Housing-Price Cycles and Prepayment Rates of U.S. Mortgage Pools

Empirical mortgage prepayment models generally have trouble explaining differences in mortgage-prepayment speeds among pools with similar interest rates on the underlying mortgages. In this article, we model some of the sources of termination heterogeneity across mortgage pools, particularly the role of regional variations in housing prices in generating atypical prepayment speeds. Using a sample of Freddie Mac mortgage pools from 1991 to 1998, we compare two classes of empirical models: a rational option-pricing model using a backward-solving pricing algorithm and an empirical hazard model. In both empirical estimation strategies, we find evidence that differences in house-price dynamics across regions are an important source of between-pool heterogeneity. This finding is then shown to be robust to alternative ways of parameterizing pool heterogeneity in mortgage termination models.     

Best-performing US mutual fund families from 1993 to 2008: Evidence from a novel two-stage DEA model for efficiency decomposition

When analyzing relative performance, especially at the institutional level, the traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) models do not recognize vastly different and important activities as separate functions and therefore cannot identify which function may be the main source of inefficiency. We propose a novel two-stage DEA model that decomposes the overall efficiency of a decision-making unit into two components and demonstrate its applicability by assessing the relative performance of 66 large mutual fund families in the US over the period 1993–2008. By decomposing the overall efficiency into operational management efficiency and portfolio management efficiency components, we reveal the best performers, the families that deteriorated in performance, and those that improved in their performance over the sample period. We also make frontier projections for poorly performing mutual fund families and highlight how the portfolio managers have managed their funds relative to the others during financial crisis periods.     

Developing healthcare facilities for a changing environment

When approaching facility and real estate development, healthcare leaders should: Enhance clinical integration and ensure more patient-friendly facilities. Focus on a facility's business requirements and operating needs. Create a business plan that demonstrates how a project would help deliver better care at lower cost during a time of declining payment levels. Develop an approach that balances the needs of all stakeholders, including payers, staff, and patients.     

Commodifying the Commodifiers: The Impact of Procurement on Management Knowledge

Current conceptualizations of the commodification of management knowledge prioritize the agency of knowledge producers, such as consultancies, but downplay the role of other actors such as intermediaries. Using a qualitative multi‐method study of the role of procurement in sourcing consultancy knowledge, we demonstrate how intermediaries also commodify management knowledge, thereby limiting the exchange value of that knowledge. Through our analysis we develop a more sophisticated model of the processes and consequences of knowledge commodification. This model clarifies and extends prior research by highlighting the role of commensuration, comparison and valuation, as well as the related tactics that consultants and client managers use to resist procurement's attempts to commodify management knowledge.     

You’re dead to me,but should you be? Using a retail database to classify American malls by occupancy and sales and an extended analysis of dead and dying malls

ABSTRACT

The study uses a shopping center database to classify malls by occupancy and sales. A factor analysis is conducted and reduces the large number of variables to a smaller number of mall constructs. The constructs are used to predict mall group membership by occupancy and sales. The results indicate that population and income are important variables towards mall occupancy and sales. An analysis of dead malls follows in order to produce more novel information for the growing interest in dead and dying malls. It is found through a second discriminant analysis that the prototypical characteristics of dead malls include; smaller in size, less population and lower income market areas. There were varying effects of renovation dates, competition and market age. Overall, the study benefited from examining dead malls more closely and provides more groundwork for future dead mall studies.     

Investment and Productivity in Canadian and U.S. Food Manufacturing

A restricted cost function model of Canadian and US. food manufacturing shows that productivity growth rates in Canada have remained well below those in the United States for the past decade and a half_: At mean factor prices, output, and capital quantities, processing costs would be 22% lower in the U.S. than in Canada. Technical change in both countries has been labor-saving and material-using, although slightly more so in the US. than in Canada. The labor-saving bias of technical improvements puts Canada at a disadvantage to its southern neighbor, since food manufacturing wages in Canada tend to be lower and material prices higher than in the United States. Enhancing its competitiveness will require that Canada reduce raw food and packaging costs or invest more in research and development .
L'estimation d'une function constraint de coût démontre que le taux de productivité du secteur de la transformation des aliments et boissons au Canada est demeuré inférieur à celui des Etats-Unis depuis une quinzaine d'années. En effet, à la moyenne du prix des intrants, du stock de capital et de la quantité produite, le coût de production américain est de 22 % inférieur à celui du Canada. Dans les deux pays, le changement technologique a permis de substituer le matériel à la main-d'oeuvre, et ceci de façon plus prononcée aux Etats-Unis. En bout de ligne, ceci désavantage le secteur canadien des aliments et boissons puisque les salaires sont généralement inférieurs au Canada alors que le matériet est plus coûteux. Le Canada pourrait améliorer sa compétitivité face aux Etats-Unis en réduisant le prix des denrées et des entrées intermédiaires ou en augmentant l'investissement dans la recherche et le développement .     

中国《经济》发展联盟《企业诊断》系列讲座之一德西蒙公司如何帮跨国公司改进质量管理?质量创造价值——全球顶级航空制造企业的质量改进案例

项目准备最高管理层全情参与质量改进无论在哪个行业,企业的最高执行官参与产品单件设计的现象都非常少见;而最高执行官参与供应商选择以及基层的其他改进工作的做法更是少之又少。我们只是最近才在航天领域的知名企业通用电气(GE)和霍尼韦尔(Honeywell)公司见到这种由上而下进行“管理层承诺”的做法。本文中提到的这家全球知名的制造业巨头(以下简称B公司)旗下拥有一家大型飞机制造公司和一家大型人造卫星制造公司,两家公司的管理层都以突出的领导能力著称。在他们的带领下,公司的各部门保持了高度的步调一致,为企业的总体战略目标——…     

Visualising Time: A Compendium of Time Series Plots

Graphs are important for highlighting relationships within a data series or across several series. Modern computer software has provided flexibility in the construction of graphic displays that would have been impossible with the tools that were available to researchers only a few decades ago. This article illustrates a variety of different graphical presentations for time ordered or time series data that can now be constructed. These include time series plots, bar charts, range plots, radar charts, scatter plots, heat maps and seasonality plots. For each graph type presented, we discuss the best practice for their construction.     

Physical activity advocacy in the UK: a multiple streams analysis of a hybrid policy issue

Physical activity is increasingly being defined as a major, complex, multi-sector issue. In order to understand more about how this expanded conception of physical activity is being factored into public policy, this article applies the multiple streams theory of policy change to examine the United Kingdom (UK) physical activity domain. Participant observation, policy analysis and media analysis are combined to examine the ways in which the political context, problem framing and policy solutions were brought together by a range of policy entrepreneurs. The study pays particular attention to how one lobby effort in the UK, the All Party Committee on Physical Activity (APCPA) attempted to elevate physical activity to a higher level of importance. The findings show how a hybrid form of organisation made up of traditional interest groups, corporations and government insiders, has successfully decreased ambiguity about physical activity and increased both official and public attention about the issue. The article suggests that while the multifarious benefits of physical activity and the diverse range of organisations involved have contributed to momentum towards policy change, these factors may also inhibit physical activity from remaining high on the policy agenda. Suggestions are offered for policy practices at a national level.     

RISK-EFFICIENT THRESHOLDS FOR PEST CONTROL DECISIONS

Risk and uncertainty are incorporated in an economic model to develop risk-efficient pest control advice similar in character to advice currently being offered by researchers to farmers. An example to illustrate computation of risk-efficient advice is presented and implications of risk aversion for efficient pest control advice and average pesticide use are examined.