Using Aggregate Time Series Variables to Forecast Notices of Default

This paper emphasizes the economic variables and data used to model notices of default in California. Forecast models are notoriously complicated and require sophisticated software to run. Few businesses, particularly small enterprises, have the necessary resources to engage in large-scale model building. Datasets can be difficult and expensive to obtain and usually require significant analysis. The paper focuses on methodology to give the model a general appeal.     

Foreign Direct Investment from Emerging Markets to Africa: The HRM Context

In this article, we explore what determines the decisions of emerging‐market multinational corporations (MNCs) to invest in Africa and whether this is any different from their counterparts in mature markets, focusing on the HRM context. More specifically, we explore the effect of potential host‐country wages, local capabilities, and the relative rights of owners versus workers on foreign direct investment (FDI) decisions, as well as other relevant factors such as mineral resources and corruption. We found that emerging‐market MNCs were not deterred by relatively weak property owner rights (as indeed, was also the case for their counterparts from mature markets); hence, any weakening of countervailing worker rights is unlikely to unlock significant new FDI. However, emerging‐market MNCs were more likely to invest in low‐wage economies and did not appear to be concerned by local skills gaps; the latter would reflect the relative de facto ease with which even partially skilled expatriate labor can be imported into many African countries. At the same time, a reliance on low‐wage, unskilled labor, coupled with the extensive usage of expatriates, brings with it a wide range of challenges for the HR manager, which a firm committed to cost‐cutting may lack the capabilities to resolve. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Specialized Careers

An agent has different abilities in two types of tasks. These tasks are revealed over time through his performance. The agent initially decides whether to engage in only one task (specialize) or to take on any task that arises (be a generalist). This decision trades off the cost of being idle against staying available for relatively lucrative tasks. We compare specializing with acting as a generalist in an infinite‐horizon model and provide complete characterizations of efforts. We show how specializing acts as a means of committing to exert more effort. In a two‐period version of the model, this implies that positive costs for switching strategies, through license fees, for example, may be socially desirable.     

Understanding visitor's motivation at sites of death and disaster: the case of former transit camp Westerbork,the Netherlands

This study begins to fill the gap in research of people's motivations to visit sites of death and suffering and to contribute to a deeper understanding of dark tourism consumption within dark conflict sites. The article aims to examine the motivations of visitors to former transit camp Westerbork as an iconic dark site in the Netherlands. The research process involved a self-administered survey questionnaire filled by 238, randomly selected Dutch visitors. Data are analysed by means of exploratory factor analysis to decide upon the relevant factors for representing the motivations of visitors to Westerbork. The findings show that people visit Westerbork mainly for ‘self-understanding’, ‘curiosity’, ‘conscience’, a ‘must see’ this place and ‘exclusiveness’. This is the first study to examine visitors’ motivations to Westerbork as a dark site. Most research on visitor motivations is not based on empirical data, but on theoretical research.     

Residential-Mortgage Lending Discrimination and Lender-Risk-Compensating Policies

The Boston Federal Reserve study ( Munnell et al. 1996 ) concluded that illegal discrimination is a statistically significant contributor to the observed gap between white and minority residential-mortgage rejection rates. The Boston study speculated that discrimination arises because lenders do not equally apply risk compensation or mitigation policies for imperfect loans. Using the same 1990 Boston loan application data, our study specifically examines the relation between compensating policies and discrimination. Since compensating policies are encouraged by secondary-mortgage-market sale guidelines, we model both the lender's origination decision and its loan sale decision. Using a rule-based artificial-intelligence technique applied to each lender, we infer compensating policies (rules) that equally apply to all races and explain lending decisions. A minority-race indicator loses its statistical significance when an indicator of compensating-policy violations appears in the loan accept–reject equation. This result reflects the fact that the risk levels of marginal minority loans tend to be more extreme than those of marginal white loans. However, the result does not necessarily reject the existence of discrimination. Equally applied policies may be empirically indistinguishable from unfairly applied policies. In addition, equally applied policies may fail the adverse-impact doctrine if they do not serve a business necessity (such as profits). The industry's move away from discretionary, rule-based decisions to mortgage scoring answers the need for a decision framework that rigorously uses loan performance to evaluate all loan applicants fairly.     

Something to prove: reputation in teams

Agents work for their own reputations when young but for their firms' when old. An individual with an established reputation cannot credibly commit to exerting effort when working alone. However, by hiring and working with juniors of uncertain reputation, seniors will have incentives to exert effort. Incentives for young agents arise from a concern for their own reputation (and the opportunity to take over the firm), whereas older agents work for the reputation of their firms (and the opportunity to sell out to juniors). Thus, the article explains the choice to work in teams. It also exemplifies how type uncertainty in reputation models may be endogenously and strategically introduced.     

Two Routes to Team Production: Saturn and Chrysler Compared

This article explores two examples of new approaches to work organization with experienced workers in a unionized setting: General Motors' (GM's) Saturn Corporation and Chrysler's Jefferson North plant. Both represent variations of "team" production which differ markedly from stereotypical portraits of lean production. The article argues that the presence or absence of teams is less important than the manner in which they are integrated into the production process.     

The opportunity for conspiracy in restraint of trade: An experimental study

This study is a limited exploration into the relationship between the opportunity for conspiracy in restraint of trade and the resulting market performance. Laboratory experimental methods are applied to separate competing theories. The competitive model predicts well relative to cartel models. Nevertheless, when measurements are taken relative to the performance of markets where conspiracies are not possible, the effects of attempted conspiracies can be detected.