Supervisors and Presenteeism: How do Supervisors Accommodate and Support Skilled Workers with Chronic Health Concerns?

There is a broad literature linking social support to health, which includes evidence that social support from supervisors is positively associated with worker health. In addition, once workers experience a health concern, supervisors may play a key role in supporting workers, keeping them on the job despite health issues. However, there are few studies that investigate the day-to-day strategies supervisors utilize to support their workers and help them stay on the job despite health concerns. The study presented in this paper addresses this gap. Thirty-two supervisors from three companies were interviewed about their experiences supporting and accommodating skilled workers during flare-ups of a health condition. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the text data and identify themes. Three key themes emerged from the data: 1) workplace policies provide the structure for mutual problem solving; 2) communication skills and existing relationships increase supervisor effectiveness; and 3) strategies were aimed at individual, interpersonal, and institutional supports. Supervisors regularly interact with workers to support and accommodate episodes of illness or pain. While supervisors employ novel and effective strategies, there is an opportunity to improve the range of strategies, better understand and utilize company policies, and facilitate appropriate communication about worker health concerns.     

Scale effects of R&D as reflected in earnings and returns

Using returns to scale as a conceptual foundation, we explore how R&D-related earnings performance and earnings variability depend upon firm size. We find that the positive association between the level of future earnings and R&D intensity increases with firm size, and that the positive association between the volatility of future earnings and R&D intensity decreases with firm size, consistent with R&D productivity increasing with scale. We also show that R&D scale is associated with lower market returns, consistent with the idea that R&D investment risk declines with scale.     

Effects of Product Option Framing and Temporal Distance on Consumer Choice: The Moderating Role of Process versus Outcome Mental Simulations

This research demonstrates that the type of product option framing (additive vs. subtractive) and the temporal distance between an option choice and later buying behavior can influence decision difficulty. In two studies, the authors show that consumers who engage in additive option framing experience greater difficulty in making decisions for the near future than for the distant future, whereas consumers who engage in subtractive option framing experience greater difficulty in making decisions for the distant future than for the near future. In addition, by using theories of mental simulation, the authors show that communication strategies that promote process simulations for distant‐future choices in the subtractive option framing condition and those that promote outcome simulations for near‐future choices in the additive option framing condition are most effective in reducing decision difficulty. These effects hold across varying product categories and varying option prices.     

A Pathway Forwards for the Social Capital Metaphor

A major topic in economics is the analysis of a broad class of phenomena associated with interpersonal relationships, a topic that originally grew from theories of “social capital.” While the concept has been instrumental in bringing increased attention to social effects on economic outcomes, it has increasingly been replaced with approaches that consider instead networks and discrete interactions rather than aggregate measures of social capital. This has been an analytical improvement, but a great deal of work remains to bring empirical validity and relevancy to social network analysis. This paper presents two important approaches for achieving this, statistical analysis and agent-based modeling, and discusses their benefits, limitations, and complementary nature. Rather than waiting for either approach to achieve an ambiguous quality of maturity, integrating statistical analysis with simulation models of networks must begin now to push the frontiers of social network analysis forward.     

Venture capital funds and the public equity market

This paper considers the relationship between the public equity market and the returns to venture investing using a dataset which is derived from the records of two large limited partners who have been investing in venture capital for almost 30 years. Evidence is found to suggest that market conditions over the investment cycle, and exit conditions at the time of exit in particular, are an important determinant. This paper also investigates whether any other aspects of the venture investment process respond to events in the broader market. While general trends are evident in the venture investment cycle, only the intensity of the investment process is found to respond to events in the public equity market.     

Integrating partitioned prices via computational estimation

This paper introduces computational estimation to the literature on consumers’ numerical cognition. Computational estimation involves simplifying an arithmetic problem via mathematical procedures to produce an approximate answer. Employing calculation knowledge and approximation together, consumers are likely to use computational estimation as it is relatively accurate while saving cognitive effort compared to calculating values. Three studies applied to partitioned prices in the form of a base price and a percentage discount, demonstrate that when faced with this numeric integration task, the strategy consumers undertake is dependent on the characteristics of the numerals with discounts that are round or close to round being associated with greater use of computational estimation. Further, when employing computational estimation, consumers arrive at more accurate, and lower, price estimates in which they place more confidence than when using alternative an integration strategy. As a result, discounts that are near a round value are preferred to those that are not; a result that is dependent upon the use of computational estimation.     

Sample bias in contingent valuation: A comparison of the correction methods

Abstract

This article compares various methods for correcting contingent valuation aggregate benefits when the sample is known to be biased. A sample is defined as the population, and response rates are simulated on the basis of a measure of salience. The simulated response rates suffer from nonresponse bias and selection bias. Coefficient and benefit estimates that result from weighting and self‐selection correction approaches are compared with the true coefficient and benefit estimates. Our results indicate that at both low and high response rates the standard approach leads to bias, and either correction approach will reduce the bias in coefficient and benefit estimates.     

全球化：前景、潜力与问题

本文扼要阐述了经济全球化发展的前景和潜力,并运用李嘉图模型对全球化可能导致的经济损害作出论证分析进而说明,尽管经济学家在极大程度上趋向于将全球化视为基本良性的现象,但全球化仍然对某些国家（包括发达国家）带来经济损害,及对部分人群可能造成极其痛苦的后果。不过,源自于全球化的不断增长的竞争压力,会加强创新和增长,从长远来看,的确对每个国家有利。