Establishment Level Earnings,Technology And The Growth Of Inequality: Evidence From Britain

It is often argued that technical change is responsible for the increase in wage inequality in Britain and the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. In this paper we examine this argument using data from individuals and establishments. It is found that the presence of micro-electronic technologies in workplaces is associated with higher earnings, especially for skilled workers. Decompositions suggest that technical change could have been a cause of the increase in skills premium for highly skilled workers. Nevertheless, our view is that the correlation between wages and plant-level technology is mainly driven by the effect of high wages on the propensity to introduce new technologies rather than vice versa. This view is supported by simultaneous models of the wage-technology relationship.     

The incremental time costs of children: An analysis of children's impact on adult time use in Australia

Abstract

Raising children takes both time and money. Scholars have sought convincing ways to capture the costs of children, but even when these estimates include indirect costs, such as mothers' foregone earnings, they fall short of the true time costs involved. This paper uses data from the 1997 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey to study how the allocation of time differs across households with varying numbers and ages of children and how households with children differ from those without children. It also examines the intra household division of time resources, showing how childcare, related unpaid work, and the total market and non-market workloads compare for a couple in the same household. It includes secondary activity in an analysis of total parental time commitments to give a more accurate picture of the time cost of children than is possible on the basis of analyzing “primary” activities alone.     

Economic importance and statistical significance: Guidelines for communicating empirical research

Abstract

A critical objective for many empirical studies is a thorough evaluation of both substantive importance and statistical significance. Feminist economists have critiqued neoclassical economics studies for an excessive focus on statistical machinery at the expense of substantive issues. Drawing from the ongoing debate about the rhetoric of economic inquiry and significance tests, this paper examines approaches for presenting empirical results effectively to ensure that the analysis is accurate, meaningful, and relevant for the conceptual and empirical context. To that end, it demonstrates several measurement issues that affect the interpretation of economic significance and are commonly overlooked in empirical studies. This paper provides guidelines for clearly communicating two distinct aspects of “significance” in empirical research, using prose, tables, and charts based on OLS, logit, and probit regression results. These guidelines are illustrated with samples of ineffective writing annotated to show weaknesses, followed by concrete examples and explanations of improved presentation.     

Cost-efficacy analysis of biological treatments in psoriasis: an 18-month assessment

Summary

This study compared the cost-efficacy of the following approved biological treatment strategies for plaque psoriasis over 18 months: (1) alefacept 15 mg intramuscularly weekly for two 12-week courses; (2) efalizumab 1 mg/kg subcutaneously (SC) weekly; and (3) etanercept 50 mg SC twice weekly for 12 weeks followed by a maintenance dose of 50 mg weekly. Direct utilisation-related costs included drug costs, office fees, injection fees and costs incurred due to adverse events and laboratory monitoring. Efficacy was based on response rates from large-scale clinical trials. At 18 months, total utilisation-related costs for alefacept, efalizumab and etanercept were $26,667, $33,365 and $32,962, respectively. Cost-efficacy, calculated using the corresponding response rates for the three therapies, was comparable ($66,669, $75,828 and $61,041, respectively). Thus, for patients with moderate to severe psoriasis who have responded to therapy, two 12-week courses of alefacept 7 months apart, or weekly maintenance treatment with efalizumab or etanercept, resulted in comparable total cost-efficacy.     

The role of domestic demand in the economic growth of Malaysia: a cointegration analysis

For the past four decades (1961-2000), the Malaysian economy grew at an impressive average rate of 6.8% per annum. The rapid growth has been attributed, in part, to the tremendous success in the export-oriented industrialization policy. Several empirical studies on export-led growth for Malaysia have, however, led to inconclusive and mixed results. This may be due to the exclusion of domestic demand in the bivariate or multivariate models used in the studies. This study re-examines the role of domestic demand in economic growth in Malaysia. Using a three-variable cointegration analysis, the study shows that there exist short run bilateral causalities among the three variables, which implies that both the export-led growth and domestic demand-generated growth hypotheses are at least valid in the short run. On the other hand, the results are not supportive of the export-led growth hypothesis in the long run. Instead, the highly significant positive impact of domestic expenditure on economic growth implies that use of domestic demand as the catalyst for growth is appropriate.     

Cournot Competition and Hit-and-Run Entry and Exit in a Teaching Experiment

Instructors can use a computerized experiment to introduce students to imperfect competition in courses on introductory economics, industrial organization, game theory, and strategy and management. In addition to introducing students to strategic thinking in general, the experiment serves to demonstrate that profits of a firm fall as the number of competitors is increased in a market and that firms enter profitable markets. The authors have used the experiment in undergraduate classes on strategy and management as well as in master of business administration courses with great success.     

Testing weak form efficiency on the Toronto Stock Exchange

In order to test for weak form efficiency in the market a vast pool of individual stocks must be analyzed rather than a stock market index. In this paper, a model-based bootstrap is used to generate a series of simulated trials and a modified chart pattern recognition algorithm is applied to all stocks listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). The number of patterns detected in the original price series is compared with the number of patterns found in the simulated series. By simulating the price path specific time dependencies present in real data are eliminated, making price changes purely random. Patterns, if consistently identified, carry information which adds value to the investment process, however, this informativeness does not guarantee profitability. Conclusions are drawn on the relative efficiency of some sectors of the economy. Although the null hypothesis of weak form efficiency on the TSX cannot be rejected, some sectors of the Canadian economy appear to be less efficient than others. In addition, pattern frequencies appear to be negatively dependent on the two moments of return distributions, variance and kurtosis.     

BE/ME and E/P work better than ME/BE or P/E in regressions

Researchers often form ratios of variables to measure firm characteristics, but which ratios create the most powerful tests? For example, if we use ratios of book value of equity (BE) and market value of equity (ME), or earnings (E) and price (P), does it matter which variable appears in the denominator? Any variable in the denominator, when close to zero, creates outliers and is less likely to produce effective tests. Our tests, using data from 1972 to 2008, indicate the choice between reciprocals often produces significantly different outcomes. While ME/BE is a more commonly used control variable than BE/ME or LN(BE/ME), we find the latter two produce better results, even if the data are trimmed to mitigate the outlier problem. Similarly, using E/P generally produces better results than P/E, and while ratios with book value of assets (BA) in the numerator work better than those with it in the denominator, the difference is less pronounced than when BE or E is part of the ratio. While the focus of our empirical findings is on growth measures, the principal applies anytime a ratio has a denominator that is frequently near zero.     

物料流量会计的深化——利用MFCA与LCA的整合评估外部损害成本

物料流量成本会计(MFCA)是一种环境管理会计运用工具,也是企业高级管理人员和现场生产经理制定决定的一种工具.MFCA通过减少废弃物来实现提高生产能力的目标.MFCA衡量了材料的物量和存量信息,即在生产过程中的原材料、备品备件以物流和货币的单位表示出来,将MFCA与生命周期评价(LCA)整合,以此来评估外部损害成本.     

The Inequality of Regional Economic Development in China between 1991 and 2001

This paper measures the unequal development of the regional economies in China and investigates the primary factors leading to the inequality. The official data on China's regional GDP and the regional GDP of three industrial sectors from 1991–2001, as reported in the China Statistical Yearbook and A Statistical Survey of China, are adopted to calculate and decompose the Gini coefficient for each year. The primary finding is that the levels of inequality in China's regional economies clearly showed a slight upward trend after 1991. The inequality of the overall GDP is primarily attributed to the between-group effect rather than to the within-group effect. It is also found that the regional inequality of the secondary industry sector's development accounted for half of the overall inequality. Thus, this study suggests that it is crucial for China to formulate and adhere to policies that will help it to develop the economy more equally among all areas and to develop the secondary industry sector among all regions/provinces in order to overcome the important issue of the inequality in regional economic development.