Hedonic pricing and the role of stud fees in the market for thoroughbred yearlings in Australia

Using data from one of Australia's largest thoroughbred auction houses, we investigate the price determinants of thoroughbred yearlings sold at auction. We include novel key variables to construct hedonic pricing models and examine the relative role of stud fees compared to the wide range of attributes in the pricing of yearlings. We find that the price effect of stud fees is influenced by the value buyers place on both the characteristics of sires and the characteristics of sire side siblings. The findings imply that the quality of dams a sire has been matched within the breeding market has consequential effects on yearling prices through the sire's stud fee and progeny.     

Toddlers,teenagers, and terminal heights: the importance of puberty for male adult stature,Flanders, 1800–76

Does adult stature capture conditions at birth or at some other stage in the growth cycle? Anthropometrics is lauded as a method for capturing net nutritional status over all the growing years. However, it is frequently assumed that conditions at birth were most influential. Was this true for historical populations? This article examines the heights of Flemish men born between 1800 and 1876 to tease apart which moments of growth were most sensitive to disruption and reflected in final heights. It exploits two proximate crises in 1846–9 and 1853–6 as shocks that permit age effects to be revealed. These are affirmed through a study of food prices and death rates. Both approaches suggest a shift of the critical moment away from the first few years of life and towards the adolescent growth spurt as the most influential on terminal stature. Furthermore, just as height is accumulated over the growing years, conditions influencing growth need to be understood cumulatively. Economic conditions at the time of birth were not explanatory, but their collective effects from ages 11 to 18 years were strongly influential. At these ages, both health and nutrition mattered, to varying degrees. Teenagers, rather than toddlers, should be our guides to the past.     

Is an Auditor's Propensity to Issue Going Concern Opinions a Valid Measure of Audit Quality?

A number of previous studies use auditor propensity to issue a going concern opinion (GCO) as a proxy of audit quality when examining a sample of financially distressed firms. This study examines whether audit quality (measured by discretionary accruals) influences the probability of financially distressed firms receiving GCOs using a non‐specific sample of 2937 firm‐year observations from Australia over the period 2011–2015. The study first investigates the association between financially distressed firms and the issuance of GCOs. This association is then re‐tested after separating the total sample into low and high audit quality subsamples. The results indicate that financially distressed firms are more likely to receive GCOs, confirming the application of ASA 570 Going Concern. However, financially distressed firms that receive GCOs from their auditors are limited to firms that have higher‐quality audits.     

Localism and the Big Society: the asset transfer of leisure centres and libraries – fighting closures or empowering communities?

This paper critically examines the ‘asset transfer’ of leisure services from the public to the voluntary sector. Asset transfer might be theorised as ‘austerity localism’, in which volunteers are obliged to fill the gaps left by retreating public provision, or as ‘progressive localism’, which represents new opportunities through the localism and Big Society agendas to develop more locally responsive, cooperative and mutualist visions. In this way, asset transfer might overcome the limitations of the United Kingdom policies in which ‘Big Government’ is replaced by civic society. Drawing on qualitative interviews with key personnel (volunteers, managers and local authority officers) at 12 leisure facilities, a grounded assessment of the nuanced balance between ‘austerity localism’ and ‘progressive localism’ is provided, including three observations. First, the main impetus for transfer was cuts in local authority budgets which stimulated the emergence of local groups of volunteers. Secondly, the transfers themselves required interaction between local government and the volunteer groups; however, the nature of the relationship and support given varied and support was limited by austerity measures. Thirdly, volunteers do not automatically fill a gap left by the state: without support transfer viability relies on the financial and social capital among volunteer groups, and this is unevenly distributed. These findings suggest that the capacity for a ‘progressive localism’ to emerge through asset transfer is limited. However, where transfer has occurred, there are some progressive benefits of volunteer empowerment and a more flexible service.     

Changes in tourists’ perception of well-being based on their use of emotion regulation strategies during vacation

ABSTRACT

Based on the theoretical foundation of emotion regulation, this exploratory study aimed to examine changes in tourists’ perceived well-being and to determine whether these changes were due to use of emotion regulation strategies (ERSs) during their vacation. This study used travel diaries to record tourists’ use of ERSs on a daily basis, and also measured tourists’ perceived well-being one day before and after their vacation. Results indicated that tourists had significantly higher perceptions of well-being after vacation, and those who used ERSs were more likely to indicate a higher sense of well-being after vacation. The results provide new insight into which aspects of tourists’ subjective and psychological well-being can be boosted by taking vacations and how these aspects may be enhanced by using different ERSs.     

Business Ethics: A Quantitative Analysis of the Impact of Unethical Behavior by Publicly Traded Corporations

This study examines whether the financial markets penalize public corporations for unethical business practices. Using event study methodology, it is found that upon the announcement that a firm is under investigation or has in some way engaged in unethical behavior, a statistically significant negative abnormal (excess) return is found. This suggests that firms are indeed penalized for their unethical actions.     

Devolution and disabled workers: the experiences of union equality representatives in Wales

In contrast to the Coalition Government, the Welsh Assembly embraced the original objectives of the Public Sector Equality Duty and provided financial support to develop a network of union equality representatives (ERs). With reference to ER support for disabled workers, this article examines the role of devolution in equalities bargaining.     

Celso Furtado: Culture and Creativity Matter

This article deals with the relationship between development, creativity, and culture. It is based on the works of Celso Furtado — a Brazilian economist, a member of ECLAC’s first generation of scholars (along with Raul Prebisch), and a notable intellectual of sub-development and development in Brazil and Latin America. For Furtado, economic development is an endogenous social process that leads to human ingenuity and creativity. However, Furtado argued that creativity does not occur haphazardly. It is conditioned by cultural structures that can take two forms: material (means) or immaterial (ends). The former steers creativity toward serving material accumulation and consumption, while the latter guides it toward individuals’ existential way of life. Furtado’s central claim is that, in the “industrial civilization,” such values as rationality and efficiency bring human creativity into the production process.     

The emergence of convergent price clusters in China

This paper reports new evidence on the existence of both large and small price divergent clusters for China's energy markets, 2000–2009. The largest convergent price clusters suggest that the coal and gasoline markets are well integrated, however, small convergent price clusters suggest that electricity and diesel markets are proving harder to integrate. The paper argues that the traditional approach to price convergence analysis should be applied with caution, especially in a transitional economy such as China where questions to be asked should relate to the ‘degree of market‐orientation’ and not simply whether it is a market‐based economy or not.     

The Experience of Selling Experiences

In the experience economy, working conditions — that is, the experience of work — directly affect both job quality and the quality of the experience produced. We propose an alternative definition of job quality and apply this concept to a qualitative study of casino employees. Pay and benefits are crucial elements of sustainable livelihoods. But building a life also requires time away from the job, good health, and supportive institutions, including employers who treat their workers as human beings with complex lives. A good job reinforces, rather than undermines, a positive sense of identity.