The Displacement Effect of Public Pensions on the Accumulation of Financial Assets*

The generosity of public pensions may depress private savings and provide incentives to retire early. While there is plenty of evidence supporting the latter effect, there remains considerable controversy over whether public pensions crowd out private savings. This paper uses international micro‐data sets collected over recent years to investigate whether public pensions displace private savings. The identification strategy relies not only on cross‐country differences in generosity but also on differences in the progressivity or non‐linearity of pension formulas across countries. We estimate that an extra dollar of pension wealth depresses accumulated financial assets around the time of retirement by 22 cents. An extra 10,000 dollars in public pension wealth reduces the average retirement age by roughly one month, which implies an elasticity of years of retirement with respect to pension wealth of 0.15.     

Life after school: How science and technology teachers construe capability

Science and technology teachers create microcosms of the world beyond school as responses to perceived student needs. The focus of these microcosms for both science and technology classrooms was less of a concern for work preparation than for the development of social and intellectual habits. All of the teachers have strong views of the virtues of civil daily life and what it might take for their students to live the good life. The practical capability the teachers want their students to have transcends the instrumental to become moral.     

Market opportunity analysis and evaluation of the expansion of air transport services across the Taiwan Strait

Air transport services across the Taiwan Strait are rapidly developing. Taiwanese airlines are therefore facing a critical decision as to whether to expand their scheduled services beyond saturated markets. The Taiwanese government is also concerned regarding airline operators' willingness to enter new markets for next-round negotiations concerning traffic rights. This study proposes an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) framework for Taiwanese airlines based on a market opportunity analysis (MOA) to evaluate the determinants of potential service expansion. A novel rank pair-wise comparison (RPC) is used to measure the relative weights among determinants. It is found that service provision for Taiwanese merchants is the most vital factor. Flight quotas and allowed time slots also affect airlines' willingness to expand operations. Other determinants depend on the individual airlines' development background and operating size. This study also evaluates twelve airports in mainland China using grey relational analysis (GRA) to rank the entrant priorities for additional scheduled services.     

Food Competition in World Markets: Some Evidence from a Panel Data Analysis of Top Exporting Countries

This paper investigates the relevance of relative prices and world income as determinants of food exports for the top trading countries in the period 1992–2012 using a panel data framework. We find that price elasticities generally take lower values for processed goods, and the opposite holds for income elasticities. Processed goods are also characterised by an inverse relationship between price elasticities and average unit values. The analysis suggests that both emerging and advanced countries can be expected to increase their export specialisation in processed goods. Furthermore, developed economies can face fierce competition from emerging countries by enhancing the quality content of their processed good exports.     

On the Application of Conditional Independence to Ordinal Data

A special log linear parameterization is described for contingency tables which exploits prior knowledge that an ordinal scale of the variables is involved. It is helpful, in particular, in guiding the possible merging of adjacent levels of variables and may simplify interpretation if higher-order interactions are present. Several sets of data are discussed to illustrate the types of interpretation that can be achieved. The simple structure of the maximum likelihood estimates is derived by use of Lagrange multipliers.     

International Variation in Accounting Measurement Rules and Analysts' Earnings Forecast Errors

We theorize that accounting systems affect analysts' forecast accuracy through changes in earnings variability. We argue that the matching and historical cost principles reduce earnings variability, and hence, reduce analysts' earnings forecast errors. We also argue that restricting the choice of accounting methods can result in larger forecast errors. We argue that more informative disclosure environments should reduce forecast errors. We test whether variation in these factors across countries explain variation in analysts' earnings forecast bias and accuracy. Our results indicate that these characteristics of financial accounting systems are complements, and that they affect financial analysts' earnings forecast errors.     

Manipulation of dimensionality in landscape preference judgments: A quantitative validation∗

A Paired Comparison Methodology was used to scale preferences for landscapes depicted in 35mm color slides. Several S groups, varying in their familiarity with forestry, evaluated a series of photographically controlled forest scenes with various levels of insect damage. Some Ss were told a priori that insect damage was present (experimental), others were not (control). The objective was to see if experimental Ss would cue on a single “damage dimension” in their preference judgments, thus providing reliable interval measures of their preferences and estimates of esthetic impacts resulting from insect damage. Results of statistical tests indicate that dimensionality can be manipulated and that esthetic impacts can be measured as a result of changes in a specific landscape dimension.     

Cultural determination,diversity, and coalition in leisure research: A commentary on coalter and mommaas

What factors motivate individuals to participate in sport or fitness activities? This question has been of great interest to researchers. However, most studies on motives have considered only a single or a few variables in their investigation. The purpose of this research is to explore the wide range of factors that motivate people to participate in a fitness activity, namely aerobics. To take into account the broad range of individual and social factors that influence participation in a fitness activity, social identity theory is the basis for a qualitative investigation. The findings that show motives for participation are divergent across groups of similar individuals. The motives that emerged were (a) the atmosphere of an aerobics class, (b) the physical and psychological benefits, (c) social ties related to aerobics, (d) social comparisons, (e) obsession with aerobics, and (f) the feelings participants associate with doing aerobics. A proposed framework of fitness participation is developed based on the findings that could serve as a foundation for future empirical studies.     

Competition

This article examines the adoption of strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) by for-profit and non-profit knowledge-intensive health services (HS) organizations in the Australian context. Survey data collected from senior executives are used to test the relationships between a strategic HRM model and firm performance. Path analysis found that for HS firms, irrespective of whether for-profit or non-profit, adopting strategic HRM could increase organizational performance. Strategic HRM could be achieved through the cultivation of an external orientation to customers' demands and a commitment to employees. Building an external orientation with internal structural dimensions such as commitment to employees, allows HS organizations to develop a strategic HRM approach with human capital-enhancing HRM practices. Public and non-profit organizations in the HS industry facing or undergoing health sector reform need to be aware of both of these orientations in order to adopt strategic HRM and improve their performance.     

北海市铁山港区近期供水工程输水管管材比选

文章介绍夹砂玻璃钢管与不同材质管道的优缺点。工程实践表明,在长距离输水工程中应用的夹砂玻璃钢管是一种具有轻便、强度高、易施工、造价低等优点的管材。