corporate responsibility Armchairs, A friend of mine is looking for a very short (1 page) article on business ethics / corporate responsibility for a course at the university. It must have appeared in a journal / periodical. I boasted that the list would be able to come up with a couple of suggestions in no time... well... is it?? - jacob braestrup ps: I know the request is somewhat bizarre (the length), but that's universities for you - hope someone can help pps: already checked the cato journal on-line: no luck!
Restaurants Again
Several weeks ago Fabio pointed out a novel reason why restaurants might choose long lines intead of higher prices - the longer lines induce people in the restaurant to eat faster. This is an interesting suggestion but it misses quite a bit of the phenomena because it applies (presumably) only to physical, on-premises waiting. Many fine restaurants, however, have long waiting times to get a reservation. The French Laundry, for example, is perhaps the best restaurant in America and the wait to get in is 2 months or more! (2 months for a normal day - much longer if you want to book for Valentines or something like that.) This sort of waiting seems much more amenable to a Becker type explanation involving non-linearities and prestige factors. Alex Tabarrok
Re: Restaurants Again
My father, who allegedly holds some sort of psycology degree, claims that many restaurants (likely retail chains and not ma and pa's) train their servers to drop subtile hints to get people out the door. Everything from asking if everything is OK to stopping to refill drink or clearing plates. Perhaps the reason larger prestige places have longer lines is because they sell wine. The markup on the entree is large because of the portion size (probably). But these restaurants must rake it in hand over fist selling wine. And while places like Pizzeria Unos give free refills on soda, places like I Can't Afford To Eat Here always offer more, but are sure to put it on the bill. But then again, I'm just a customer. Dan Lewis ad www.whattheheck.com /ad At 08:54 PM 2/10/02 -0600, you wrote: But how many restaurants have such long lines for a reservation? My hunch is that most restaurants don't have any long lines, some have long lines but you can easily get a reservation and there is a small fraction like The French Laundry where you have to wait in line so you can wait in line! My hypothesis: Cheap eateries don't have lines, intermediate restaurants use lines to speed up eating and the fancy places employ the Becker/prestige mechanism. Any industry insiders who can settle this one? Fabio Several weeks ago Fabio pointed out a novel reason why restaurants might choose long lines intead of higher prices - the longer lines induce people in the restaurant to eat faster. This is an interesting suggestion but it misses quite a bit of the phenomena because it applies (presumably) only to physical, on-premises waiting. Many fine restaurants, however, have long waiting times to get a reservation. The French Laundry, for example, is perhaps the best restaurant in America and the wait to get in is 2 months or more! (2 months for a normal day - much longer if you want to book for Valentines or something like that.) This sort of waiting seems much more amenable to a Becker type explanation involving non-linearities and prestige factors. Alex Tabarrok
Fat Americans, Redux
A month or so ago, the 'chair was wondering why Americans tend to be overweight, particularly because of the commonly rumored fat tax on foods like McDonalds' stuff. Someone linked to a Landsburg article (http://slate.msn.com/?id=105306) discussing reasons for the aggregate weight gain. A nutritionist I spoke with last week shared something interesting -- maybe some Americans just don't have _enough_ fat. According to this nutritionist, low-fat diets will work for a while, but after a while, they'll snap, leading to weight gain. Basically, take a person who, instead of cutting calories, cuts fat out of their diet. They'll lose weight for a while, but their metabolism doesn't realize that's what going on. It'll slow down, expecting less food because of the low amounts of fat. (In a sense, it starts storing up for the winter.) The weight loss stops, so the incentive to stay low-fat goes away. But the metabolism doesn't bounce back up, so weight is gained. Which leads to more low-fat diets. Repeat. (See http://my.webmd.com/content/article/3079.275) This probably is more a symptom than the real disease, which is basically nutritional ignorance. Most people couldn't guess how much fat they had in a day, whether or not they've actually cut calories from week to week, or what the hell dietary fiber is even good for. And that too much sodium is bad. Which leads me to the other point I wanted to make -- microwaves probably add to the problem. The feed-me-now mentality which can only exist in affluent nations isn't necessarily bad, but frozen foods are usually high in sodium. Theoretically, the sodium intake should be matched by extra water intake. Or something like that. But the advent of the microwave has certainly upped the amount of preservatives/sodium in diets over the last two decades, which would at least correspond to a lot of the weight gain times. Dan Lewis [EMAIL PROTECTED]
