Recent trends in the registered nurse labor market in the U.S.: short-run swings on top of long-term trends

Drawing from labor economics, background information is provided for a deeper understanding of recent changes in the nurse labor market. The difference between the short and long-run supply of RNs are distinguished, and the economic forces that determine RNs' decision to be active in the labor market are explained. The ways the nurse labor market may change in the next few years are discussed.     

Revenue and formula effects of school finance reform of wealth neutrality

The impact of school finance reform in South Carolina on wealth neutrality is analysed in the context of revenue and formula effects. The total effect is analysed, with or without local revenue effects, by splitting the revenue effect into state revenue and local revenue effects. Results indicate considerable improvements in wealth neutrality from 1978 to 1982. Moreover, only 25% of the total reduction in the wealth coefficient may be attributed to the change in the formula, the remainder being explained by changes in state and local revenues.     

The myth of post-reform income stagnation: Evidence from Brazil and Mexico

Economic policies are often judged by a handful of statistics, some of which may be biased during periods of change. We estimate the income growth implied by the evolution of food demand and durable good ownership in post-reform Brazil and Mexico, and find that changes in consumption patterns are inconsistent with official estimates of near stagnant incomes. That is attributed to biases in the price deflator. The estimated unmeasured income gains are higher for poorer households, implying marked reductions in “real” inequality. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom that post-reform income growth was low and did not benefit the poor.     

On the Separability of Real and Financial Decisions

The financial manager faces two basic problems: first, the firm’s investment or capital budgeting decision, and second, the financing decision. Capital investment and financing decisions are typically analyzed independently. Capital budgeting criteria proceeds under the simplest possible assumption about financing, namely all-equity financing. The only link between investment and financing decisions is the cost of capital. The basic idea behind Modigliani and Miller’s famous proposition I is that in perfect markets, changes in capital structure do not affect value. As long as the total cash flow generated by the firm’s assets is unchanged by capital structure, value is independent of capital structure. This paper is the first attempt to prove that leverage affects the mathematical structures of the cash flow of financing, and that different mathematical structures of financing cash flows may change the total cash flows generated by the firm or the project, thus altering the value of the firm even in perfect markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore the validity of the separation rule through net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) rules, as representatives of academic and business practice, and compare their results with simulations that will include the financial decision of the firm. A singular experiment proving that we can change the IRR or NPV of an investment modifying the financial structure cannot be used to affirm a universal statement, but it can be used to show that a theory is wrong.     

The Dutch productivity slowdown: the culprit at last?

Two aspects of the recent performance of the Dutch economy (1982–2001) have attracted wide international attention: (1) rapid employment growth and (2) a significant slowdown in labour productivity growth. This paper argues that the shift from a high-productivity, low-employment towards a low-productivity, high-employment growth path constitutes a structural change set off by the policy of low wage growth launched in 1982. Various theoretical perspectives—including neo-classical substitution, induced technological change, vintage and the Verdoorn Law—point to channels through which wage growth restraint may hold back labour productivity growth. Our growth accounting analysis—based on these perspectives—suggests that a substantial part of the Dutch labour productivity growth slowdown can be attributed to the wage growth slowdown.     

The Effects of Attraction on Investment Decisions

The attraction effect occurs when an inferior item changes a decision-maker's perception of the relationship between other available alternatives, contrary to the expectations of rational decision-making. This study presents the first evidence that this effect, which has appeared persistently in consumer research, can influence investment decisions. The study also finds two distinct patterns of reaction to the inferior item as a sign of "cluster attraction"-a way of spreading investment risk. Evidence of attraction means that the values of important facets of corporate reporting may not be stable across an investor's decisions, but may depend on the items presently available for investment. Results of an experiment conducted with approximately 100 graduate students with investing experience or interest show that the investor's perceived values of reported financial or non-financial performance, quality of earnings, and information source reliability are subject to trade-offs and can be altered by the composition of the decision set, rather than by any intrinsic change in the investment candidate itself. The discussion highlights the implications of these findings for an understanding of how investors regard the qualities of financial reporting.     

The impact of job mobility on earnings: using occupational and industrial classifications to identify job changes

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median number of years that a US worker has been with their current employer is 4.4 years. Although many job changes may not be classified as ‘career changes,’ any type of job change may have an impact on a person’s future earnings. In the present study, the following three types of job changes are examined in order to determine which ones result in higher incomes: a change in occupational status; a change in industry; or a change in both. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a log-linear wage regression with a correction for self-selection is estimated. Results suggest that changing jobs within the same industry or within the same occupation both increase a person’s income. However, a job change that is characterized by both a change in industry and occupation reduces a person’s income. The present study is one of the few studies to examine the effects of job mobility on earnings when mobility is defined in the context of changes in occupational and/or industrial classification.     

On the causes of the changes in income shares: Some reflections in the light the United States experience

The last 30 years have witnessed a dramatic change in the distribution of income, with the wage share falling in all major industrialized countries. Main-stream analyses, including New Keynesian ones, which retain the notion of factor substitution leading to a “factor intensity” inversely related to its rate of return, have encountered some difficulties in the interpretation of this change. Nonmainstream approaches present an advantage in the explanation of the phenomenon, consisting in the fact that they entail no a priori connections between the changes in distribution and the changes factor proportions. Hence if a change in institutions or in the bargaining strength of the parties affects distribution, income shares may vary significantly (i.e., changes in wages need not be accompanied by changes in labor to output ratio in the opposite direction as in mainstream analyses). Yet empirical observation may question also some of the analyses that have been advanced outside the mainstream. The article will explore the ways in which nonmainstream approaches have interpreted the described changes in distribution, and assess them from an analytical viewpoint and with reference to U.S. data. The purpose is that of pointing at some open questions and problems.     

Dubious versus trustworthy faces: what difference does it make for tax compliance?

We find experimental evidence that the decision problem of tax compliance changes if subjects’ declarations are not randomly assessed, but is based on their appearance as captured by pictures of their faces, even if the aggregate audit probability does not change. Some subjects may fear that their picture looks rather dubious, whereas others may believe that their picture looks more trustworthy than average. Depending on these beliefs, they may adjust their compliance decisions. Our experimental design allows us to disentangle these potentially countervailing effects.     

Market Orientation and Regional Economic Disparities in China

The change in China's regional output disparities can be attributed to the variation in market orientation in individual regions, and the change in China's livelihood disparities can be attributed to the weakening of government intervention in the form of regional income redistribution in the reform process. The study suggests that China should accelerate economic growth of backward interior regions by deepening market-oriented reforms on the one hand, and help residents in these regions by strengthening fiscal transfer from richer to poorer regions on the other.     

Economic Incentives and the Demand for Higher Education

To what extent do economic incentives affect the demand for higher education? This question is addressed by means of a time-series analysis of the demand for university education in Sweden. The bulk of the variation in the fraction of qualified individuals enrolled at universities is attributed to fluctuations in the university wage premium. Furthermore, relative employment prospects for university graduates and variations in the generosity of the study allowance scheme appear to be of importance for the enrollment decision.     

萨班斯法案对上市公司风险投资的影响

本文研究了2002年萨班斯一奥克斯利法案（简称萨班斯法案）颁布之后,对上市公司风险投资行为的影响。基于萨班斯法案对企业高层管理者赋予了更多的责任,公司将调整薪酬激励制度。萨班斯法案颁布后,上市公司普遍降低了高层管理者的激励薪酬,从而改变了高层管理者的风险投资行为。这些变化表明了萨班斯法案产生的机会成本。较低的激励薪酬导致了较低的风险投资行为。董事会降低高层管理者的激励薪酬,从而使以研发经费和资本支出为代表的风险投资降低。研究结果对我国金融监管和经济调控具有借鉴意义。     

Optimal greenhouse gas emissions under various assessments of climate change ambiguity

The probabilities associated with global warming damage are likely to be continuously revised in the light of new information. Such revisions of probability are the defining characteristic of ambiguity, as opposed to risk. This paper examines how climate change ambiguity may affect optimal greenhouse gas emission strategies, via the decision maker's attitude towards anticipated changes of damage probabilities. Two conceptualizations of ambiguity are distinguished, according to the emphasis placed on the ambiguity of priors or on the ambiguity of news, respectively. It is shown that the way in which ambiguity is viewed and the attitude taken towards it have a substantial influence on the optimal emission trajectory.     

Non-Traded Goods and Real Exchange Rate Fluctuations: A Structural VAR Analysis

Real exchange rate variance decompositions indicate that only a small fraction of real exchange rate movements can be attributed to changes in the relative price between traded and non-traded goods. This paper argues that those exercises, by ignoring the nature of the shocks behind real exchange rate changes, may be inadequate to measure the relative importance of non-traded goods prices. Instead, it proposes using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model to study the effects of shocks to the relative supply and relative demand for non-traded goods on the real exchange rate. The SVAR model is identified via long-run restrictions and is estimated for a group of advanced economies. The results indicate that for some countries, relative supply shocks can be a significant source of real exchange rate fluctuations.     

The dynamics of process technology adoption and the implications for upgrade decisions

The need for fundamental, as opposed to incremental change, presents managers with major uncertainty. Such change is likely to involve significant capital cost, but may also bring significant collateral costsjom, for example, retraining, and plant downtime and customer supply disruption during change implementation. This article focuses on a gstem dynamics model that captures the situation of an industry experiencing the switching of competitors' production plants to a new process technology. The model is typical of industries in commodip chemicals or other bulk manufacturing, and enables the complexity of technology moves to be represented. This facilitates a clearer understanding of the expected industry dynamics. The results show that an individual firm facing the upgrade decision must consider the impacts of the change across a number of dimensions, and demonstrates that the point in time along these industries' typical endemic capacig-building/price cycle may haue an important impact on the economics of the decision. The article is also able to draw some comparisons between this and other approaches to modelling technology change decision-making.     

Minimum Wages and the Gender GAP in Pay: New Evidence from the United Kingdom and Ireland

Women are disproportionately in low‐paid work compared to men so, in the absence of rationing effects on their employment, they should benefit the most from minimum wage policies. This study examines the change in the gender wage gap around the introduction of minimum wages in Ireland and the United Kingdom (U.K.). Using survey data for the two countries, we develop a decomposition of the change in the gender differences in wage distributions around the date of introduction of minimum wages. We separate out “price” effects attributed to minimum wages from “employment composition” effects. A significant reduction of the gender gap at low wages is observed after the introduction of the minimum wage in Ireland, while there is hardly any change in the U.K. Counterfactual simulations show that the difference between countries may be attributed to gender differences in non‐compliance with the minimum wage legislation in the U.K.     

Regulation and efficiency in transition: the case of Romanian banks

Using disaggregated panel data for the period 1996–2002, this paper estimates the cost efficiency of Romanian banks and relates it to regulation implemented by the National Bank of Romania. We estimate efficiency using a model that combines the frameworks of both stochastic frontier analysis and shadow cost functions. Our results indicate that, for all types of banks, the cost of technical inefficiency decreases in the years following tightening of regulation. A significant part of this decrease can be attributed to the policy change. Overall, the short-run increase in cost due to additional regulation exceeds the benefits from reduced technical inefficiency. However, our model does not account for other benefits, besides changes in X-inefficiency, such as stability of the banking system, which may be significant.      

Years of life lost to revolution and war in Iran

How was life expectancy in Iran affected by the Islamic Revolution and subsequent war with Iraq? This study examines the joint effect of regime change and the war against Iraq on life expectancy in Iran between 1978 and 1988. If there had been no revolution and war in Iran, how would the life expectancy of Iranians have developed? To answer this question, we use a synthetic control model to construct a counterfactual Iran based on a weighted average of other comparable countries, which reproduces the situation of pre-revolution Iran but does not experience the revolution and war. We then compare the life expectancies of the counterfactual and actual Iran that underwent a regime change and war with Iraq. Our results indicate that an average Iranian's total life expectancy would have been approximately five years longer without the revolution and war. The revolution had a moderate long-term impact on total life expectancy at birth, with the most significant influence being attributed to the war itself, particularly on male life expectancy. Our main findings are robust to a series of tests, including placebo tests. We investigate possible reasons that may explain the impact on longevity.     

贫困按要素分解:方法与例证

本文构建了两个贫困分解框架,一个用于分解贫困的水平,另一个用于分解贫困的变化,这两个方法的独特之处是建立了贫困与生产要素(即资源禀赋)总量及其分配之间的数量关系。具体地说,一个给定的贫困发生率可以被分解为要素或资源短缺的贡献,外加要素分配不均等的贡献。贫困发生率的变化则可分解为由要素的水平变化引起的,或由要素的不均等分配变化引起的。将这两种分解方法用于中国农村的数据,我们发现要素的不均等分配而非资源短缺是导致贫困和贫困变化的主要原因。     

Market Underreaction and Overreaction of Technology Stocks

Several studies have assessed stock market under- or overreaction of stocks and there is some agreement among them. However, there is much disagreement about what constitutes market underreaction or overreaction, and the conditions that cause it. The substantial variation in results among studies may be partially attributed to the types of firms that are contained in any sample. We investigate this premise by focusing on a sample of technology stocks that experienced an extreme change in stock price, along with a corresponding control sample of non-technology stocks that experienced a similar extreme change in stock price on the same day.

Based on the subsequent stock price behavior of each sample, we find a greater degree of overreaction within extreme positive changes in technology stock prices (winners) than in non-technology stock prices. In addition, we find a greater degree of underreaction within extreme negative changes in technology stock prices (losers) than in non-technology stock prices. When considering winners and losers collectively for technology and non-technology firms, it appears the market is overoptimistic when it initially revalues technology stock prices relative to non-technology stock prices.

The degree of under- or overreaction of technology stocks varies within the sample of technology stocks, and is conditioned on firm-specific characteristics. Overall, our results suggest that technology stocks exhibit unique stock price behavior subsequent to an extreme change in price, and that this unique behavior can even vary among technology firms according to firm-specific characteristics.