When do sell-side analysts switch industries they follow?

Between 1984 and 2014 over 3400 sell-side analysts changed the primary industry they followed. This article documents that analysts are more likely to change their industries when their absolute and relative forecasting accuracy in that industry is low and when the accuracy in the new industry is high. Analysts are more likely to switch industries at the beginning of their careers, after a recent change of an employing brokerage house, and if they have a history of switching industries before. Analysts are less likely to make a switch when their forecasting activity in the industry is high, when the industry is followed by many analysts and when they are employed by a top brokerage house.     

Individual versus group strategy-proofness: When do they coincide?

A social choice function is group strategy-proof on a domain if no group of agents can manipulate its final outcome to their own benefit by declaring false preferences on that domain. There are a number of economically significant domains where interesting rules satisfying individual strategy-proofness can be defined, and for some of them, all these rules turn out to also satisfy the stronger requirement of group strategy-proofness. We provide conditions on domains guaranteeing that for all rules defined on them, individual and group strategy-proofness become equivalent. We also provide a partial answer regarding the necessity of our conditions.     

Gender and culture: do they matter for norms?

In a natural experiment, we observed that the influence of a norm depended upon the gender and cultural background of participants. Both gender and cultural background contributed to the effect of peer pressure that partly controlled against the act of cheating among participants as they completed a group task. Furthermore, both factors served to describe the characteristics of hardworking individuals in the group. We therefore conclude that the effectiveness of a norm in a group is expected to depend upon the presence of hardworking individuals therein.     

The caregiving responsibilities of retirees: what are they and how do they affect retirees’ well-being?

Using data from the 2010 and 2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) and the associated Well-being Modules (WBM), this article examines how caregiving affects the well-being of retirees who are caregivers. Different caregiving activities are examined, including caring for household adults, caring for non-household adults, and caring for children. Different aspects of well-being are examined, including how meaningful respondents find their activities and how happy, sad, tired, in pain, and stressed their activities make them. The results show that, controlling for selection into caregiving, most caregiving negatively affects the well-being of retirees. This suggests that policies that remove some of the caregiving burden from retirees would increase their well-being.     

UK macroeconomic forecasting with many predictors: Which models forecast best and when do they do so?

Block factor methods offer an attractive approach to forecasting with many predictors. These extract the information in these predictors into factors reflecting different blocks of variables (e.g. a price block, a housing block, a financial block, etc.). However, a forecasting model which simply includes all blocks as predictors risks being over-parameterized. Thus, it is desirable to use a methodology which allows for different parsimonious forecasting models to hold at different points in time. In this paper, we use dynamic model averaging and dynamic model selection to achieve this goal. These methods automatically alter the weights attached to different forecasting models as evidence comes in about which has forecast well in the recent past. In an empirical study involving forecasting output growth and inflation using 139 UK monthly time series variables, we find that the set of predictors changes substantially over time. Furthermore, our results show that dynamic model averaging and model selection can greatly improve forecast performance relative to traditional forecasting methods.     

Stone Age Minds and Group Selection – What difference do they make?

The paper sets out to identify main tenets of evolutionary psychology (EP) - with its characteristic slogan that our present skulls still house a stone age mind - and Sober and Wilson's multi-level selection theory (MST) - that seeks to rehabilitate group selection in evolutionary theorising - that could be of interest to economic theorising. Four different types of altruism are distinguished. It is further investigated what implications EP and MST have for the study of the psychic mechanisms underlying human behaviour, of the co-evolution of intra group and intergroup processes, and for methodological individualism.     

Chasing after “good jobs.” Do they exist and does it matter if they do?

Most people believe that there are such things as good jobs—jobs that a worker would consider herself lucky to get. But for economists, the existence of good jobs is debatable. In this paper, I provide a definition of a good job based on various theories of the labour market: a job that involves a surplus captured partly by the worker. I use that definition to guide an empirical investigation of the existence and importance of good jobs. I conclude that good jobs do exist—that the labour market does not just function according to a Roy model with wage differentials reflecting only skill differentials, compensating differentials or bond posting—and that their impact on the overall wage structure is substantial. Finally, I discuss the implications of the existence of good jobs for policy setting and for assessments of the justice of a society.     

Self-protection against crime: what do schools do?

Most economic research about self-protection against crime concentrates on self-protection by individuals, households, and stores – private economic agents. We know much less about self-protection in public economic settings, such as by schools; this article takes a step towards learning more. An economic agent who self-protects benefits by reducing vulnerability to crime but incurs self-protection costs whether a victimization occurs or not; should a crime occur, the agent further bears the cost of the victimization itself. The agent, a school administrator in this application, must determine the optimal level of self-protection within this environment. Empirical results obtained using data from the 2004 and 2006 School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) show that schools self-protect (use professional security personnel) much in line with theoretical predictions. Among other findings, schools located in larger cities and that have a larger and older student body self-protect more prevalently than other schools, while schools with more academically able students self-protect less than schools with less productive student inputs.     

Spreading academic pay over nine or twelve months: economists are supposed to know better,but do they act better?

Our article empirically considers two general hypotheses related to the literature of behavioural economics. First, we test the null hypothesis that individuals behave, on average, in a manner more consistent with the rational expectations hypothesis than with the idea of self-control in the face of hyperbolic discounting in their saving decisions. Second, along a variety of dimensions, we examine whether individuals exhibit Herbert Simon's notion that the goal formation of individuals will differ depending upon their relative levels of experience and knowledge. Perhaps there are significant differences among groups in their saving decisions that depend upon their apparent levels of intelligence, education and knowledge. Finally, using a variety of individual-specific control variables, we test for robustness of the results.     

How do entrepreneurs know what to do? learning and organizing in new ventures

Acquiring the knowledge they need to organize new businesses is a life-long learning process for nascent entrepreneurs, both before and during the organizing process. We argue that creating viable and profitable ventures depends not only on the habits, heuristics, and routines that nascent entrepreneurs have acquired from family, schools, and work careers prior to the startup stage, but also on what they can learn by doing, borrowing, and experimenting during the startup process. Entrepreneurs without effective habits or heuristics, or who have acquired less knowledge or fewer routines, may not be able to learn fast enough from feedback during the startup process to avoid being selected out. We conclude the paper by offering critical questions and a research agenda for learning and organizing in new ventures.     

Export promotion agencies: Do they work?

The number of national export promotion agencies (EPAs) has tripled over the last two decades. While more countries made them part of their export strategy, studies criticized their efficacy in developing countries. EPAs were retooled, partly in response to these critiques. This paper studies the impact of today's EPAs and their strategies, based on new survey data covering 103 developing and developed countries. Results suggest that on average they have a statistically significant effect on exports. Our identification strategies highlight the importance of EPA services for overcoming foreign trade barriers and solving asymmetric information problems associated with exports of heterogeneous goods. There are also strong diminishing returns, suggesting that as far as EPAs are concerned, small is beautiful.