Supervision, Working Conditions, and the Employer Size-Wage Effect

Two hypotheses for the employer size-wage effect are explored using data from the 1980 Survey of Job Characteristics. We found that there is a strong establishment size effect in both medium-size and large companies and that employee-reported frequency of supervision has a negative relationship to pay but makes no difference in the effect. While 26 working conditions reduce the establishment size effect by one-third, it remains strong and significant.     

CURRENCY SUBSTITUTION, U.S. MONEY DEMAND, AND INTERNATIONAL INTERDEPENDENCE

A number of writers have argued in recent years that massive international currency substitution has been a major cause of exchange rate volatility and monetary instability in the United States and other major countries. Such analysis is frequently coupled with recommendations for a return to pegged exchange rates. This paper critically examines the evidence presented for this currency substitution view. It argues that the weight of latest research suggests that direct international currency substitution has not been of major quantitative importance for the U.S. However, empirical evidence supports traditional views that international capital mobility can generate substantial short-run monetary interdependence even under flexible exchange rates. Thus, even though international currency substitution is of little importance to U.S. monetary conditions, a broader range of international considerations may be of considerable importance for the U.S. economy.     

ON MEASURING THE EFFECT OF INFLATION UNCERTAINTY ON REAL GNP GROWTH

In this paper we re-examine the relationship between inflationuncertainty and total output. To properly specify an estimatingequation, we investigate the time series properties of two frequentlyused measures of inflation uncertainty. We fail to reject thehypothysis that each series has a unit root. However, the uncertaintymeasures are not cointegrated with output and relative oil prices.This means that the proper specification is in terms of differences.With this specification we find that an increase in inflationuncertainty growth reduces real GNP growth but, unlike earlierwork, we find that this effect is temporary. It is also unlikelythat an inflation uncertainty shock on its own could producea recession.     

Do They Have Your Number? Understanding the Moderating Role of Format Effects and Consumer Numeracy for Quantitative Front‐of‐Package Nutrition Claims

Front‐of‐package (FOP) nutrient content claims are often used by food manufacturers to promote the nutrition levels of their products. In this research, two studies examine the influence of the numerical format (either percentages or absolute numbers) presented on FOP‐reduced nutrient content claims and the moderating influence of consumers' numeracy levels (i.e., consumers' ability to interpret numbers). Low numerate consumers are more strongly influenced by the label's numerical format, but results differ across nutrition attributes linked to cardiovascular disease risk. For saturated fat, low numerate consumers had more favorable evaluations of the product that had a label presented in a percent format compared to an absolute unit format. In contrast, the moderating effect of numeracy had little effect on the format of reduced sodium claims. Implications are offered for policymakers, consumer researchers, and food manufacturers .     

Stillbirth registration and perceptions of infant death, 1900–60: the Scottish case in national context1

The history of vital registration has attracted substantial attention from both social historians and historical demographers. While much of that research has touched upon issues of fertility and mortality, the contentious issue of the stillborn child—which falls somewhere between the two—has been largely neglected. Although civil birth and death registration was introduced to Scotland in 1855, stillbirth registration did not begin until 1939. Using a range of legal, medical, and statistical evidence, this article explores the history of stillbirth registration in Scotland from a social history perspective. It outlines the problems associated with lack of stillbirth registration, the processes that eventually led to registration of the stillborn child, and the wider significance of that registration.     

THE IMPACT OF INFLATION ON NEW HOUSE PRICES

It is often stated that real house prices respond to inflation in ways similar to assets infixed supply, such as gold or antiques. This paper proposes that, instead, house prices are determined primarily by the cost of producing new houses. Thus, inflation affects price mainly through input markets and through expansion in housing starts. This proposition is supported in an examination of annual changes in house prices between 1965 and 1982 in 12 sub regions of the United States     

Inferring Transactions from Financial Statements*

In this paper, we embed the double entry accounting structure in a simple belief revision (estimation) problem. We ask the following question: Presented with a set of financial statements (and priors), what is the reader's “best guess” of the underlying transactions that generated these statements? Two properties of accounting information facilitate a particularly simple closed form solution to this estimation problem. First, accounting information is the outcome of a linear aggregation process. Second, the aggregation rule is double entry.