Earnings persistence,fundamentals, and anticipation of breaking earnings strings

Using a sample of firms with consecutive earnings growth for more than 20 quarters (earnings strings), I assess the relationship between earnings persistence and the extent to which investors are able to anticipate breaks of earnings strings. I find that firm‐specific earnings persistence exhibits a concave trend during earnings strings. Stock returns are significantly and positively associated with earnings persistence. Upon breaks of earnings strings, investors’ reactions are more negative for firms with higher earnings persistence—especially those with smaller institutional holdings and analyst coverage, and those with insider selling activities—before the break. Additional analyses show that variations in firms’ economic performance (fundamentals) explain the varying earnings persistence during earnings strings. Copyright © 2015 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of advanced vocational education and training on earnings in Sweden

Researchers have established a relationship between greater education and training and higher earnings but it is difficult to infer that the former causes the latter if those with higher earnings tend to engage in more education and training. The present study attempts to control for ability and family background to see if stronger inferences can be made about education and training as the independent variable. The study focuses upon advanced vocational education and training (AVET) in Sweden. This is post‐secondary school education for individuals who are 20 years of age or older. The aim of this article is to estimate the effects of AVET on earnings by controlling for selection bias. We used various approaches such as instrumental variables, Hausman–Taylor estimates, fixed effects estimates and propensity score matching to achieve this aim. A panel, or longitudinal, data set for eight different labor markets in Sweden for the period 1996–2008 was used. The results indicate that earnings from AVET are higher than the return on investment in comprehensive education. The average effect on income is estimated to be in the range of 3–8 percent.     

会计盈余信息含量与股利信息含量关系的实证研究

2001年以后,我国证券市场制度建设不断推进,对投资者利益的保护日益受到广泛重视,上市公司的现金股利政策发生了显著变化。同时,我国上市公司的盈利信息和股利信息是同时公布的,因此有必要对上市公司的现金股利信息含量,以及会计盈余信息含量与股利信息含量的确证效应进行检验。实证结果发现:现金股利的变动与股价变动正相关,股利信息具有信息含量;盈利信息与股利信息之间具有一定的确证效应,但投资者不能根据股利信息判断企业未来盈利状况。     

Executive Compensation and Earnings Persistence

Governing boards utilize executive compensation contracts in an attempt to align executive actions with corporate goals. The objective is to ensure that executive performance provides value to the organization in terms of successful outcomes. A key performance criteria typically specified in CEO compensation contracts is earnings targets. However, using earnings as a performance evaluation may be problematic because some firms exhibit robust and sustained earnings over time (high earnings persistence), and other firms, such as high growth oriented firms, exhibit weak or sometimes negative earnings over time (low earnings persistence). Our study reveals that the effect of high earnings persistence results in firms that focus more heavily on cash compensation (salary and bonus) rather than on equity compensation (stock options, etc.) to compensate executive performance. Additionally, for firms characterized by low earnings persistence, our study indicates that cash flows from operations act as a supplementary performance measure to accounting earnings, and become increasingly important as a means to justify executive cash compensation.     

Industry-Specific Human Capital,Occupation and Firm Size: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper investigates the importance of various types of human capital and highlights the role played by industry tenure in determining wages in Taiwan. It also aims to offer possible explanations as to why industry-specific human capital is much less significant than it is in the United States. Empirically, it is found that, other things being equal, accumulating industry tenure decreases earnings for both the least-skilled workers and those employed in mid-sized firms. Industry-specific skills are not yet deeply implemented in most occupations and firms of all sizes. This might also account for the remarkable level of labor reallocation among industries that is observed in Taiwan. Furthermore, the capital stock accumulated through education is found to be the most crucial in determining wages in all estimations and a factor considered the engine of growth during the miraculous development of Taiwan's economy. However, the importance of other types of human capital on earnings – namely, general labor market experience and firm-specific human capital, varies substantially across groups.     

Perceptions of Home Insurance and Policy Directions: Comparing Mexican Americans and Non-Hispanic White Americans

With prior research on home insurance largely focused on supply side practices, we know little about demand side attributes of this market, especially about consumer perceptions of insurance. This article demonstrates that, despite seemingly more equitable industry practices, ethnic homeowners (Mexican Americans in this study), relative to the majority White population, have a greater tendency to view home insurance as a cost burden (as opposed to coverage against potential damages and injuries) and, hence, are more vulnerable to living with minimal or no home insurance coverage. The findings suggest that this disparity is attributable to cultural differences rooted in diverse structural and institutional circumstances in which ethnic homeowners often find themselves situated. The role of ethnic identity is salient even after accounting for personal, household, property, mortgage, and natural calamity factors. New directions for policy are proposed to address the situation by informing and empowering vulnerable consumers.     

Temptation and the efficient taxation of education and labor

This paper studies efficient tax policies in Ramsey's tradition when consumers face temptation and self control problems in intertemporal decision making. We embed the class of preferences developed by Gul and Pesendorfer into a simple two‐period life‐cycle model and show that education should be effectively subsidized if the elasticity of the earnings function is increasing in education and if temptation problems are sufficiently severe. By contrast, if temptation problems are not sufficiently severe, efficient education policy calls for taxing education. Moreover, efficient labor taxation calls for subsidizing qualified labor if the strength of temptation is sufficiently large.     

Trade and the (dis)incentive to reform labor markets: The case of reform in the European Union

We study the relation between international trade and the gains to reform labor markets by removing firing restrictions. We find that trade linkages imply substantially smaller benefits to reform than those calculated in the closed economy general equilibrium model of Hopenhayn and Rogerson [Hopenhayn, Hugo, Rogerson, Richard, 1993. Job Turnover and policy evaluations: a general equilibrium analysis. Journal of Political Economy 101 (5), 915–938 October]. When economies trade, labor market policies in one country spill over to other countries through their effect on the terms of trade. A key finding in the open economy is that the share of the welfare gains from domestic labor market reform exported substantially exceeds the share of goods exported. Thus, with international trade, a country retains little to no benefit from unilaterally reforming its labor market. A coordinated elimination of firing taxes yields considerable benefits. We also find that the U.K. benefits from labor market reform by its continental trading partners. These insights provide some explanation for recent efforts toward labor market reform in the European Union.     

The Effects of Education on the Natural Rate of Unemployment

This study develops a natural unemployment rate based upon education attainment. Behind this natural rate are labor force participation rates that vary positively with education attainment; observed unemployment rates that are inversely related to education attainment; and deviations of the observed unemployment rate from this hypothesized natural rate that are related to several expectation-based variables. With a lower natural unemployment rate today compared with years past, results point to a number of education-based challenges that employers will face. Matching employer needs with education will become more complicated as both education and needs become more specialized. Global labor markets will play an increasing role both in terms of skills and cost considerations. Next, the retirement of the baby boom generation will pose a unique challenge. Aside from the challenge of finding replacements from a pool of new workers smaller than the pool of retiring workers, retirements will not be easily predictable, thanks to the elimination of the earnings penalty for social security benefits. Finally, as college degrees become more prevalent, postgraduate studies will likely rise in importance as a distinguishing feature among skills.     

An empirical examination of the preference structure for the distribution of earnings

A perplexing diversity of theory has persisted concerning the topic of earnings distribution. Empirical studies to date have only added additional inconsistencies. The contradictory findings of earlier studies suggest that shareholders' distribution perferences may not be identical across firms and over time. This study empirically examines the aggregate preference structure for the distribution of earnings by extending existing methodologies to a dynamic model. In the final model tested, distribution perferences are measured in the context of other economic variables. A sample of 97 widely held firms observed over 20 semiannual periods from 1968 to 1977 provided the data base for this study. The results here suggest that the aggregate preferences for the distribution of earnings are dynamic and depend on the relative level of other variables. All of the adjunct variables selected for inclusion in the model—risk, growth, and market environment—were found to have a significant impact on the level of preferences. In each case, the direction of effect was consistent with intuitive positions of those supporting dividend relevance.     

Children’s Labor Market Involvement,Household Work,and Welfare: A Brazilian Case Study

The large numbers of children working in developing countries continue to provoke calls for an end to such employment. However, many reformers argue that efforts should focus on ending the exploitation of children rather than depriving them of all opportunities to work. This posture reflects recognition of the multiplicity of needs children have and the diversity of situations in which they work. Unfortunately, research typically neglects these complexities and fails to distinguish between types of labor market jobs, dismisses household chores as irrelevant, and conceptualizes children’s needs largely in terms of the education they require for successful careers. Based on data collected in schools in Franca, Brazil, where children often combine school with work in the shoe industry, this study first examined the implications of labor market jobs and household work for their health, life satisfaction, and education. Analyses suggested that both forms of work negatively affected children’s welfare, but the effects of household work were more extensive, especially for girls. The second part focused on children with labor market jobs and examined how facets of their jobs as well as their after-work household duties affected their welfare. A lack of discretion on the job undermined the health of both boys and girls, higher pay adversely affected boys’ education, and housework had detrimental effects on all indicators of girls’ welfare. This paper discusses the implications of these findings for further research and suggests the needs for attention to different forms of work activities within families. It concludes with suggestions for multinationals sourcing in developing areas that go beyond the usual calls for ridding their facilities and supply networks of child workers.     

Liquidity and macroeconomic management in emerging markets

Emerging markets have received considerable attention for foreign investment and international diversification due to the possibility of higher earnings and a low level of integration with global equity markets. These high returns often need to be balanced by the high liquidity costs of trading in illiquid emerging markets. Several studies have shown that central bank and government policies are significant determinants of market liquidity. We investigate the influence of monetary and fiscal policy variables on the market and firm level liquidity of eight emerging stock markets of Asia. Using four different (il)liquidity measures and nine macroeconomic variables, we find that changes in the money supply, government expenditure and private borrowing significantly affect stock market liquidity. Illiquidity is also strongly affected by the bank rate, short-term interest rate and government borrowing. We demonstrate that ‘crowding out’ and ‘cost of funds’ effects exist in these markets. Other major findings are that some markets are more sensitive to local macroeconomic news than world factors, the impact on size based portfolios largely depends on the instruments used by the central banks and government, the liquidity of the manufacturing sector is affected by changes in any policy variables, financial institutions are only influenced by monetary policy variables, and the service sector is least affected.     

Institutional Investors,Earnings Quality and Asset Liquidity: Evidence from China’s Stock Market

This paper investigates how institutional holding and earnings quality influence the liquidity of assets. Contrary to findings in developed markets, we document several novel results in China’s stock market: (1) institutional holding negatively affects assets’ liquidity, (2) earnings quality is negatively related with liquidity. Since earnings quality captures asymmetric information, low earnings quality induces high divergence in investor opinions and thus boosts market trading, and (3) interestingly, the effect of earnings quality on liquidity is greater if institutional investors’ holding is at a high level. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that institutional investors and earnings quality improve market liquidity. The results are robust to different measures and alternative model specifications.     

Mid-life and older workers: job displacement and health care coverage

The purpose of this study was to explore factors influencing the likelihood that workers would have health care coverage following job displacement. The sample was drawn from the Current Population Survey: Displaced Worker Supplement (January 1988) and consisted of 840 workers aged 45 years and older. The workers lost jobs because of plant closings, relocations or because of slack work At the time of the survey, 567 displaced workers indicated that they had health care coverage. Logistic analysis revealed that prior health care coverage, new earnings of males and family incomes of $20,000 or more impacted the likelihood that these displaced workers would have health care coverage. However, workers subsequently re-employed in new jobs (over 35 hours a week) were less likely to have health care coverage.     

Job dissatisfaction of the self-employed in Indonesia

In developed countries, the self-employed have been found to be more satisfied with their jobs than paid employees. We found the exact opposite for a developing country after analyzing 8732 respondents in the Indonesian Family Life Survey. The job dissatisfaction of the self-employed was not fully explained by earnings, personal traits, job characteristics, anticipation, or adaptation, but mostly by segregation into a small number of industries with few job benefits. This finding is consistent with the dual labor market theory. We also found that among the self-employed, those with the highest probability of being paid employees were the least satisfied. Paid employment was highly sought after in developing countries, and these were presumably self-employed workers with high abilities. This finding cannot be explained by the dual labor market theory alone. To explain this inconsistency, we enriched this theory with relative deprivation. Our results suggest that the existence of the dual labor market and relative deprivation are important determinants of the job satisfaction of the self-employed in developing countries.     

中国区域经济趋同与差异的因素贡献分析

本文利用趋同核算分析框架和时变参数模型考察了各种因素对1978-2004年间我国区域经济趋同与差异的贡献.分析表明,引发我国区域经济差异增大的主要因素按其重要性的先后次序可排列为劳动力市场表现、物质资本投资、人力资本投资、中央财政支出;资本边际收益递减和技术扩散引发的趋同效应是促使我国区域经济差异缩小的主要因素;地方财政支出对我国区域经济趋同与差异基本上没有影响.这一结论有助于中央政府找准区域经济协调发展战略的着力点并科学制定出有效的政策措施.     

The population of Cuba: the growth and characteristics of its labor force

"This paper analyzes Cuba's current demographic picture, and emphasizes the characteristics of its labor force that will influence dynamic change. Overall, the contribution of the labor force to the development of a market economy is likely to be positive, given its low dependency ratio, the high level of education, and the value placed on entrepreneurship."     

Developing human resources for the technical workforce: a comparative study of Korea and Thailand

Asian countries face significant and growing shortages of technically skilled workers. Vocational‐technical systems are key components of national human resource development. Using labor market data from Thailand and Korea, this paper analyzes the economic payoff for individual investment in vocational‐technical education, and subsequent employment in a related occupation. The results are mixed, showing that relatively few men or women end up working in areas that they are trained for, but that for men in Korea and women in Thailand, employment in a related field pays off in terms of higher monthly earnings. As governments move toward workforce policy created in conjunction with firms and education, the results of this study reinforce the need for national development plans that address the relatively weak relationship between initial training and employment in Asian countries.     

Being good or being known: corporate governance,media coverage,and earnings announcements

Based on a sample of banking firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, we examine the impact of corporate governance and media coverage on the market reaction to unexpected earnings announcements. This study finds that positive media reports prior to bad earnings announcements have a positive short-term impact on the market's response to unexpected negative earnings, but the impact is reversed in the long term. In contrast, a better corporate governance quality has a persistent positive impact on market's reaction to unexpected negative earnings, especially when the quality of corporate governance is measured by pledge ratios. The study finding provides one central implication for managements: Yes, being good would pay off.