The Dynamics of Homeownership: Eliminating the Gap Between African American and White Households

This article uses a sample of young renters from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and a continuous‐time econometric model to explore not only the initial tenure transition to first‐time homeownership, but also subsequent possible tenure transitions to a second owned home, back to rental tenure and, indirectly, to a second owned home from rental tenure. Once estimated, the predicted probabilities of these transitions are used to calculate the probability of homeownership at various times for households in the sample. These estimates are done separately for African Americans and whites for two different 11‐year time intervals, 1987–1997 and 1993–2003. A primary result is that if African American education, income, net wealth and savings behavior could be brought in line with that of white households the majority of the racial gap in homeownership could be eliminated in either time period.     

Finnish Homes—Through Passages or Traps?

This is a study of tenure choice, housing demand and mobility in the submarkets of the Helsinki metropolitan area. The empirical analysis is based on data on households, type of tenure, housing characteristics and mobility for a sample of Helsinki residents at the end of 1980s. According to our results the probability of owning is affected not only by user costs of alternative tenure forms but also by permanent income and demographic variables. Results from the tenure specific housing demand models indicate that there are non-neutralities in the housing markets. Permanent income elasticities of housing demand are clearly positive in owner-occupied sector and systematically higher than in the rented sector. The demand for owner-occupied housing depends very strongly on the age of the household head. User cost per housing unit affects housing demand negatively in both tenure forms. Effective demand is greater in private housing sector. The results suggest that owner-occupied living is preferred with heavily subsidized households the least likely to move. In the rental sector, where the probability of moving is higher, it is also true that the most heavily subsidized households are the least likely to move.     

Housing Tenure Transitions of Older Households: What is the Role of Child Proximity?

This study examines the role of proximity of children to their parents and recent moves of children within a proximate distance in housing tenure transitions of older households. This study is the first to investigate the interplay between health status of older households, moves of their children and a household's decision to make housing tenure transitions. In doing so, we rely on longitudinal household data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with residential location information at the census tract level. The results demonstrate that after controlling for the financial and demographic characteristics of children, living near children reduces the likelihood of making a housing tenure transition for older households, but that the impact of distance is not monotonic with respect to the degree of geographic distances. The results also demonstrate that if a child enters or moves closer to her or his parents’ home, it increases the probability that older households exit homeownership. Finally, we find no evidence that children's moves mitigate the likelihood that their older parents whose health deteriorates become renters.     

A Disaggregate Analysis of the Evolution of Job Tenure in Britain, 1975–1993

We use data on 200,000 individuals to investigate changes in job tenure. We look at the age–tenure profile for different birth cohorts of workers and find little change for men and an improvement for women. We estimate probability models for two cuts of the tenure distribution. We find that, controlling for a set of age, demographic, educational, industrial and occupational characteristics, the proportion of workers in short jobs and longer jobs has the same path as in the aggregate (unconditional) analysis. Allowing for the effect of all these characteristics to vary with time uncovers no evidence of secular change.     

Employer‐Sponsored Training and Longer‐Tenured Workers: Evidence from Australia

I estimate the incidence and intensity of training with particular emphasis on where along the tenure‐training profile formal training occurs. Using data from the Survey of Education and Training gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, I find a different relationship between training and tenure than what is suggested by human capital models. Instead of training being concentrated towards the beginning of the employment relationship, it tends to be evenly distributed along the tenure profile. Such findings are more consistent with theories of wage compression and strategic complementarity than traditional human capital approaches.     

Market Conditions and Housing Choices: A Comparison of Homeownership Across Three Decades

This article uses information on out‐of‐pocket housing cost and house price appreciation along with the geo‐coded version of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to consider the differences in the impact of these and other variables on the tenure choices of sample households across three time periods, the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s. Specifically, an extended continuous time probability model is used to examine households' transitions from renting to owning and subsequent possible transitions either back to rental tenure or to another owned home during our three observation periods. Coefficient estimates show that financial variables such as house price appreciation and out‐of‐pocket housing cost play an important role in determining all the transitions. In addition, the analysis demonstrates the interesting result that the cumulative likelihoods of homeownership derived from the model are consistently lower than the probabilities of an initial transition to homeownership from rental tenure during the observation period. Finally, the magnitude and timing of the impact on homeownership of a policy experiment that eliminates the mortgage interest deduction are shown to differ substantially across the three decades.     

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.     

The Impacts of Remittances, Residency Status and Financial Attachment on Housing Tenure for Mexican-Heritage Americans: Inferences from a New Survey

Immigration has and will continue to alter the composition of housing demand in the United Sates. In this article, we analyze results from a new survey of Mexican-heritage households to draw some inferences about tenure choice within that group. Some measures of attachment to the United States—residency status and the amount of money sent to relatives and friends in Mexico—suggest that, among Mexican immigrants, permanence is a key determinant of homeownership in the United States. More specifically, being a citizen increased the probability of ownership, whereas being undocumented reduces the probability. Surprisingly, after controlling for residency status, length of tenure in the United States does not predict tenure status, except that those who refused to report length of tenure were more likely to have higher tenure status. Those who sent remittances home to Mexico were less likely to become homeowners.     

Top executive commitment to the status quo: Some tests of its determinants

Some top executives are more committed to the status quo—particularly to their organization's current strategy and leadership profile—than are others. Most empirical research on upper echelons treats psychological phenomena as a ‘black box’—the unobserved intervening mechanisms—that causes associations between more observable executive characteristics and organizational outcomes. In contrast, this paper attempts to directly examine the determinants of an important element of an executive's psychological orientation—commitment to the status quo (CSQ). We focus on a select set of variables which have been posited in prior research as determinants of executive CSQ, but which have not been directly tested for such a relationship. Based on a large-scale survey methodology, results suggest that an executive's tenure in an industry is a pronounced determinant of CSQ, and has significantly more impact than organizational tenure. As expected, the firm's current performance was found to be positively related to CSQ; this relationship was stronger in high-discretion than in low-discretion industries. Finally, the project reaffirms a well known human tendency: incumbent CEOs tend to believe that their eventual successors should be just like them.     

The Determinants of Employee Productivity and Earnings

This paper uses data on employee wages and characteristics drawn from a nationwide sample of firms to re-examine the determinants of employee productivity and earnings. The results show that previous experience and tenure in the current job have significant, positive effects on wages and productivity. Hours of training are positively related to productivity and wage growth but generally not to levels of either. Lastly, gender effects are evident. Productivity growth and current productivity levels are slightly higher for females while their wages are significantly lower.     

Workers’ tenure and firm productivity: New evidence from matched employer-employee panel data

Using rich longitudinal matched employer-employee data on Belgian firms, we explore the impact of workers’ tenure on firm productivity. To do so, we estimate production functions augmented with firm-level measures of tenure. We deal with the endogeneity of standard inputs and tenure, which arises from unobserved firm heterogeneity and reverse causality, by applying a modified version of Ackerberg et al.’s (2015) control function method, which explicitly removes firm fixed effects. Consistently with recent theoretical predictions, our analyses point to positive, but decreasing, returns to tenure. We also find that the impact differs widely across several firm dimensions. Tenure is particularly beneficial for productivity in contexts characterized by a certain degree of routineness and low job complexity. Along the same lines, our findings indicate that tenure exerts stronger positive impacts in industrial and capital-intensive firms, as well as in firms less reliant on ICT-intensive and knowledge-intensive processes.     

The Role of Sector-Specific Skills in Post displacement Earnings

This article examines how one form of transferable skills, those valued within an industry or sector, may influence reemployment and earnings following permanent job loss. The empirical analysis finds limited evidence of a sector-specific component to the returns to job tenure. The importance of these skills varies across sectors, with the strongest evidence found for sectors with sustained labor demand and growing employment. There is stronger evidence, particularly in reemployment, for a broader form of sector specificity that is not related to tenure, such as job search skills and vocational training. There is also sectoral evidence that is consistent with the role of individual ability in the returns to tenure.     

Land use in Nigeria

Prior to the Land Use Decree of 1978, the Nigerian land tenure system had become the object of intense attack and defence by vested interests promoting their views on changes in the tenure system which would best increase food and fibre production. The many points of view could be classified into two opposing camps: those who regarded the tenure system as inimical to agricultural development with emphasis on food production; and, those who argued that the tenure system was not a hindrance at that time. This article provides background information on issues leading to the land tenure reform in Nigeria; points out some of the shortcomings of past direct government control and management of land, and the Land Use Decree; suggests needed modifications to the Land Use Decree's implementation; and, derives some food production policy implications.     

Executive succession: The importance of social capital in CEO appointments

Research Summary: Firm performance and corporate governance have been shown to influence CEO selection, but our understanding of the role of social capital is more limited. In this study, we seek to provide further insight into the role of social capital by examining the influence of both “bonding” and “bridging” forms of social capital on CEO appointments. We find that candidates who have relational social capital, in terms of overlap with the CEO in organizational tenure, board tenure, and CEO tenure are more likely to be appointed as CEO. We also find that candidates who have external linkages to the CEO in the form of geographic, prestigious university, and prior employment affiliations are more likely to be appointed CEO. Managerial Summary: The appointment of a new CEO has significant and widespread implications for the firm’s future strategic direction and performance, the relationship between the board and CEO, and perceptions by investors, employees, and other key stakeholders. Our study finds that candidates who have shared connections and experiences with the CEO in terms of geographic, prestigious university, or prior employment affiliations as well as overlap in terms of organizational tenure, board tenure, and CEO tenure are more likely to be appointed CEO. Given the enormous impact that executive appointments have on the strategic direction and performance of the company, it is important to recognize that social factors such as shared experiences and connections influence how candidates are perceived, and thus, may affect appointment decisions.     

Birds,Birds, Birds: Co-Worker Similarity,Workplace Diversity and Job Switches

We investigate how the demographic composition of the workforce along the sex, nationality, education, age and tenure dimensions affects job switches. Fitting duration models for workers’ job-to-job turnover rate that control for workplace fixed effects in a representative sample of large manufacturing plants in Germany during 1975–2016, we find that larger co-worker similarity in all five dimensions substantially depresses job-to-job moves, whereas workplace diversity is of limited importance. In line with conventional wisdom, which has that birds of a feather flock together, our interpretation of the results is that workers prefer having co-workers of their kind and place less value on diverse workplaces.     

CEO Age and Outside Directors: A Hazard Analysis

This paper examines the relationship between CEO tenure, CEO age, the firm's industry group, the proportion of directors from outside the firm, and the cost of firing the CEO. A Cox proportional hazard model of CEO survival is used to study the length of the CEO's stay at the firm. We find that, contrary to previous studies, a greater proportion of outsiders has a positive effect on CEO tenure. The significance of this result is however sensitive to the inclusion of age and performance variables. We test for the effects of heterogeneity of industry, and find that firms in homogeneous industries exhibit lower durations. As the cost of firing the CEO rises, tenure also rises.     

Political reforms,rural crises,and land tenure in western Europe

This paper analyzes the origins and causes of the differences and changes in land tenure institutions over more than a century in several western European countries. The analysis shows that differences and changes in land tenure are caused by a combination of economic, institutional, and political factors, including the French Revolution, changes in agricultural profitability, voting rights reforms, etc. Significant changes in land tenure regulations resulted from the combination of both improved political representation of tenants in parliament and a severe economic crisis increasing the pressure for reforms. Empowerment of small tenants and farm workers and increasing their access to and influence on policy-making appears to be an important pre-condition in order to improve their land tenure rights.     

R&D employee tenure in MNC subsidiaries: the role of institutional distance and experience

Long tenure of research and development (R&D) employees helps organisations to utilise employees' knowledge over a sustained time period and strengthen their competitive advantage. It also allows organisations to benefit from the training investments made on their R&D employees. Thus, identifying the determinants of R&D employees' tenure is crucial for designing effective R&D employee retention strategies. This paper analyses the factors explaining R&D employees' tenure in the subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). Building on institutional theory, we claim that formal and informal institutional distance between MNCs' home and host country might lead to R&D employees' short tenure in subsidiaries. We further suggest that R&D employees' international experience and MNCs' host country experience play a moderating role. We find support for our hypotheses by mobilising an original database that combines patent data and the LinkedIn profiles of 939 R&D employees in 256 MNC subsidiaries in India.     

Factors Affecting Perceptions of Smallest Meaningful Pay Increases

This analysis suggests that an individual's current level of earnings may be one of the most important variables influencing his/her perception of incremental increases. Also, job difficulty (measured in terms of the average number of nights spent away from home per month on job-related duties) contributes significantly to the explanation of SMPI for both the organizational recognition group and the monetary considerations group. For the ORG group, the pay increase an individual finds meaningful appears to be influenced as well by job input factors such as total work experience, tenure in present job, tenure with present employer, and age. These results support the hypothesis that individuals with relatively high levels of training and experience and higher current earnings will tend to have higher expectations with regard to salary increases than will others, and that these expectations in turn will be reflected in higher thresholds of what is perceived as the smallest meaningful pay increase. Overall, much of the evidence supports the hypothesis that the predictors of SMPI will be different for the ORG and MCG groups. However, the relatively small size of the MCG sample and the associated problem of multicollinearity dictate caution in generalizing our results.* In addition, our study suffers from problems related to model underspecification, insofar as some of the explanatory variables identified in Lawler's model of pay satisfaction were not considered.     

Non‐Standard “Contingent” Employment and Job Satisfaction: A Panel Data Analysis

Contingent forms of employment are usually associated with low‐quality jobs and, by inference, jobs that workers find relatively unsatisfying. This assumption is tested using data from a representative household panel survey covering a country (Australia) with a high incidence of nonstandard employment. Results from the estimation of ordered logit regression models reveal that among males, both casual employees and labor‐hire (agency) workers (but not fixed‐term contract workers) report noticeably lower levels of job satisfaction, though this association diminishes with job tenure. Negative effects for women are mainly restricted to labor‐hire workers.