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This paper presents an account of the UK campaign for the voluntary Living Wage, an example of civil regulation. The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize the actors involved in the campaign, describe methods used and examine direct and indirect consequences of the campaign.

A mixed-method design is employed, reflecting the broadly framed purpose of the research. The research used semi-structured interviews with campaigners, union representatives and employers, observation of campaign activities and the creation of a database of Living Wage employers.

The campaign originated in the community organizing movement, but has involved a broad range of labor market actors, both “new” and “old.” A continuum of campaigning methods has been used, stretching from community mobilization to appeals to employer self-interest and corporate social responsibility. The campaign has recruited 3,000 employers, led to wage increases for thousands of workers and registered indirect effects by shaping the policies of governments, employers and unions.

The research presents a novel account of the UK’s distinctive Living Wage campaign, a notable example of the civil regulation of the labor market.

Quebec was the first Canadian jurisdiction to legislate on pay equality. It did so through the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedom, in 1976, a passive legislation since it is based on complaints. It seems to be a matter of time before the Quebec Government passes a pro‐active legislation on pay equity and, in doing so, it will likely draw its inspiration from the Pay Equity Act (PEA) passed by the Ontario Government in 1987. One of PEAs important features is the emphasis on institutional structures and practices in determining the appropriate unit for the purpose of achieving pay equity. In practice, such units will often match up with the usual job families (e.g. clerical or office vs production jobs). However, the historical development of jobs families is intertwined with the evolution of occupational segregation between men and women in the labour markets.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out among market sellers in Equatorial Guinea’s capital Malabo at the height of its oil-boom in 2010–2012, this paper explores how prices were negotiated and set. It describes how the marketplace constitutes an important institution in Guinean society, not only as a site for provisioning, but also as a space for fostering relationships, engaging in politics and seeking social justice. The case of Equatorial Guinea helps us to re-think the notion of the just price as it is established through contingent and negotiated relations between traders, their customers and powerful political actors, rather than being the outcome of supply and demand or the result of struggles over the production and reproduction of labour. The emphasis on the political dimension of the just price speaks to key debates in the moral economy literature.

Focusing upon British retailing, the purpose of this paper is to review what is known both about the importance of different supply networks at different points in time, and about the attitudes of different groups of consumers towards these networks.

Relying primarily upon secondary sources, the paper discusses the ways in which the literature on retailing beyond the shop has developed during the past 40 years, and particularly during the past ten years or so.

The paper shows that although it is difficult to delineate the scale and importance of retailing beyond the shop, there is a growing consensus that shops were by no means the sole, or necessarily dominant, source of supply. It shows too that consumers' attitudes towards both commercial and non‐commercial exchanges were complex and sometimes contradictory, with non‐commercial transactions particularly difficult to disentangle and interpret. However, it should not be assumed, it is suggested, that notions of value and ties of reciprocity inevitably fell victim to the growing forces of industrialisation and urbanisation.

The paper adopts a broad chronological perspective and introduces readers to sources, evidence, ideas and concepts that shed light on British retail development and change.

The question is whether debt market investors see through managers' attempts to hide their pension obligations. The authors establish a robust relation between understated pension liabilities and corporate bond yield spreads after controlling for factors that have been previously identified as having a significant impact on firms' cost of borrowing. The results support the idea that bond market investors are not being misled by the use of high pension liability discount rates by some companies to lower their reported pension obligations. For a small fraction of debt issuers, the reported pension liabilities are larger than the pension liabilities valued at the stipulated interest rate benchmarks. For these issuers with overstated pension liabilities, bond investors adjust their borrowing costs downward.

The authors investigate the relation between corporate bond yield spreads and understated pension liabilities relative to long-term Treasury and high-grade corporate bond yields. They aim to answer two questions. First, what are the sizes of over or understated pension liabilities relative to guideline benchmarks? Second, do debt market investors see through the potential management manipulation of pension discount rates? The authors find that firms with large understated pension liabilities face higher marginal borrowing costs after taking into account issue-specific features, firm characteristics, macroeconomic conditions and other pension information such as funded status and mandatory contributions.

The average understated projected benefit obligations (PBOs) are understated by $394.3 and $335.6, equivalent to 3.5 and 3.0% of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. The average understated accumulated benefit obligations (ABOs) are understated by $359.3 and $305.3 million, equivalent to 3.1 and 2.6%, of the beginning of the fiscal year market value, respectively. Relative to AA-grade corporate bond yields, the average difference between firm pension discount rates and benchmark yields becomes much smaller; the percentage of firm pension discount rates higher than benchmark yields is also much smaller. As a result, understated pension liabilities become negligible. The authors establish a robust relation between corporate bond yield spreads and measures of understated pension liabilities after controlling for issue-specific features, firm characteristics, other pension information (funded status and mandatory contributions), macroeconomic conditions, calendar effects and industry effects.

S&P Rating Services recognizes the issue that there is considerably more variability in discount rate assumptions among companies than in workforce demographics or the interest rate environment in which firms operate (Standard and Poor's, 2006). S&P also indicates that it would be desirable to normalize different discount rate assumptions but acknowledges that it is difficult to do so. In practice, S&P Rating Services conducts periodic surveys to see whether firms' assumed discount rates conform to the normal standard. The paper makes an initial attempt to quantify the size of understated pension liabilities and their impact on corporate bond yield spreads. This approach can be extended to study firms' costs of equity capital, the pricing of seasoned equity offerings and the pricing of merger and acquisition transaction deals, among other questions.