Bank profitability and macroeconomic conditions: Are business models different?

The paper investigates the impact of macroeconomic conditions on the profitability of EU banks by testing for differential effects according to the business model. We group banks into three business models using a hierarchical cluster analysis and find that using clusters based on the share of assets invested in loans reveals heterogeneity in the sensitivity of bank profitability to economic growth across business models. Our main result is that GDP growth, credit growth, and the risk-free yield curve influence profitability as expected, but we also find that the effect of GDP growth is only significant for banks that have a high and medium share of assets invested in loans, and not for banks that hold large portfolios of securities. This difference depends on the impact of growth on asset write downs, especially those on loans and, to a lesser extent, on revenues. The results suggest that studies relating bank profitability to macroeconomic conditions should take the heterogeneity of business models into account.     

The nursing informatics workforce: who are they and what do they do?

Nursing informatics has evolved into an integral part of health care delivery and a differentiating factor in the selection, implementation, and evaluation of health IT that supports safe, high-quality, patient-centric care. New nursing informatics workforce data reveal changing dynamics in clinical experience, job responsibilities, applications, barriers to success, information, and compensation and benefits. In addition to the more traditional informatics nurse role, a new position has begun to emerge in the health care C-suite with the introduction of the chief nursing informatics officer (CNIO). The CNIO is the senior informatics nurse guiding the implementation and optimization of HIT systems for an organization. With their fused clinical and informatics background, informatics nurses and CNIOs are uniquely positioned to help with "meaningful use" initiatives which are so important to changing the face of health care in the United States.     

How do oil price forecast errors impact inflation forecast errors? An empirical analysis from US,French and UK inflation forecasts

This paper proposes an empirical investigation of the impact of oil price forecast errors on inflation forecast errors for three different sets of recent forecast data: the median of SPF inflation forecasts for the United States and the Central Bank inflation forecasts for France and the United Kingdom. Mainly two salient points emerge from our results. First, there is a significant contribution of oil price forecast errors to the explanation of inflation forecast errors, whatever the country or the period considered. Second, the pass-through of oil price forecast errors to inflation forecast errors is typically multiplied by around 2 when the oil price volatility is large.     

Gender and culture: do they matter for norms?

In a natural experiment, we observed that the influence of a norm depended upon the gender and cultural background of participants. Both gender and cultural background contributed to the effect of peer pressure that partly controlled against the act of cheating among participants as they completed a group task. Furthermore, both factors served to describe the characteristics of hardworking individuals in the group. We therefore conclude that the effectiveness of a norm in a group is expected to depend upon the presence of hardworking individuals therein.     

Patent assertion entities: do they impede innovation and technology commercialisation?

This article focuses on addressing a primary charge levelled against patent assertion entities (PAEs): that they impede innovation and technology commercialisation activities of US firms. The paper utilises an intellectual property (IP) strategy framework within the construct of a firm business model to delineate PAE typologies, and then evaluates how they ‘fit’ with either a framework for the protection of IP assets or the exploitation of IP assets. The PAE business model operates under neither an IP asset protection nor IP asset exploitation strategy, but its own IP monetisation strategy. Moreover, a review of recent research on the proliferation and economic impact of PAEs is undertaken, with the overwhelming empirical evidence showing that PAEs are having an adverse impact on innovation and technology commercialisation activities of US firms. Potential patent policy reforms and emerging marketplace options are identified for enhancing a business environment conducive to successful technology innovation and commercialisation.     

The caregiving responsibilities of retirees: what are they and how do they affect retirees’ well-being?

Using data from the 2010 and 2012 American Time Use Surveys (ATUS) and the associated Well-being Modules (WBM), this article examines how caregiving affects the well-being of retirees who are caregivers. Different caregiving activities are examined, including caring for household adults, caring for non-household adults, and caring for children. Different aspects of well-being are examined, including how meaningful respondents find their activities and how happy, sad, tired, in pain, and stressed their activities make them. The results show that, controlling for selection into caregiving, most caregiving negatively affects the well-being of retirees. This suggests that policies that remove some of the caregiving burden from retirees would increase their well-being.     

Altruism in individual and joint-giving decisions: What's gender got to do with it?

Abstract

This paper uses dictator experiments to examine gender differences in altruistic behavior in the United States when decisions are made individually and jointly. In anonymous individual giving to charity, women give substantially more than men, and in paired settings, mixed-sex groups give the most while all male pairs give the least. Evidence supports social information and negotiation effects as participants change giving toward that of their partners. Social image effects are found only in mixed-sex groups, indicating a gender-based component to the value of the social signal sent. Although men and women appear to have similar influence, the positive social image effect pushes giving in mixed-sex pairs above the sum of the members' individual gifts because the less altruistic partners (usually men) adjust their giving upward more than the more altruistic partners (usually women) reduce giving. Therefore, increasing women's participation in traditionally male spheres of decision making may result in more altruistic economic behavior.