Local Public Funding of Higher Education When Skilled Labor is Imperfectly Mobile

If higher education is publicly funded by local (sub-federal) jurisdictions, while skilled labor is heterogeneous in responding to wage differentials between jurisdictions, the spillovers that result give rise to a disparity between the centralized output-maximizing allocation of resources to higher education and decentralized equilibria. Generally, decentralization leads to under-provision, which can be offset by inter-jurisdictional subsidies based on gross migration flows. But the extent of the discrepancy depends on the local balance of political forces. Indeed, when the welfare of native-born emigrants is highly valued while new immigrants carry little political weight, over-provision in equilibrium is possible.     

Ethical Dilemmas in MNCs' International Staffing Policies A Conceptual Framework

Multinational corporations' (MNCs') international staffing policies have been evaluated in terms of cost and efficiency arguments. Research has not addressed, however, the ethical impact of these policies on diverse stakeholder groups. This paper presents a conceptual framework by which ethnocentric, polycentric and geocentric staffing policies are theoretically linked to underlying decision-making modes of instrumentality, bounded rationality and economic rationality, respectively. It goes on to describe the ethical rationales associated with each policy type, namely, distributive justice, moral rights of man, and utilitarianism. An investigation of resulting ethical dilemmas affecting relevant MNC stakeholder groups is incorporated and offered as a tool for analyzing the true and full costs of trade-offs when choosing one policy over another. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the conceptual framework for theory and practice and directions for future research.     

Time Diversification,Safety-First and Risk

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the effect of investment time horizon on the choice of risky assets in a portfolio when the investor in question is optimizing a Safety-First (downside risk-aversion) utility function. It is shown, under standard assumptions, that although shortfall risk decreases exponentially with investment time horizon, the portfolio asset allocation proportions remain invariant. In fact, in some instances, the optimal allocation will not even depend on the drift of the underlying assets. Thus, we extend the classical results of Samuelson and Merton, derived under conventional utility assumptions, to an individual optimizing an A.D. Roy Safety-First objective; a discontinuous utility function that has been extolled as conforming to observed investor behaviour. A numerical example is provided.     

Do Markets Like Frozen Defined Benefit Pensions? An Event Study

An increasing number of North American companies are freezing or terminating their traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans. In this article we document a positive announcement effect when a publicly traded company discloses that it has partially or fully frozen its DB plan and replaced it with—or enhanced—the 401(k) defined contribution (DC) plan. This positive risk‐adjusted return is greater for firms with higher beta and/or lower return on equity (ROE) prior to the freeze. In other words the positive impact is more pronounced for firms that are likely to face financial distress if they maintain their traditional pension plan and the associated long‐term promises.     

Conceptual maps of the leading MBA programs in the United States: core courses,concentration areas,and the ranking of the school

This paper captures the structure of MBA programs in 25 leading U.S. business schools at the beginning of the revolution these programs are undergoing. It is a study of strategic groups in the MBA industry, and a baseline for examining adaptation and strategic change in educational institutions. We use the Co‐plot method to map the schools according to the 1993 structure of their core courses and existing areas of concentration. The maps indicate similarities among business schools and shed light on their 1994 ranking. Each of the five top schools has been found to be in a different cluster of MBA program structures. The findings suggest that program structure content—the particular mix of core and concentration areas—in itself is not a source of superior performance. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motivating self-regulated learning in technology education

This paper proposes a compensative model for self-regulated learning in technology education (SRLT) comprised of cognitive, metacognitive and motivational domains. Discussion of the cognitive domain centers on problem-solving and creativity, with a focus on the need to engage students in open-ended assignments in informal contexts and to teach them a repertoire of methods, strategies and heuristics for inventive design and problem-solving, rather than letting them search randomly for ideas or use the trial-and-error method. The notion of metacognition deals with peoples’ ability to be aware of and control their own thinking, for example, how they selects their learning goals, use prior knowledge or intentionally choose problem-solving strategies. Self-regulatory behaviour is highly correlated with an individual’s motivation to handle challenging assignments, and with his or her internal satisfaction from being engaged in a task that contributes more to creativity than to receiving external rewards. Another important factor is an individuals’ self-efficacy belief in their ability to handle a highly demanding assignment determined by previous positive experience in similar tasks and the existence of a supportive social and emotional environment. The SRLT model highlights the interrelationships between the cognitive, metacognitive and motivational aspects of learning, problem-solving and invention. For example, teaching students problem-solving strategies could help them accomplish a task, improve their ability to monitor their own thinking and reflect on their learning, and enhance their self-efficacy beliefs about problem-solving and creativity. The teachers’ role in promoting SRLT education and directions for further research are also discussed.     

Bailouts and the modeling of bank distress

In this article, we develop a model for predicting distress events among large banks. We show that a bailout possibility induces different behaviors among small and large banks, and the proposed failure prediction model for large banks is thus considerably different from that for small banks. Major bank-level fundamentals show opposite conjecture directions for large versus small banks. The Tier 1 capital ratio, which is under the scrutiny of regulators and investors, has almost no distress prediction power among large banks. However, banks rescued by governments tend to maintain a lower Tier 1 ratio. The cost of funding in large banks is negatively correlated with the probability of failure, reflecting the fact that lenders internalize the too-big-to-fail (TBTF) policy and demand a lower interest rate from TBTF banks.     

Cultural and economic integration of immigrant minorities: Analytical framework and policy implications

The cultural diversity that new immigrants bring to the host economy is potentially beneficial for the productivity of both immigrants and natives, but immigrants must assimilate to some extent for these benefits to be realized. In general, immigrants assimilate more slowly than natives would like, as they ignore the external material benefits of assimilation for natives and their resistance to foreign cultural influences. We develop a formal framework that highlights the complementarity between immigrants' cultural assimilation, economic integration, and investment in human capital, indicating the scope for mutually beneficial policies, offering immigrants material incentives to assimilate more rapidly.