Social signaling and interorganizational relationships: Lessons learned from the professional sports industry

In today’s connected economy, interorganizational relationships are increasingly important. Whether government-to-government, political party-to-political party, business-to-business, department-to-department, or some other interorganizational pairing, these relationships can provide organizations with signals used to identify and better respond to changes in their environment and in their interorganizational relationships. This enables astute organizations to not only understand how others will interpret the social signals they send, but also to shape those signals in ways that will improve their interorganizational relationships. We illustrate this herein, using the public and readily recognizable relationships involved with labor relations in the professional sports industry. We show how social signals can explain the way organizations change and adapt to their environments, and how these changes send messages to related organizations. Finally, we provide a set of recommended advice for managers based on this case analysis.     

Explaining differences in the productivity of investment across countries in the context of ‘new growth theory’

The purpose of this paper is to explain differences in the productivity of investment across 84 rich and poor countries over the period 1980–2011, and to test the orthodox neoclassical assumption of diminishing returns to capital. The productivity of investment is measured as the ratio of the long-run growth of GDP to a country’s gross investment ratio. Twenty potential determinants are considered using a general-to-specific model selection algorithm. Education, government consumption, geography, export growth, openness, political rights and macroeconomic instability are the most important variables. The data also suggest constant returns to capital, so investment and the determinants of productivity of investment differences matter for long-run growth.     

Land rights,agricultural productivity,and deforestation

This paper studies the relationship between land tenure for smallholder agriculture and deforestation. We combine high resolution satellite data on deforestation with rich household and commune-level, biannual panel data from Vietnam. We study two margins of tenure security, whether a household has any land title (extensive) and the share of a household’s land held in title (intensive). Using a household-fixed effects model, we find the increases in crop production and land investment associated with holding land title are driven by the intensive margin. We then aggregate the survey data to the commune-level and find evidence that marginal increases in extensive tenure (share of households with any land title) increase deforestation holding constant the average intensive tenure (average share of land held in tenure among those with land title). We find some evidence that increasing the intensive margin of tenure (holding constant the extensive tenure) decreases deforestation. These results present a more nuanced view of the tenure-deforestation relationship than is prevalent in the existing literature.     

Endogenous innovation under New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model

This paper constructs an endogenous growth model using the framework of New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. We incorporate the Schumpeterian approach that generates seemingly sticky prices and reinterpret the Calvo mechanism from the perspective of Bertrand competition and successful entrepreneurs. Our results demonstrate that both positive productivity shocks and endogenous innovation have a negative effect on subsequent endogenous innovation. These self-destructive effects of endogenous innovation might account for the IT productivity paradox and productivity slowdown seen in advanced countries. Furthermore, it is shown that there are both neutral and non-neutral properties of monetary policy shocks. They are neutral in terms of the growth effect, but non-neutral in terms of the level effect. In particular, expansionist monetary policies are desirable to facilitate endogenous innovation.     

Reorganizing School Lunch for a More Just and Sustainable Food System in the US

Public school lunch programs in the United States are contested political terrains shaped by government agencies, civil society activists, and agri-food companies. The particular organization of these programs has consequences for public health, social justice, and ecological sustainability. This contribution draws on political economy, critical food studies, and feminist economics to analyze the US National School Lunch Program, one of the world's oldest and largest government-sponsored school lunch programs. It makes visible the social and environmental costs of the “heat-and-serve” economy, where widely used metrics consider only the speed and volume of service as productive work. This study demonstrates that such a narrow understanding of the labor of lunch devalues care and undercuts the potential for school food provisioning to promote ecological and feminist goals. Further, it proposes a “high road” alternative and outlines an agenda for reorganizing school food provisioning to maximize care in all its dimensions.     

延迟退休年龄下隔代抚育与劳动参与的抉择*——基于工资收入随机性假定的研究

隔代抚育会对延迟退休年龄政策在促进劳动力供给上产生挤出效应。为了对此进行验证，本文在工资收入随机性的假定及延迟退休5年的情景下，模拟了面临孙辈照护需求的女性临近退休者提前退休所产生的福利变化。进一步，本文采用CHIP和CHARLS的微观调查数据，对不同群组的收入增长率和收入风险进行了估计，继而分析了当面临孙辈照护需求时这些收入特征对退休决策者制度退休和退休后劳动参与抉择产生的影响。总体上，在延迟退休年龄政策下，隔代抚育将对女性劳动力供给产生挤出效应。当面临孙辈照护需求时，女性临近退休者的制度退休抉择主要受自身收入增长率和收入风险的影响，收入增长率越低，或收入风险越高，她们提前退休的意愿就越强烈；制度退休后的劳动参与则更多地受子女收入增长率的影响，子女收入增长率越高，劳动参与的概率越低。     

Stuck in the Middle: Off-Farm Employment and Caregiving Among Middle-Aged Rural Chinese

ABSTRACT

Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011–12 baseline data, this contribution explores to what extent taking care of grandchildren and frail parents influences rural middle-aged Chinese adults’ off-farm employment. The findings show that, conditional on socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, taking care of grandchildren has a negative effect on rural middle-aged men's and women's off-farm job participation and hours worked. Caregiving for parents does not have the same negative effects on off-farm employment and hours worked. Furthermore, the study finds that annual earnings are also negatively affected by caregiving responsibilities, especially for women and men taking care of grandchildren.     

Farm size and productivity growth in the United States Corn Belt

In recent decades, agricultural production in the U.S. has continued to shift to large-scale operations, raising concerns about the economic viability of small and midsized farms. To understand whether economies of size provided an incentive for the consolidation of production, the study estimates the total factor productivity (TFP) of five size classes of grain-producing farms in the U.S. Heartland (Corn Belt) region. Using quinquennial Agricultural Census data from 1982 to 2012 the study also compares TFP growth rates across farm sizes to gain insight into whether observed productivity differences are likely to persist. The finding of a strong positive relationship between farm size and TFP suggests that consolidation of production has contributed to recent aggregate productivity growth in the crop sector. The study estimates the extent to which sectoral productivity growth can be attributed to structural change versus other factors including technological change. The study also explores some tradeoffs associated with policies that raise the productivity of small versus large farms.     

Are China’s regional agricultural productivities converging: How and why?

This article tests the hypotheses of convergence to a single level of total factor productivity (TFP), and a steady state of TFP growth rate in China’s agricultural sector. Based on multilateral TFP estimates we found that China’s agricultural sector has rebounded in recent years from a slower TFP growth in the 2005–2007 period. While convergence test results confirm a “catch-up” effect that provinces with lower TFP levels tend to grow faster than others, estimated rates of β convergence are conditional on how we capture the heterogeneity effect across regions. The rates of β convergence range from 0.016 to 0.039 under different model specifications. Estimates show that higher growth rates of educational attainment, R&D, and intermediate goods density (per unit of labor) can enhance TFP growth. Unfortunately, there is no evidence of an overall σ convergence, indicating that TFP levels are not converging except in the South region. It implies that to catch up with leading provinces, it would require extra efforts for those lagging behind by increasing their region-specific research investment, promoting rural educational attainment, and enhancing embodied technical change.     

Analyst coverage and lawsuit risk

In this study, we use a unique, hand-collected dataset of employee lawsuits and study the impact of analyst coverage on labour relations. We find that an increase in analyst coverage lowers the work-related litigations. In addition, we show that an increased number of analysts lowers the litigation cost, measured by settlement fees and attorney fees. Our results suggest analysts have an important impact on employee relations. Our research enriches the literature on employment practices and analyst coverage.