Economic Implications of Demographic Change: Diversity Dividend or Deficit?

The economic implications of demographic change depend on steadfast investments in research and development; replenishment of the human capital stock diminished by retiring Baby Boomers; and raising college attainment rates. This way the United States can leverage its diverse, fast-growing population to harness a demographic dividend—the productivity boost enabled by declining fertility—while also fueling economic growth, restocking the Social Security system, and bolstering global competitiveness.     

Top executive commitment to the status quo: Some tests of its determinants

Some top executives are more committed to the status quo—particularly to their organization's current strategy and leadership profile—than are others. Most empirical research on upper echelons treats psychological phenomena as a ‘black box’—the unobserved intervening mechanisms—that causes associations between more observable executive characteristics and organizational outcomes. In contrast, this paper attempts to directly examine the determinants of an important element of an executive's psychological orientation—commitment to the status quo (CSQ). We focus on a select set of variables which have been posited in prior research as determinants of executive CSQ, but which have not been directly tested for such a relationship. Based on a large-scale survey methodology, results suggest that an executive's tenure in an industry is a pronounced determinant of CSQ, and has significantly more impact than organizational tenure. As expected, the firm's current performance was found to be positively related to CSQ; this relationship was stronger in high-discretion than in low-discretion industries. Finally, the project reaffirms a well known human tendency: incumbent CEOs tend to believe that their eventual successors should be just like them.     

Fishing Technology and Optimal Distribution of Harvest Rates

This paper examines the problem of the optimal management of a joint-ownership fishing exploitation, where agents use different fishing gears. We consider a model in which the fishing activity may affect resource growth, not only through the harvest function but also through the natural growth rate of the resource. This allows us to capture the fact that some fishing gears alter the natural growth rate of the resource. We find that when the natural growth of the resource is altered by the fishing technology, the optimal stock is not independent of how harvest quotas are distribute among the agents. As a result, a fishing policy that firstly determines the optimum stock and, secondly, decides how to distribute the harvest among the different agents, will not be efficient. We also analyze the joint determination of optimal stock and harvest quotas and show that positive harvest quotas will only be optimal when countries are characterized by certain asymmetries.     

Income Insurance in European Agriculture

Income Insurance in EuropeanAgriculture The agricultural risk environment in Europe is changing, for example because of WTO agreements and governments increasingly withdrawing from disaster assistance in case of catastrophic events. In this context, some form of income insurance may be a useful risk management tool for farmers. Insuring farmers' incomes, however, is rather problematical for reasons of asymmetric information and high correlation of the risks amongst the would‐be insured, for example risks due to price fluctuations, floods, droughts and livestock epidemics. It is concluded that the most aggregated forms of income insurance that are likely to be feasible include revenue insurance for field crops, especially if there are relevant futures markets and area yield data, and business interruption insurance for livestock commodities. In Europe, only a few such schemes currendy exist; some are purely private, others are subsidised. A somewhat larger involvement of the public sector, for example through public‐private partnerships for reinsurance, could extend the availability of income insurance schemes throughout Europe. Governments, however, should tread warily in entering the field of subsidised agricultural insurance, which experience shows is beset with pitfalls. Pilot tests are useful in establishing the attractiveness of income insurance schemes and other income stabilising tools for the various parties involved. Le contexte du risque agncoie est en train de changer en Europe, en raison notamment des accords de 'OMC et d'un retrait croissant des gouvernements de ? assistance sinistre en cas de catastrophes. Dans ce contexte, une certaine forme ? assurance sur le revenu peut être un outil utile de gestion des risques pour les agriculteurs. Assurer les revenus des agriculteurs, cependant, est une activitécute; assez délicate pour des raisons ? information asymétrique et de forte corrélation des risques chez les assurés potentiels, avec ? exemple des risques dus aux fluctuations de prix, aux inondations, aux sécheresses et aux épidémies animales. On en conclut que les formes ? assurance revenu les plus complètes et les plus plausibles comprennent ľ assurance‐revenu pour les récoltes, notamment s'il existe des marchés a terme appropriés et des données sur le rendement par région, et ?‘assurance pour cessation ?’activite pour les produits de ?élevage;. En Europe, seuls quelques projets similaires existent; certains sont purement privés, ? autres sont subventionés. Une implication un peu plus importante du secteur public, par exemple par le biais de partenariats public‐privé pour la réassurance, permettrait ?élargir la disponibilité des plans ? assurance‐revenu dans toute ? Europe. Les gouvernements, cependant, doivent aborder avec prudence le domaine de ? assurance agricole subventionée qui, ? expérience le montre, est semée ? embûches. Des expériences pilotes sont utiles pour définir ? intérêt des projets ? assurance‐revenu et des autres outils permettant de stabiliser les revenus pour les différentes parties impliquées. In Europa ändern sich zur Zeit die _ Rahmenbedingungen für die Landwirtschaft hinsichtlich des Risikos. Dies liegt zum Beispiel an WTO‐Abkommen und Regierungen, die ihre Hilfsleistungen im Schadensfall zunehmend verweigern. In diesem Zusammenhang könnte irgendeine Form von Einkommenversicherung im Bereich des Risikomanagements für Landwirte von Nutzen sein. Eine solche Versicherung wirft jedoch Probleme auf, da asymmetrische Information und eine hohe Risikokorrelation bei den potenziellen Versicherungsnehmem vorliegen, wie beispielsweise Risiken, die auf Preisschwankungen, Flut‐ und Dürrekatastrophen oder Tierseuchen beruhen. Hieraus wird gefolgert, dass zu den umfassendsten realisierbaren Formen von Einkommenversicherungen die Erlösversicherung im Ackerbau ‐insbesondere bei Vorliegen von relevanten Warenterminmärkten und Flächenertragsdaten ‐ und die Betriebsausfallversicherung für tieriscbe Erzeugnisse gehören. In Europa sind zur Zeit nur wenige solcher Programme vorhanden; bei einigen handelt es sich um ausschließlich private Versicherungen, andere werden subventioniert. Würde der öffentliche Sektor stärker mit eingebunden, zum Beispiel mit Hilfe von öffendich‐privaten Rückversicherungsgesellschaften, könnten in ganz Europa weitere Programme zur Einkommenversicherung zur Verfügung gestellt werden. Für die Regierungen jedoch ist beim Etablieren subventionierter Versicherungen im Bereich der Landwirtschaft größte Vorsicht geboten, da dies erfahrungs‐gemäß Schwierigkeiten aufwirft. Zunächst sollten Pilotprojekte durchgeführt werden, mit deren Hilfe die Attraktivität von Programmen zur Einkommen‐aversicherung und von weiteren einkommensstabilisierendenMaßnahmen fÜr die verschiedenen beteiligten Parteien sicher gestellt wird.     

A possible explanation of the gender gap among accounting academics: evidence from the choice of research field

Despite the significant increase in the number of women in accounting research over past decades, the percentage of female full professors in accounting is still low. One of the problems may relate to the research area(s) they choose to specialize in. Is the relatively slow promotion of women due to their decision to concentrate in ‘nonmainstream’ fields of research? In this study, we collect data on 1,042 male and female accounting academics. Using the research interests declared on each academic web page, we find that accounting researchers show no significant gender differences in their choice of research fields. Hence, we conclude that the underpromotion of women cannot be attributed to their choice of ‘nonmainstream’ fields.     

Technical efficiency in the Italian performing arts companies

This paper evaluates the determinants of firms’ technical efficiency in the Italian Performing Arts (PA) sector, by estimating a stochastic production frontier for an unbalanced panel of 107 firms over the period 2005–2012. The panel data setting allows us to control for both unobserved and observed heterogeneity of PA firms, reaching several interesting and robust findings. Firstly, it finds that the Italian PA firms are scale inefficient as they generally operate in either an increasing or decreasing returns to scale landscape. This result is reinforced by the fact that the smaller firms (10–49 employees) are the most technically efficient firm size class. Secondly, this research proves that the efficiency score is on average 66%, demonstrating that PA firms’ output could be substantially increased without the use of new inputs. Thirdly, it confirms that the quality matters and competences increase the efficiency in the sector. Finally, the environmental factors (especially the quality of institutions) have a strong impact on technical efficiency of PA firms, supporting that regional differences also exist in this sector.     

Health expenditure and socio-economic determinants of life expectancy in the OECD Asia/Pacific area countries

Recent economic research is focused on the study of the relationship between socio-economic factors and health outcomes. In this study, the relationship in the OECD Asia/Pacific area countries regarding life expectancy is explored. Data from the World Bank and OECD Health Statistics (2015) have been used to build a panel data during the period 1995–2013. On the one hand, it was found that per capita income, unemployment and exchange rates improve health outcomes. On the other hand, poor performance, in terms of government expenditures for the countries-sample, comes across. Empirical results highlight the importance of cost-effectiveness analysis.     

Corporate ethical values in South Africa

This study analyzes the influence of a number of variables on the ethical decision making process of South African marketers. Specifically, it measures the relative influences of ethical perception, idealism, relativism, and corporate ethical values on the ethical intentions of the marketers. The target respondents were practitioner members of the South African Institute of Marketing Management. The survey results indicate that perception of an ethical problem and relativism are significant predictors of ethical intentions, as hypothesized. The other two predictor variables (idealism and corporate ethical values) were not significant. The results regarding idealism are generally consistent with those from previous studies, but corporate ethical values has usually been found to be significant, and not just in the United States. These nonsignificant findings are among the most intriguing of the study. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.