Variance estimation in the change analysis of a linear regression model

We study a “direct test” of Chu and White (1992) proposed for detecting changes in the trend of a linear regression model. The power of this test strongly depends on a suitable estimation of the variance of the error variables involved. We discuss various types of variance estimators and derive their asymptotic properties under the null-hypothesis of “no change” as well as under the alternative of “a change in linear trend”. A small simulation study illustrates the estimators' finite sample behaviour.     

Manufacturing Resistance: Rationalizing the Irrationality of Managerial Control on the Shop Floor in a US Medical Electronics Factory

Juravich (1985) asserts that the organization of US industrial manufacturing is irrational as well as appearing chaotic from the workers’ viewpoint because of management’s refusal to integrate the workers’ knowledge into the production process. Because of this, Juravich argues, if and when the workers’ knowledge is integrated into the production system, the workers no longer will experience “chaos on the shop floor.” Extending Devinatz’s (1993) analysis in response to Juravich, this article argues that workers use resistance as a logical strategy for rationalizing what they perceive to be the irrationality of the shop floor. Utilizing Kusterer’s (1978) work, I argue that the use of many, but not all, resistance strategies constitutes a type of “survival knowledge” acquired and used by workers in response to managerial control. I maintain that these strategies constitute a special type of workplace resistance which I refer to as “pure and simple resistance.”     

Consistent estimation in the bilinear multivariate errors-in-variables model

A bilinear multivariate errors-in-variables model is considered. It corresponds to an overdetermined set of linear equations AXB=C, A∈ℝ^m×n, B∈ℝ^p×q, in which the data A, B, C are perturbed by errors. The total least squares estimator is inconsistent in this case.  An adjusted least squares estimator is constructed, which converges to the true value X, as m →∞, q →∞. A small sample modification of the estimator is presented, which is more stable for small m and q and is asymptotically equivalent to the adjusted least squares estimator. The theoretical results are confirmed by a simulation study. Acknowledgements. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and corrections.? A. Kukush is supported by a postdoctoral research fellowship of the Belgian office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs, promoting Scientific and Technical Collaboration with Central and Eastern Europe.? S. Van Huffel is a full professor with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.? I. Markovsky is a research assistant with the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.? This paper presents research results of the Belgian Programme on Interuniversity Poles of Attraction (IUAP V-22), initiated by the Belgian State, Prime Minister's Office – Federal Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs of the Concerted Research Action (GOA) projects of the Flemish Government MEFISTO-666 (Mathematical Engineering for Information and Communication Systems Technology), of the IDO/99/03 project (K.U. Leuven) “Predictive computer models for medical classification problems using patient data and expert knowledge”, of the FWO projects G.0078.01, G.0200.00, and G0.0270.02.? The scientific responsibility is assumed by its authors.     

Globalization Implications for Human Resource Management Roles

Globalization influences organizations that compete for customers with high expectations for performance, quality, and cost. Globalization also exerts pressure on the Human Resource Management (HRM) function to adapt to changing organizational needs and add greater value. This paper first reviews global trends, HRM roles, and the implications of globalization and culture for HRM. Using Ulrich’s (Human resource champions: The new agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1997) HRM model and Hofstede’s (Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations (2nd edition). Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA, 2001, Academy of Management Executive 7:81–94, 1993, Organizational Dynamics 9:42–63, 1980) model of national cultural differences, it is argued that knowledge of global business trends, cultural sensitivity, business knowledge, understanding local employment practices, technical skills, and innovation are increasingly important, especially in Multinational Corporations (MNC). The author presented an earlier version of this article at The Association on Employment Practices and Principles (AEPP) conference, New York, New York, October 6, 2006.     

Testing the intertemporal labor supply model: are jobs important?

The neoclassical life-cycle labor supply model assumes that hours of work are determined by labor supply choices alone and does not include a role for employers or job distinctions. An alternative model in which employers have an interest in employee hours and changing jobs is costly may reconcile weak and conflicting evidence regarding the neoclassical model. An important implication of such an alternative is that individuals may face hours constraints on a job and thus can choose hours freely only between jobs. This paper tests several implications of the neoclassical model against this alternative model of hours determination. Using a unique panel of individuals and jobs constructed using data on women from the 1988–1992 Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I compare hours variances and labor supply elasticities measured within and between jobs. Results provide some evidence against the neoclassical model and suggest that ignoring the role of employers in determining hours of work can lead to downward bias in estimates of labor supply elasticities.     

A generalized maximum likelihood characterization of the normal distribution

LetP be a probability measure on ℝ andI _x be the set of alln-dimensional rectangles containingx. If for allx ∈ ℝⁿ and θ ∈ ℝ the inequality holds,P is a normal distributioin with mean 0 or the unit mass at 0. The result generalizes Teicher’s (1961) maximum likelihood characterization of the normal density to a characterization ofN(0, σ²) amongall distributions (including those without density). The m.l. principle used is that of Scholz (1980).     

Young people’s ICT role at home—a descriptive study of young Finnish people’s ICT views in the home context

For young people home is an increasingly important place to use Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and to acquire new digital skills mainly by informal learning. In this study we focused on young people’s ICT activity in the home context to examine what kind of theoretical or practical added value as an analysis tool this factor can give for the studies concerning the relationship between young people and information and communication technology. Therefore we constructed a simple ICT role variable to describe young people’s ICT activity at home. In order to find out the expressive power and functionality of the new variable we used empirical data analysing young people’s personal qualities, external factors, ICT usage and ICT competence in the light of the ICT role at home. The research took 2 years (2005–2007) and its empirical data are based on the information given by the Finnish young at the age of about 14 in a geographically limited area. On the basis of the data the personal qualities of young people characterized a young person as an ICT expert at home better than the factors in his/her social and physical environments. The study revealed that the ICT role is a notable factor, when we want to learn more about the relationship between young people and ICT, for example, from the viewpoints of informal learning and diffusion of innovations and use or when we want to create a model of ICT usage or competence.     

Productivity drivers and market dynamics in the Spanish first division football league

This paper analyses efficiency drivers of a representative sample of Spanish football clubs by means of the two-stage data envelopment analysis (DEA) procedure proposed by Simar and Wilson (J Econ, 136:31–64, 2007). In the first stage, the technical efficiency of football clubs is estimated using a bootstrapped DEA model in order to establish which of them are the most efficient; the ranking is based on total productivity in the period 1996–2004. In the second stage, the Simar and Wilson (J Econ, 136:31–64, 2007) procedure is used to bootstrap the DEA scores with a truncated bootstrapped regression. Policy implications of the main findings are also considered.     

Productivity and Welfare

Technical change is generally characterized by a rate and biases, both evaluated for given producer prices. This paper examines the potential discrepancy between this rate and the corresponding rate of consumer welfare change as measured by Allais distributable surplus. We postulate a general equilibrium context with various market failures (taxes, quotas, imperfect competition, and “poorly priced” commodities), and use comparative statics to express the rate of welfare change in terms of the rate and biases of the technical change. An elementary simulation model of a taxed economy suggests that the rate of welfare change may differ from the rate of technical change by as much as 50% under plausible circumstances.     

Small‐sample bias in synthetic cohort models of labor supply

This paper investigates small‐sample biases in synthetic cohort models (repeated cross‐sectional data grouped at the cohort and year level) in the context of a female labor supply model. I use the Current Population Survey to compare estimates when group sizes are extremely large to those that arise from randomly drawing subsamples of observations from the large groups. I augment this approach with Monte Carlo analysis so as to precisely quantify biases and coverage rates. In this particular application, thousands of observations per group are required before small‐sample issues can be ignored in estimation and sampling error leads to large downward biases in the estimated income elasticity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

To dissent or not to dissent? Informative dissent and parliamentary governance

Legislative dissent has detrimental effects for both party and legislator, i.e., legislators depend on their party label for re-election, which value in turn depends in part on the party’s reputation of cohesiveness. Commonly dissent has been attributed to “extreme” preferences. I provide an informational rationale for dissent. Costly dissent allows the legislator to credibly signal information about his constituency’s preferences to the Cabinet. As a result the Cabinet can better calibrate its policies with the electorate’s preferences. Dissent is shown to depend on policy preferences as well a the legislators’ electoral strength, electoral volatility, and the cost of dissent. Finally, the results suggests that parties may sometimes benefit from tolerating some level of dissent. I am grateful to Christopher Kam, Randall Calvert, John Duggan, Mark Fey, Eduardo Leoni, Sona Golder, and the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. I also wish to thank the Political Institutions and Public Choice Program at Michigan State University for its support. All remaining errors are mine.     

Non-self-averaging of a two-person game with only positive spillover: a new formulation of Avatamsaka’s dilemma

In this game [Aruka in Avatamsaka game structure and experiment on the web. In: Aruka Y (ed) Evolutionary controversies in economics. Springer, Tokyo, pp 115–132, 2001], selfishness may not be determined even if an agent selfishly adopts the strategy of defection. Individual selfishness can only be realized if the other agent cooperates, therefore gain from defection can never be assured by defection alone. The sanction by defection as a reaction of the rival agent cannot necessarily reduce the selfishness of the rival. In this game, explicit direct reciprocity cannot be guaranteed. Now we introduce different spillovers or payoff matrices, so that each agent may then be faced with a different payoff matrix. A ball in the urn is interpreted as the number of cooperators, and the urn as a payoff matrix. We apply Ewens’ sampling formula to our urn process in this game theoretic environment. In this case, there is a similar result as in the classic case, because there is “self-averaging” for the variances of the number who cooperate. Applying Pitman’s sampling formula to the urn process, the invariance of the random partition vectors under the properties of exchangeability and size-biased permutation does not hold in general. Pitman’s sampling formula depends on the two-parameter Poisson–Dirichlet distribution whose special case is just Ewens’ formula. In the Ewens setting, only one probability α of a new entry matters. On the other hand, there is an additional probability θ of an unknown entry, as will be argued in the Pitman formula. More concretely, we will investigate the effects of different payoff sizes from playing a series of different games for newly emerging agents. As Aoki and Yoshikawa (Non-self-averaging in macroeconomic models: a criticism of modern micro-founded macroeconomics, Economics Discussion Papers 2007-49. . November 26, 2007) and Aoki (J Econ Interact Coord 3:1–3, 2008) dealt with a product innovation and a process innovation, they criticized Lucas’ representative method and the idea that players face micro shocks drawn from the same unchanged probability distribution. In the light of Aoki and Yoshikawa (Non-self-averaging in macroeconomic models: a criticism of modern micro-founded macroeconomics, Economics Discussion Papers 2007-49. . November 26, 2007), we show the same argument in our Avatamsaka game with different payoffs. In this setting, innovations occurring in urns may be regarded as increases of the number of cooperators in urns whose payoffs are different.     

A class of binary response models for grouped duration data

This paper explores the relationship between conventional models for binary response such as the probit and logit, and the proportional hazard (PH) and related specifications for grouped duration data. I outline a general class of hazard models for grouped duration data based upon the choice of period-specific distribution functions, facilitating a thorough analysis of the implications of various specifications and consideration of various issues of model identification. This class of models nests, among others, the proportional hazard, probit, and logit specifications for interval survival. I consider the implications of various specifications for hazard behaviour, focusing on familiar specifications. While the specifications will generally yield results that are quite similar along a number of dimensions, there are significant differences. The probit model generates non-proportional effects of variables on the discrete hazard, while the logit and PH tend to show only slight non-proportionality. Furthermore, while the effects of variables on the derivatives are considerably larger for the probit specification, the time-pattern of the probit effects is relatively insensitive to changes in explanatory variables. I illustrate these issues by providing an example taken from Katz's (1986) unemployment data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics.     

Stochastic FDH/DEA estimators for frontier analysis

In this paper we extend the work of Simar (J Product Ananl 28:183–201, 2007) introducing noise in nonparametric frontier models. We develop an approach that synthesizes the best features of the two main methods in the estimation of production efficiency. Specifically, our approach first allows for statistical noise, similar to Stochastic frontier analysis (even in a more flexible way), and second, it allows modelling multiple-inputs-multiple-outputs technologies without imposing parametric assumptions on production relationship, similar to what is done in non-parametric methods, like Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Free Disposal Hull (FDH), etc.... The methodology is based on the theory of local maximum likelihood estimation and extends recent works of Kumbhakar et al. (J Econom 137(1):1–27, 2007) and Park et al. (J Econom 146:185–198, 2008). Our method is suitable for modelling and estimation of the marginal effects onto inefficiency level jointly with estimation of marginal effects of input. The approach is robust to heteroskedastic cases and to various (unknown) distributions of statistical noise and inefficiency, despite assuming simple anchorage models. The method also improves DEA/FDH estimators, by allowing them to be quite robust to statistical noise and especially to outliers, which were the main problems of the original DEA/FDH estimators. The procedure shows great performance for various simulated cases and is also illustrated for some real data sets. Even in the single-output case, our simulated examples show that our stochastic DEA/FDH improves the Kumbhakar et al. (J Econom 137(1):1–27, 2007) method, by making the resulting frontier smoother, monotonic and, if we wish, concave.     

Explaining Income Nonresponse – A Case Study by means of the British Household Panel Study (BHPS)

Many validation studies deal with item nonresponse and measurement error in earning data. In this paper, we explore motives of respondents for the failure to reveal earnings using the British Household Panel Study (BHPS). The BHPS collects socio-economic information of private households in Great Britain. We explain the evolution of income-nonresponse in the BHPS and demonstrate the importance of a discrimination between refusing the income-statement or don’t know. This study is done during my fellowship at the University Essex and is part of the ECASS Project “Respondent Behaviour in Panel Studies”. In particular I would like to thank Heather Laurie, Cheti Nicoletti and Peter Lynn (ISER, Essex) as well as Gert G. Wagner (DIW Berlin and Berlin University of Technology, TUB) for helpful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.     

A theory of rent seeking with informational foundations

I develop a model of rent seeking with informational foundations and an arbitrary number of rent seekers, and I compare the results with Tullock’s (1980) classic model where the influence activities are “black-boxed.” Given the microfoundations, the welfare consequences of rent seeking can be studied. In particular, I show that competition among rent seekers can be socially beneficial, since the additional information that the decision maker gets access to makes the increase in rent-seeking expenditures worthwhile. However, the analysis also highlights a logic that, under natural parameter assumptions, makes the rent seekers spend more resources on rent seeking than is in society’s interest, which is consistent with the spirit of the rent-seeking literature.      

The value of the option to preserve farm real estate

Agricultural conservation easements consist of deed restrictions that landowners voluntarily place on their farm real estate for any number of reasons including the permanent restriction of development. Purchase of Agricultural Conservation Easement (PACE) programs exist in many States and are used to ensure farm real estate is available for future agricultural use as well as a policy mechanism to control development. Much like the landowner’s development option, preservation is a real option exercised at the discretion of the landowner. An analytic contingent claims model is presented to value the landowner’s preservation option. An empirical analysis of the model indicates that the option to delay preservation can have significant value.     

Selezione degli investimenti e costo del denaro

Alcuni Autori ritengono che non abbia senso il costo del denaro, in uno schema lineare in cui si può ripartire il proprio denaro in tutte e sole le operazioni che determinano il tasso di sconto. La conclusione di tali Autori appare azzardata: infatti il loro risultato discende da una ipotesi estranea al modello lineare. In questo lavoro io interpreto lo stesso modello, mostro che in esso ha senso il costo del denaro e propongo delle impostazioni alternative.

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An interesting economic problem consist in the search of the optimal allocation of one’s monetary resources in different financial transactions. We often consider as “optimal” the allocation which makes the sum of the actual values of investiments the highest possible, within the limits of all feasible operations. These values are reckoned according to the discount rates established by the financial market. This type of abstraction can be acceptable when we can split our capital into a number of operations that are on the whole negligible, if compared with the movement of the market. In case of a considerable turn over that may therefore affect the cost of money, it follows that we can’t determine an appropriate discount rate before establishing the distribution policy; on the other hand we cannot determine the distribution policy before defining the discount rate. As a border-line case we have that of an “enclosed” economy, where funds can be rationed into all and only those operations which determine the cost of capital. That is the case of “pure capital rationing”. To solve the problem of reckoning the cost of capital under pure capital rationing, some Authors have formulated the two dual linear programs (1) and (2) and have deduced that f is the vector of market prices if and only if the optimal dual solution is equal to f. As that happens if and only if f=0, Burton and Damon [2] consider their “main result a rigorous proof that there does not exist a meaningful solution for the pure capital rationing problem” and conclude “that if there exist a solution to the problem it is not to be found by the traditional linear programming formulations”. On the contrary I demonstrate that f=0 is the only possible capital cost because of the hypotesis =f, which is not related to the linear pattern and is not acceptable from an economic-financial point of view. Then I demonstrate that the market prices are all and only those based on which the actual values of the operations considered are 0. Nor was it right to expect more sophisticated conclusions of such an elementary scheme. Finally I express an alternative linear formulation, where the dual optimal solutions are exactly the market prices.

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Lavoro effettuato nell’ambito del G.N.A.F.A. del C.N.R.