A Meta-analysis of the Gender Gap in Performance in Collegiate Economics Courses

The conventional wisdom has been that men outperform otherwise equivalent women in collegiate economics courses. Recent work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields documenting gains by women suggests that it is time to reevaluate the gender performance gap in economics. Surveying 68 studies containing 235 distinct regressions published since 1980, we find that 68.4% of regressions report men outperform women, though this is only statistically significant in 30.7% of regressions. Although the literature points to numerous reasons for this gap, our focus is on the effects of study design and the impact of broad socio-cultural changes over time. Using meta-regression analysis, we find that the likelihood of observing a statistically significant gap has declined noticeably, by almost 3% annually. Although the drop may not be as large as in some STEM fields, the result is highly robust to the specification of the time trend and the model.     

Reciprocity in Ranked Relationships: Does Social Structure Influence Social Reasoning?

Many economic and evolutionary theories have modeled cooperation as the evolutionary outcome of decisions made by autonomous, self-interested agents operating in a social vacuum. In this paper we consider the implications for cooperative interactions when prior social structures and corresponding social norms exist. In particular we investigate the influence of social rank/status on perceptions of fairness and tolerance of cheating. We review evidence from a series of experiments employing the Wason selection task (a test of conditional reasoning) and the ledger task (a decision making task) suggesting that people cued to adopt a perspective of high social rank are more tolerant of cheating and simultaneously believe that they have been more fairly treated (even when cheated) than people cued to adopt a perspective of low social rank. However, the evidence also suggests interesting cross-cultural differences in perceptions of fairness and tolerance of cheating in ranked relationships. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Defined benefit versus defined contribution pension plans: How are the interests of employees and the public best served?

Prior to the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 the rate of formation of defined benefit retirement plans exceeded the rate of formation of defined contribution retirement plans. Following its enactment the trend has been reversed. This article reviews the development of public policy with respect to privately sponsored retirement benefits, takes note of the legislatively mandated regulatory distinctions between defined benefit and defined contribution plans, outlines the distinctions between the plans from the perspective of plan sponsors versus plan participants, and questions the appropriateness of the movement away from defined benefit plans in terms of public policy objectives regarding retirement income security.     

The HIPAA privacy rule and HR/benefits outsourcing: does the business associate label belong on your recordkeeper?

Employers that sponsor group health plans and serve as the plan administrator of those plans are required by the HIPAA Privacy Rule to execute business associate contracts with vendors that provide services on behalf of the plans. The business associate contracts must contain many specific provisions regarding the protection, use and disclosure of health information. This article looks at the implications of imposing business associate contract obligations on an integrated HR and benefits-outsourcing recordkeeper and cautions employers against an overly broad application of the requirements.     

Fund Advisor Compensation in Closed-End Funds

This paper examines the relation between the premium on closed-end funds and organizational features of the funds and advisors, including the compensation scheme of the investment advisor. We find that the fund premium is larger when: (a) the advisor's compensation is more sensitive to fund performance; (b) the assets managed by the advisor are concentrated in the fund in question; (c) the advisor manages other funds with low compensation sensitivity to performance and with low concentration of assets managed by the advisor; and (d) the advisor's compensation contract evaluates performance relative to a benchmark.     

The effects of education in early-stage agriculture: some evidence from China

The stochastic production frontier approach is used to study the effects of education on agricultural efficiency for a cross-section of 'early-stage' farms from Guanghan County, Sichuan Province, China. Education for farm families in rural China is multifaceted with a combination of formal education, intragenerational transfer of knowledge within the home, and agricultural extension services. Since our survey data span two different years with markedly different policy environments, we are able to examine not only which aspects of education affect agricultural efficiency, but also whether or not the policy environment matters. We find limited evidence that in a policy environment that is conducive to agriculture, formal education provides positive returns in agriculture. Furthermore, general education may provide greater returns than the more targeted extension services.     

The effect of seasonal adjustment on the properties of business cycle regimes

We study the impact of seasonal adjustment on the properties of business cycle expansion and recession regimes using analytical, simulation and empirical methods. Analytically, we show that the X‐11 adjustment filter both reduces the magnitude of change at turning points and reduces the depth of recessions, with specific effects depending on the length of the recession. A Monte Carlo analysis using Markov‐switching models confirms these properties, with particularly undesirable effects in delaying the recognition of the end of a recession. However, seasonal adjustment can help to clarify the true regime when this is well underway. These results continue to hold when a seasonally non‐stationary process with regime‐dependent mean is misspecified as one with deterministic seasonal effects. The empirical findings, based on four coincident US business cycle indicators, reinforce the analytical and simulation results by showing that seasonal adjustment leads to the identification of longer and shallower recessions than obtained using unadjusted data. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Moderately thin advertising models are optimal,most of the time: Moderating the quadratic effect of model body size on ad attitude by fashion leadership

The authors hypothesize and find that an advertising model’s body size has an inverted U-shaped relationship with ad attitude in the apparel product category, in which moderately thin advertising models are optimal. They assess the moderating effect of consumers’ fashion leadership on this quadratic relationship, proposing that this moderation may shift the optimum and/or create a flatter inverted U-shape. In the empirical studies, the authors find both types of moderation may occur and that there may be conditions under which slightly larger, intermediate sized models are most effective for fashion followers and that under other conditions model body size seems to be irrelevant for fashion leaders. As expected, the authors find a positive effect of ad attitude on brand attitude and purchase intentions.