Women's relative wage rate in The Netherlands, 1950–1983: A test of alternative discrimination theories

Summary This article presents the results of an inquiry into the relationship that is to be expected on theoretical grounds between women's wage rate compared to men's on the one hand and some macroeconomic variables on the other. Becker's discrimination theory is confronted with alternative theories. On the base of data for the Netherlands the authors investigate which theory is most suited to explain the development of women's relative wage rate for the period 1950–1983. They conclude that the results of the empirical analysis predominantly support Becker's theory.The authors wish to thank Mr. R. Haagsma and Professor C.K.F. Nieuwenburg for their comments on an earlier draft of this article. Furthermore, they are grateful to Miss M.J.R. Key for computational assistance.     

Making sense of corporate social responsibility in international business: experiences from Shell

International business organizations are regularly addressed on their corporate social responsibility (CSR). As illustrated in this paper, it is not yet clear exactly what CSR means to organizations and how to deal with it. In this paper, the authors explore how a sensemaking approach helps to understand the business challenges of CSR within an organizational context. The theories of Karl Weick are applied to the experiences of CSR in Royal Dutch Shell. The authors argue that the key to CSR in international business organizations is to engage stakeholders and start a process of joint sensemaking. Three main competencies are crucial in this: the competency to engage stakeholders through listening and understanding; the creation of an organizational language so that CSR makes sense to members of the organization; and recognizing the momentum of taking action.     

Robustness issues in multilevel regression analysis

A multilevel problem concerns a population with a hierarchical structure. A sample from such a population can be described as a multistage sample. First, a sample of higher level units is drawn (e.g. schools or organizations), and next a sample of the sub‐units from the available units (e.g. pupils in schools or employees in organizations). In such samples, the individual observations are in general not completely independent. Multilevel analysis software accounts for this dependence and in recent years these programs have been widely accepted. Two problems that occur in the practice of multilevel modeling will be discussed. The first problem is the choice of the sample sizes at the different levels. What are sufficient sample sizes for accurate estimation? The second problem is the normality assumption of the level‐2 error distribution. When one wants to conduct tests of significance, the errors need to be normally distributed. What happens when this is not the case? In this paper, simulation studies are used to answer both questions. With respect to the first question, the results show that a small sample size at level two (meaning a sample of 50 or less) leads to biased estimates of the second‐level standard errors. The answer to the second question is that only the standard errors for the random effects at the second level are highly inaccurate if the distributional assumptions concerning the level‐2 errors are not fulfilled. Robust standard errors turn out to be more reliable than the asymptotic standard errors based on maximum likelihood.     

Municipal welfare functions

In this paper the concept of a municipal welfare function is defined. It reflects the evaluation by local authorities of several levels of local expenditures. On the basis of an extensive survey among all Dutch municipal authorities these functions are estimated for about 550 Dutch municipalities with respect to total expenditures and differentiated with respect to several portfolios, like public works, education, etc. The variation of the estimated municipal welfare parameters is explained by objectively measurable municipal characteristics like the number of the inhabitants, age distribution of inhabitants and houses, number of unemployed, regional situation.     

Assumptions on Fertility in Stochastic Population Forecasts*

In recent years Statistics Netherlands has published several stochastic population forecasts. The degree of uncertainty of the future population is assessed on the basis of assumptions about the probability distribution of future fertility, mortality and migration. The assumptions on fertility are based on an analysis of historic forecasts of the total fertility rate (TFR), on time‐series models of observations of the TFR, and on expert knowledge. This latter argument‐based approach refers to the TFR distinguished by birth order. In the most recent Dutch forecast the 95% forecast interval of the total fertility rate in 2050 is assumed to range from 1.2 to 2.3 children per woman.     

Risk compensation in wages – a replication

We use data from Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain to test for the effect of earnings variation on individual earnings. We replicate estimates for the USA and find that the variance of earnings in an occupation affects individual wages positively while the skewness of earnings has a negative effect. Both results are in conformity with wage compensation for risk averse workers. First version received: March 2001/Final version received: July 2002 We are grateful to two anonymous referees for valuable comments.     

Longitudinal Meta-analysis

The goal of meta-analysis is to integrate the research results of a number of studies on a specific topic. Characteristic for meta-analysis is that in general only the summary statistics of the studies are used and not the original data. When the published research results to be integrated are longitudinal, multilevel analysis can be used for the meta-analysis. We will demonstrate this with an example of longitudinal data on the mental development of infants. We distinguish four levels in the data. The highest level (4) is the publication, in which the results of one or more studies are published. The third level consists of the separate studies. At this level we have knowledge about the degree of prematurity of the group of infants in the specific study. The second level are the repeated measures. We have data about the test age, the mental development, the corresponding standard deviations, and the sample sizes. The lowest level is needed for the specification of the meta-analysis model. Both the way in which the multilevel model has to be specified (the Mln-program is used) as the results will be presented and interpreted.     

The Performance of European Index Funds and Exchange‐Traded Funds

European index funds and exchange‐traded funds underperform their benchmarks by 50 to 150 basis points per annum. The explanatory power of dividend withholding taxes as a determinant of this underperformance is at least on par with fund expenses. Dividend taxes also explain performance differences between funds that track different benchmarks and time variation in fund performance. Our results imply that not only fund expenses, but also dividend taxes can result in a substantial drag on mutual fund performance.