Cost Accounting and Performance Measurement in a Just-in-Time Production Environment

There are normative statements in the literature, backed up by case observations and anecdotal evidence, which indicate that manufacturing companies operating just-in-time (JIT) production management systems should also change their cost accounting systems and place greater reliance on non-financial performance indicators. This study provides empirical evidence suggesting that JIT manufacturing companies which have made some degree of modification to their costing system demonstrate higher performance than JIT companies which have not made changes. The results also suggest that greater use of non-financial performance indicators is associated with higher performance irrespective of the production management system adopted.     

Option Implied Dividends Predict Dividend Cuts: Evidence from the Financial Crisis

We employ the forward‐looking implied dividend information contained in option prices to predict dividend cuts and omissions during the recent financial crisis. The large number of dividend cuts and omissions during the 2008–09 financial crisis period provides the opportunity to study the predictability of dividend cuts in a controlled environment. Implied dividends and implied volatility, based on put–call parity and computed from put and call option prices, prove to be effective in predicting those cuts, especially compared to only using the equity market and accounting variables conventionally used for this purpose. Options‐derived variables (implied dividends and implied volatility) enhance the ability to identify firms more likely to reduce or omit dividend payments.     

The relevance of shopper logistics for consumers of store-based retail formats

This paper discusses and empirically evaluates the relevance of shopping-related logistics for consumers of store-based retail formats. Based on a literature review a conceptual model was developed and subsequently tested using a survey of more than six hundred consumers in the grocery retail sector. Respondents were those primarily responsible for grocery shopping in their households located in a highly concentrated European urban retail market. Variance based structural equation modelling reveals that shopper logistics has a major impact on the convenience of store-based shopping and partly influence consumers' perceptions of shopping related costs. Nevertheless, shopper logistics does not affect consumer behaviour in terms of the share of visits of a store. These results are moderated by age, hedonic shopping orientation, shopping frequency, average spending per trip and store format preference. We conclude that shopper logistics is relevant for consumers of grocery stores but its relevance varies between different shopper groups.     

Cournot Oligopoly Conditions under which Any Horizontal Merger Is Profitable

Findings in economic theory suggest that horizontalmergers involving firms with aggregate market shareless than 50% are unlikely to be motivated by theconsequent reduction in competitivity. The resultsarise because, absent cost efficiencies, quantity-settingfirms in small mergers are impoverished by the merger.We demonstrate that this conclusion is a consequence ofthe strong restrictions imposed on the demand function,and we identify a well-behaved demand function suchthat any set of merging firms benefits from the reductionin competition even when there are no cost efficiencies.     

Backtesting Stochastic Mortality Models

Abstract

This study sets out a backtesting framework applicable to the multiperiod-ahead forecasts from stochastic mortality models and uses it to evaluate the forecasting performance of six different stochastic mortality models applied to English & Welsh male mortality data. The models considered are the following: Lee-Carter’s 1992 one-factor model; a version of Renshaw-Haberman’s 2006 extension of the Lee-Carter model to allow for a cohort effect; the age-period-cohort model, which is a simplified version of Renshaw-Haberman; Cairns, Blake, and Dowd’s 2006 two-factor model; and two generalized versions of the last named with an added cohort effect. For the data set used herein, the results from applying this methodology suggest that the models perform adequately by most backtests and that prediction intervals that incorporate parameter uncertainty are wider than those that do not. We also find little difference between the performances of five of the models, but the remaining model shows considerable forecast instability.     

The effects of the international-domestic interest rate gap on US output

This paper examines how the relationships linking money to real output are altered when an international-domestic interest rate gap is included in the model. The results indicate that both the international-domestic interest rate gap and term structure exert a statistically significant effect on real economic activity. In addition, fluctuations in these variables contain significant information about future changes in real output. An interesting finding is that while the term structure dominates the international-domestic interest rate gap when estimating the entire time period, 1970:1–1996:4, the international-domestic interest rate gap clearly dominates in the more recent time period, 1985:1–1996:4.     

Welfare-to-Work Outcomes: The Role of the Employer

This paper sets out to explore the role of the employer in successful welfare-to-work transitions. We demonstrate the uses of administrative records in identifying the types of firms that repeatedly hire welfare recipients. We also develop sets of criteria to identify “successful” outcomes. Our results suggest that there is substantial untapped potential for using administrative data to identify not simply which industries hire welfare recipients but those that are most likely to provide recipients with long-lasting jobs, or jobs accompanied by sustained removal from welfare dependency.