The Minimum Wage Law and Teenage Crime: Evidence From the US

What is the effect of minimum wage regulation on youth crime? Masanori Hashimoto, of Ohio State University, argues that in the USA the evidence suggests that the minimum wage causes both unemployment and teenage crime.     

Indexation and Wage Change Settlements: Evidence from Spanish Manufacturing Firms

An endogenous switching model of ex-ante wage changes under indexed and non-indexed settlements is estimated for the Spanish manufacturing sector using collective bargaining firm data for the 1984–1991 period. The likelihood of indexing the settlement is higher for nationwide unions than for other union groups within the works council and increases with the expected level of inflation. For wage change equations, a common structure for indexed and non-indexed settlements is strongly rejected, showing a source of nominal rigidity. For indexed contracts, the expected ex-ante total inflation coverage is nearly complete. It is also shown that workers pay a significant ex-ante change premium (differential) to obtain a cost of living allowance clause. However, the realised contingent compensation exceeds such a premium for all industries. Finally, important spillover efffects in wage setting and the decision to index the settlement have been detected.     

Promotions in the Spanish Labour Market: Differences by Gender

In this paper we compare the professional careers of women and men in the Spanish labour market. We use a sample from the Encuesta de Estructura, Conciencia y Biografia de Clase (1991) to estimate count data models (negative binomial models) to explain the number of promotions received in the firm, for males and females separately. Then, using the estimated coefficients from these models, we apply a variant of Oaxaca's decomposition approach to divide the gap in average promotions by gender into two parts: one of them due to differences in endowments and the other is associated with differences in the 'return' of such as endowments in terms of opportunities of upward mobility. The findings indicate that women receive fewer promotions than men with the same qualifications due to differential treatment in the market.     

Using Occupational Preference in Estimating Market Wage Discrimination: the Case of the Gender Pay Gap

ABSTRACT Past occupational preference is used to estimate the gender pay gap. The use of predetermined variables in a reduced-form wage equation avoids the bias caused by using variables that are correlated with the random error. Using a gender coefficient, the potential discriminatory gap is about 11.5 percent when past occupational preference is included. Decomposition yields an estimate of 10.5 percent when past occupational preference is included. In both cases, the discriminatory gap is close to that obtained when actual occupation is included. This suggests public policy directed toward reducing hiring discrimination by gender might be misdirected.     

幸福法则与性别差异——基于中国城市居民的实证调查

通过对"2007年中国城市幸福调查"的数据进行分析,我们发现(1)工作时间短的人更幸福;(2)对于已婚者,性别与个人收入对幸福感存在交互作用,男性的幸福感更易受到个人收入的影响;(3)对于已婚者,性别与每周工作时间对幸福感存在交互作用,女性的幸福感更易受到工作时间的影响.同时,幸福函数的分析结果还显示女性、月收入高的人、有房产的人幸福感较高.最后,我们讨论了本研究的意义以及局限性.     

From quality to innovation: Evidence from two French Employer Surveys

In this article we investigate the impact of quality systems on innovation performance using the method of propensity matching. We use two French microeconomic surveys, the “Organizational Changes and Computerization” (COI 1997) and the “Community Innovation Survey” (CIS3 1998–2000). The first hypothesis indicating that quality (ISO 9000 certification) impacts positively on innovation is supported for certain areas of innovation performance. Furthermore, the second hypothesis states that different levels of quality differentially improve innovation performance. Results indicate that the innovation performance of firms with Top Quality Level is higher than that of firms with Medium Quality Level which is also higher than that of firms with Low Quality Level for certain areas of innovation. However, we found that the difference in innovation performance between firms with Medium and Low Quality Levels is not of a great magnitude. This study implies that in order to achieve a significant innovation performance improvement via quality systems, a very well-established quality system is needed within a firm.     

中美会计研究方向的差异分析:来自两国权威期刊的数据

本文以美国《会计评论》(Accounting Review)2001年至2005年所刊载的240篇文章和中国《会计研究》(Accounting Research)2001年至2005年所刊载的819篇文章作为研究对象,对中美两国会计学术界的研究现状进行了比较分析。结果发现,中国会计学术界的研究范围更广,研究重点是传统的基本理论,且选题较大,大多以规范研究为主;美国会计学术界研究所涉及的领域相对集中,主要集中在基本理论、公司治理、资本市场、审计等领域,在选题上善于“小题大做”,以实证研究为主。笔者认为,我国当前的会计研究应该更务实、更系统,研究方法应多样化,应借鉴国外的研究经验,以推动我国会计研究水平的不断提高。     

县域资源可达性研究——以贵州省为例

可达性是指克服障碍到达指定地点的难易程度,资源可达性很大程度上依赖于交通可达性。通过分析城镇化发展的影响机制,提取土地资源、环境资源、矿产资源、农产品资源、教育资源、医疗资源、交通资源、劳动力资源和资本资源等九种影响城镇化发展的主要资源。根据资源的流动性特征,将这九种资源划分为固定资源、可变资源和流动资源三种类别。分别从公路、铁路和航空三个方面计算了交通资源的可达性,依据交通可达性计算结果进一步测算了其他八种资源的可达性。研究了各种资源可达性的测度方法,并且以贵州省为例,从县域层面上测算了贵州省各地的资源可达性,为后续相关研究奠定了基础。     

Transitions In the Psychological Contract: Some Evidence From the Banking Sector

This study examines the psychological contract in a sample of 107 employees in a retail bank. Deregulation, market-entry by non-traditional suppliers, and the introduction of advanced technology have changed the security of and rules implicit in the employment contract in the UK banking sector, which is one of the leading contenders for downsizing and delayering. Many banks are experiencing increased employee cynicism. New structures and technology, demanding levels of customer service, and new competitors have produced heightened attention towards performance and are associated with the need for employees to develop new competencies, such as relationship-handling and sales skills. Regardless of whether banks pursue high performance management systems or control-based HR strategies, the requirement for committed and engaged employees able to develop new competencies is an assumed constant. Demographic factors such as age, service and sex are found to be partial predictors of some attitudinal items. However, these proxy measures of attachment to the old employment deal are not related to items that consider commitment or satisfaction. the psychological contracts in the bank are highly fragmented. Seven underlying constructs are revealed: ‘frustratedly disengaged’, ‘still ambitious’, ‘passively flexible’, ‘guidance seekers’, ‘buy me outers’, ‘don't push me too fast’ and ‘just pay me more’. Implications of the research for HRM, the management of new internal labour markets in the banks and future directions of research on the psychological contract are discussed. It is concluded that a new set of internal labour markets are being created within the banks, the dynamics of which clearly revolve around a wide range of individual factors. Accepted wisdom about participative management practices will be challenged in the HR strategies of the late 1990s.     

Distributional Effects of Monetary and Fiscal Policy: Impacts on Unemployment Rates Disaggregated By Race and Gender

A bstract . The use of vectorautoregression techniques provides empirical verification that monetary and fiscal policies do not have equal impacts on unemployment rates disaggregated by race and gender. In general, it was found that white males benefited from macro-policies more than any other category. However, black females were also shown to benefit significantly. Results were reported from both the 1970s and 1980s and indicate that these differential unemployment rate responses became magnified during the 1980s. The results for white males are consistent with a number of theories that have been offered by several writers, but the results for black females might seem, at first, to be difficult to explain. However, a close inspection of educational attainment scotes for black women over recent decades reveals a potential source of this finding.     

中国能源消费与经济增长关系研究——基于误差修正模型

在经济发展过程中,中国能源消费与经济增长之间表现出紧密的联系。笔者利用误差修正模型分析了中国1952～2008年能源消费与国内生产总值的数据,以此探寻能源消费与经济增长之间的相互关系,得出最终结论:中国的能源消费与经济增长在长期内保持均衡状态且两者互为因果关系。     

Racial Discrimination In Speculative Application: Evidence From the Uk's Top 100 Firms

Mike Noon, who is Lecturer in Organisational Behaviour at Cardiff Business School, examines the responses of the UK's top 100 firms when faced with speculative enquiries from two bogus ‘candidates’ belonging to different ethnic groups. He finds that, although both candidates were likely to reveive a reply, the ‘white’ candidate tended to receive a better quality reply; candidates were more likely to be treated the same by companies with statements of equal opportunity, but when discrimination occurred it also tended to favour the white candidate. His conclusions suggest what might be done to bridge the gap between policy and practice.     

Gender Differences in Managerial Attitudes Towards Unearned Privilege and Favoritism in the Retail Sector

This paper describes the concepts of unearned privilege and favoritism and tests if there are differences in managerial attitudes towards the use of these behaviors based on respondent gender. Respondents included 180 managers employed with a large retail organization located in the southern part of the United States. The results indicate that female managers more strongly disapproved of the use of unearned privilege in making promotion decisions and more strongly disapproved of the decision to use favoritism in decision making related to customer relations. The results also indicated that male managers were less likely to disapprove of the use of unearned privilege when they had greater years of management experience. In addition, the most experienced female managers reported disapproval levels for the use favoritism in decision making related to customer relations equal to that of the most experienced male managers.     

Transnational Corporations and the Dynamics of Human Capital Formation: Evidence From West Yorkshire

John Knell, who is Lecturer in Industrial Relations in the School of Business and Economic Studies at the University of Leeds, draws on published material and the evidence of case studies in West Yorkshire to discuss the impact of foreign direct investment on human capital formation in Britain. He argues that the ‘transformative’ effects of such investment have been very limited and that the key to understanding this outcome lies in the position of the British economy within the evolving international division of labour.