Collaboration, peer review and open source software

Open source software development may be superior to proprietary development because the open source organizational form naturally minimizes transactions costs associated with privately distributed information. This manifests itself in the ability of open source communities to encourage critical peer review and the sharing of ideas. When these activities are important, the open source organizational form may do better than a proprietary organizational form. My results suggest why open source is particularly powerful when maintainability of software is critical, and also suggest that the founder of a software project may be more likely to choose open source if there is an existing dominant proprietary software project.     

The Influence of Environmental Pressures, Diversification Strategy, and Union/Nonunion Setting on Employee Participation

This study tests the hypotheses that environment, diversification strategy, and union/nonunion setting affect the number and variety of employee participation programs. A survey of large U.S. manufacturing firms measured the implementation of employee participation programs. Regression results suggest that environmental pressures exert a direct effect on participation in union settings. However, in nonunion settings, environment and diversification strategy both correlated directly with participation. These results suggest that unions could potentially affect participation program implementation.     

Comprehensive assessment of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation and chronic idiopathic constipation using deterministically linked administrative claims and patient-reported data: the Chronic Constipation and IBS-C Treatment and Outcomes Real-World Research Platform (CONTOR)

Abstract

Aims

To characterize a US population of patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) or chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) using CONTOR, a real-world longitudinal research platform that deterministically linked administrative claims data with patient-reported outcomes data among patients with these conditions.     

Binomial Option Pricing with Skewed Asset Returns

This research presents a method for estimating the parameters of the binomial option pricing model necessary to appropriately price calls on assets with asymmetric end-of-period return distributions. Parameters of the binomial model are shown to be a function of the mean, variance, and skewness of the underlying return distribution. It is also shown that failure to incorporate skewness results in the mispricing of the call.     

Odd lot trading and earnings announcements

This study investigates odd lot trading, both trades and orders, around quarterly earnings announcements to determine whether odd lot traders are informed regarding the information contained in earnings announcements. We find pre-announcement odd lot order imbalances are not positively correlated with post-announcement returns and odd lot traders do not earn excess returns. Portfolios long stocks highly bought by odd lot traders in the pre-announcement period and short stocks highly sold by odd lot traders do not outperform the market. We conclude that odd lot traders are not in possession of earnings announcement information prior to its release to the public.     

Owning and testing smoke alarms: findings from a qualitative study

Reducing injury and death in house fires is an important public health intervention activity with the presence of an operating smoke alarm widely considered an important way of reducing harm from fire. Yet despite a number of initiatives and fire-safety campaigns, a number of households at greater risk of domestic fire fail to have a functioning alarm. This paper provides empirical insight into everyday experiences of owning, maintaining and testing smoke alarms among a purposive sample of individuals identified as being less likely to own a functioning smoke alarm. Analysis from focus group data identifies a number of reasons why individuals may not own or test an alarm, and provides new insight into how fire risk is understood in the context of a range of competing, and potentially more prominent, individual and household risks. We suggest that while initiatives that aim to reduce fire injury and death should be continued, their success, and indeed future research on fire risk, should pay attention to the mundane and everyday contexts within which individuals currently rarely reflect on their risk of experiencing a domestic fire.     

Core Requirements for the Economics Major

In this article, the authors are the first to describe the core economics curriculum requirements for economics majors at all American colleges and universities, as opposed to a sample of institutions. Not surprisingly, principles of economics is nearly universally required and implemented as a two-semester course in 85 percent of economics major programs. Most schools do not prescribe the order in which the principles sequence is taken. The intermediate courses are commonly required, although variation exists across institution types. While the quantitative requirement for the major has increased since 1980, significant differences exist among institutions and by academic rankings. As compared to 1950, there has been an increase in the number of required economics credit hours for the major.     

Secondary markets with changing preferences

If consumer valuations change over time, then secondary‐market frictions may raise monopoly profits and cause durability to be distorted away from the cost‐minimizing level. A monopolist who favors such frictions overinvests in durability, but planned obsolescence instead may be preferred when market frictions exist but a monopolist wishes they did not. Evidence from the book market is presented.     

Motivating a Productive Discussion of Normative Issues Through Debates

In this article, the author presents a way of using in-class debates to discuss contentious issues and help students develop critical thinking skills. Three elements were incorporated into an undergraduate public finance course: a presentation of ethical approaches in order to formally discuss normative issues, class debates which required students to work in groups and imaginatively occupy a perspective with which they were not personally comfortable, and individual reflection which forced students to reconcile their beliefs with academic evidence. The results show that even if students did not change their perspectives on economic policy, the reasons why they have those perspectives did change to be based in academic theory and evidence and not their blind adherence to specific political platforms.