EVALUATING SUPPLY-SIDE AND DEMAND-SIDE SHOCKS FOR FISHERIES: A COMPUTABLE GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM (CGE) MODEL FOR ALASKA

This study used computable general equilibrium (CGE) models to investigate the economic effects of three exogenous shocks to Alaska fisheries: (1) reduction in pollock allowable catch (TAC); (2) increase in fuel price; and (3) reduction in demand for seafood. Two different model versions, ‘Keynesian’ and ‘neoclassical’, were used to estimate impacts on endogenous output, employment, value added, and household income. By using a CGE model, this study overcomes the limitations of fixed-price models (such as input–output models) including (1) inability to calculate welfare effects due to fixed prices; and (2) difficulty of addressing supply-side shocks. There are currently few examples of CGE studies addressing fisheries issues appearing in the literature. Among those, this study is unique in that it uses a relatively disaggregated sector scheme and examines both supply-side and demand-side shocks.     

Cultural tourism behaviour and preferences among the live‐performing arts audience: an application of the univorous–omnivorous framework

This study uses the omnivorous–univorous theoretical framework of the arts marketing studies to identify relationships between the live‐performing arts and cultural tourism behaviours and preferences. Patrons of a major performing arts centre were segmented in three groups — sporadic, univores and omnivores — and examined regarding their cultural tourism behaviours and preferences. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences among groups in terms of demographic characteristics, art and culture consumption and cultural tourism behaviour and preferences. Study results add to the body of knowledge of tourism, suggesting that the culture omnivorous consumption behaviour reported in art marketing studies is also relevant to cultural tourism. Results suggest the existence of omnivorous cultural tourists seeking a wide variety of cultural products and experiences. The identification of a group of individuals with little interest and consumption of culture, including cultural travel destinations, also emerges from this study. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

9/11 Impact on Teenage Values

Did the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. cause the values of teenagers in the U.S. to change? Did their previously important self-esteem and self-actualization values become less important and their survival and safety values become more important? Changes in the values of teenagers are important for practitioners, managers, marketers, and researchers to understand because high school students are our current and future employees, managers, and customers, and research has shown that values impact work and consumer-related attitudes and behaviors. Further, studies that compared higher to lower performing for-profit and not-for-profit companies have found that higher performing organizations had strong values that permeated their organizations [Collins J. C., and J. I. Porras: 1994, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York, Harper Business); O’Reilly, C. A. and J. A. Chatman: 1996, in B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 18 (JAI Press, Greenwhich, CT), pp. 157–200; O’Reilly, C. A.: 1989, California Management Review 31(4), 9–25; Posner, B. Z., and W. H. Schmidt: 1996, Public Personnel Management, 25(3), 277–298; Rousseau, D.: 1990, Group and Organization Studies 15(4), 448–460; Schein, E. H.: 2004, Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, Jossey Bass)]. While one study of adults found value changes, no known studies have explored if the values of teenagers also changed post-9/11. This study filled that research gap by exploring the values of a random sample of 1000 U.S. teenagers in grades 9 to 12 pre- and post-9/11, using a demographic questionnaire and the Rokeach Value Survey. The research results indicated that teenage survival, safety, and security values (a world at peace, freedom, national security, and salvation) increased in importance while their self-esteem and self-actualization values (a sense of accomplishment, inner harmony, pleasure, self-respect, and wisdom) decreased in importance, mirroring the changes for adults. The meaning of these findings for practitioners, managers, marketers and researchers was discussed.     

Third-Degree Price Discrimination: Apology Not Necessary

Applied work in price discrimination often treats demand curves among multiple market segments as algebraically additive. Yet the welfare effects of multi-market (third degree) price discrimination depend on how the demand segments are added. Treating demands as geometrically additive yields the well known result that discrimination absent an increase in production diminishes Marshallian surplus. But if demands are treated as algebraically additive then discrimination increases welfare over uniform pricing. Quantity is identical in the three cases, so the effect is not due to market opening. Nor is the effect due to scale economies since marginal cost is assumed constant. Profit is always greater under discrimination, so the effect is due to distributional changes in consumer surplus. The model is restricted to linear demands and constant marginal cost but can be generalized for future work and policy analysis.     

Where do firms manage earnings?

Despite decades of research on how, why, and when companies manage earnings, there is a paucity of evidence about the geographic location of earnings management within multinational firms. In this study, we examine where companies manage earnings using a sample of 2,067 U.S. multinational firms from 1994 to 2009. We predict and find that firms with extensive foreign operations in weak rule of law countries have more foreign earnings management than companies with subsidiaries in locations where the rule of law is strong. We also find some evidence that profitable firms with extensive tax haven subsidiaries manage earnings more than other firms and that the earnings management is concentrated in foreign income. Apart from these results, we find that most earnings management takes place in domestic income, not foreign income.     

Asymmetry in earnings timeliness and persistence: a simultaneous equations approach

This study addresses simultaneity bias in piecewise linear forms of the earnings-return relation. We specify an overidentified system of simultaneous equations that incorporates both asymmetric earnings timeliness and asymmetric earnings persistence specifications and implement two-stage least squares for this piecewise linear system. Estimation of a system that is piecewise linear in endogenous variables presents several issues that are unprecedented in the accounting literature. Findings provide evidence that the asymmetric timeliness specification is particularly affected by simultaneity and that failing to correct for simultaneity results in coefficient estimates that potentially understate the degree of asymmetric earnings timeliness. Moreover, inferences regarding how conditional conservatism has evolved over time are sensitive to whether OLS or 2SLS coefficients are used as the basis of comparison.     

Philosophy After Hiroshima: From Power Politics to the Ethics of Nonviolence and Co-Responsibility

P hilosophers from many different countries came to Hiroshima, Japan, in the summer of 2007 to discuss the problems of war and peace on the occasion of the Seventh World Congress of the International Society for Universal Dialogue (ISUD). The theme was After Hiroshima: Collective Memory, Philosophical Reflection and World Peace . The essays included in this volume were originally presented at that conference and reflect some of the aspects of these discussions.
In the first three parts of this introductory essay, I will address ideas conveyed by discussions during the Hiroshima conference regarding an open history, as well as various aspects of violence-prone globalization and its challenges to ethics and to peace. Then, within this context, the fourth part of this introduction will provide a brief review of some of the main themes arising out of the conference and elaborated in the essays of the volume.     

1. Globalization and Violence: The Challenge to Ethics

Despite its many benefits, globalization has proven to harbor a good deal of violence. This is not only a matter of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction inaugurated by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, but includes many forms of indirect or “structural violence” resulting from the routine of economic and political institutions on the global scale. In this essay, the multifaceted phenomena of violence are approached from the standpoint of ethics. The prevailing political thinking associated with “realism” fails to address the problems of militarism and of hegemonic unilateralism. In contrast, many philosophers are critically rethinking the problem of global violence from different ethical perspectives. Despite sharing similar concerns, philosophers nevertheless differ over the role of philosophical reflection and the potentials of reason. These differences appear in two contrasting approaches associated with postmodern philosophy and discourse ethics. In the analysis of discourse ethics, attention is paid to Karl‐Otto Apel's attempt of philosophically grounding a macroethics of planetary co‐responsibility. At the heart of the essay is the analysis of the problem of violence, including terrorism, by Jürgen Habermas, who explains the phenomenon of violence in terms of the theory of communicative action as the breakdown of communication. Jacques Derrida's deconstruction of the notion of “terrorism” also is analyzed. According to the principle of discourse ethics, all conflicts between human beings ought to be settled in a way free of violence, through discourses and negotiations. These philosophers conclude that the reliance on force does not solve social and global problems, including those that are the source of violence. The only viable alternative is the “dialogical” multilateral relations of peaceful coexistence and cooperation among the nations for solving social and global problems. They emphasize the necessity of strengthening the international rule of law and institutions, such as a reformed United Nations.     

Specialization of state sectoral employment

This paper uses an index to measure the level of employment diversity at the state level for 2000. The index is based on aggregating employment at eight major sectors. The paper utilizes sixteen science and engineering indicator variables to explain specialization at the state level in recent years. All but seven variables were found to provide explanations.      

Estimation of a dynamic model of weight

The ongoing debate about the economic causes of obesity has focused on the changing relative prices of diet and exercise. This paper uses a model that explicitly includes time and spatially varying community-level urbanicity and price measures as instruments to obtain estimates of the effects of diet, physical activity, drinking, and smoking on weight. The instruments control for bias due to unobservables that may be common determinants of weight and these explanatory variables. We apply a dynamic panel system GMM estimation model to longitudinal (1991–2006) data from China to model weight and find that among adult men in China, about 5.4% of weight gain was due to declines in physical activity and 2.8–3.1% was due to dietary changes over this period. Combined, changes in physical activity and diet only explain around 8% of the short run gain in weight and about 11% of the long-run gain in weight among Chinese men.