Interpreting Wage Gaps of Disabled Men: The Roles of Productivity and of Discrimination

Using the UK Labour Force Survey, we study wage gaps for disabled men after the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act. We estimate wage gaps at the mean and at different quantiles of the wage distribution and decompose them into a part explained by differences in workers' and job characteristics, a part that can be ascribed to health‐related reduced productivity, and a residual part. The large original wage gaps reduce substantially when we control for differences in education and occupation, although significant residuals remain. However, when we isolate productivity differences between disabled and nondisabled workers, the residual wage gap becomes insignificant in most cases.     

The Effect of Payment Methods on Risk Aversion

Risk aversion experiments such as those by Holt and Laury (2002, 2005) measure risk aversion by examining subjects’ responses to a series of probability-ordered choices. Subjects are paid real money rewards, using the random round payment method in which the amount is determined by one randomly selected decision. The findings reported here were obtained from 119 subjects who confronted the same choice set and payment amounts, but 60 of these subjects were paid using the random-round method while the remaining 59 were paid based on an average of all their choices, the accumulated value method. The accumulated value payment method simulates portfolio returns, as opposed to returns from stand alone investments. Results indicate that accumulated value subjects took more risk and made more inconsistent decisions.     

地方政府融资平台的来龙去脉与风险规避

分税制改革后,"财权上移,事权下移",造成地方政府财权与事权不匹配。2008年金融危机爆发后,地方政府融资平台为解决刺激经济所需的财政支出资金缺口起到了关键性的作用,但同时也不可避免地出现了地方政府融资平台数量与负债规模的爆发式增长的局面。应从地方政府与银行系统两方面入手,规范融资平台运作的各个环节,从融资平台的融资规模、资金流向、还款备付等方面规范与管理融资平台的运作。     

Risk Aversion and Wages: Evidence from the Baseball Labor Market

We develop a bargaining model to assess how workers and employers might allocate wages inter-temporally in order to cope with risk. We then apply this model to 106 long-term contracts for major league baseball players’ services. Most of these agreements not only smooth employee compensation over time but suggest greater relative risk aversion for teams than players. Compared to the wages they might pay to retain these players on a succession of one-year contracts, teams often pay a premium on longer-term agreements to protect against market volatility and potential inability to replace a key player on the open market.     

投资者风险规避度与量化宽松的中长期利率效应

为什么日美两国量化宽松对于各自中长期利率的影响效果呈现显著差异?文章基于preferred-habitat theory(偏好习惯理论)探讨了一个长期被忽略的影响因素——投资者风险规避度。根据偏好习惯理论,文章认为减少长期债券的供给的确能够降低中长期利率(文章称之为供给效应),但供给效应的大小取决于投资者风险规避度。文章运用两种方法计算比较了日美两国投资者风险规避度,结果发现各自量化宽松期间日本投资者的风险规避度远小于美国投资者。进一步地,文章的实证检验证实,量化宽松的供给效应存在于不同国家,且与投资者风险规避度确实存在一定程度的正相关关系,从而证明了偏好习惯理论。更为重要的是文章发现美国量化宽松的供给效应显著高于日本,这说明投资者风险规避情绪确实是造成两国量化宽松的中长期利率效应差异的关键因素。     

Foreign Ownership,Exporting and Gender Wage Gaps: Evidence from Japanese Linked Employer-Employee Data

We explore potential relationships between international economic activities and gender wage gaps (GWGs) using linked employer-employee data for Japan. We find evidence that exporting and multinational activities are associated with reduced GWGs. Domestic-owned firms that neither export nor invest abroad (i.e., domestic-only firms) report the largest GWG, followed by Japanese-owned multinational enterprises (JMNE), then by locally-owned exporters that do not invest abroad and finally by foreign-owned multinational enterprises (FMNE). We separate FMNE by mode of entry and confirm that FMNE established by greenfield investment deviate more than FMNE established by merger and acquisition from domestic-only firms in terms of wages. Greenfield-born FMNE are associated with the smallest GWG and largest gender-neutral wage premium among the firm types. The estimated GWG among Greenfield-born FMNE is almost 12 percentage-points lower than the 26.8 percent prevailing at domestic-only firms.     

Academic Wage Structure by Gender: The Roles of Peer Review,Performance, and Market Forces

We focus on understanding the role of productivity in determining wage structure differences between men and women in academia. The data arise from a pay equity study carried out in a single midwestern U.S. university over the 1996–1997 academic year. Econometric results confirm that external market forces exert influence over both male and female salary. But peer review ratings play a significant role in male but not female earnings determination, with similar results for objective measures of research, teaching, and service.     

风险厌恶、跨期替代与股权溢价之谜

股权溢价之谜在国内外是一种普遍存在的现象。本文使用了2SLS方法对我国投资者的跨期替代弹性进行了估计,发现消费的跨期替代弹性很低。即使对投资者效用函数进行修改,Epstein-Zin-Weil效用也不能很好地解释中国股市股权溢价之谜。     

Corporate Governance Reform and Executive Incentives: Implications for Investments and Risk Taking

We investigate the mechanism through which the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) was associated with changes in corporate investment strategies. We document that the passage of the governance regulations in SOX was followed by a significant decline in pay‐performance sensitivity (Delta) and incentives to take risk (Vega) in CEOs' compensation contracts. These changes in compensation contracts are related to a decline in investments, including research and development expenditures, capital investments and acquisitions. Moreover, consistent with the rules in SOX directly affecting CEOs' incentives to take risk, we document that the decline in investments exceeds the amount that would be expected from changes in compensation packages alone. Finally, we also find evidence that the changes in investments are related to lower operating performances of firms, suggesting that these changes were costly to investors. Our evidence speaks to the debate on how corporate governance regulation interacts with firms' and managers' incentives, and ultimately affects corporate operating and investment strategies. Our study suggests that one indirect cost of such regulations in SOX is the significant reductions in corporate risk‐taking activities in the post‐SOX period. The changes in investments were in part due to changes in executive compensation contracts and in part related to increased executives' personal costs of engaging in risky activities.     

ESO激励的风险、对策研究

管理层股票期权(ESO)是对公司高层管理人员的一种较好激励方式,但局于本身激励相关内在因素所限,仍存在激励失效的可能。本文在概述股票期权激励特点的基础上,建立模型探讨其内在风险,并在最后给出相应对策建议。     

Discussion of Corporate Governance Reform and Executive Incentives: Implications for Investments and Risk Taking

We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the article by Cohen, Dey and Lys (CDL). Strengths include persuasive theoretical arguments for impacts of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) on corporate investment strategies and for several mechanisms through which firms influence changes in risky investments. CDL also provides intriguing opportunities for learning about impacts of external regulatory events and for enriching management accounting research and classroom discussions of management control. Weaknesses include (1) narrow scope, perhaps driven by archival data availability; (2) difficulties in implementing the research design and method; (3) possible bias of incentive and investment measures; (4) incomplete estimates of the effect of SOX on compensation, incentives, and investments; and (5) questionable control of endogeneity. We offer recommendations from extant literature to mitigate these weaknesses in future research.     

Decomposing Wage Gaps between Ethnic Groups: The Case of Israel

Past investigations of the income gaps between Jews and non-Jews in Israel treat non-Jews as one group. In this paper we separate the non-Jewish group into three main religious minorities: Muslims, Christians, and Druze and focus on the northern part of Israel, where most minorities live. Using the latest Israeli census, we find significant explained and unexplained income gaps in favor of Jews. The unexplained gaps tend to be larger the more educated the individual. Jews have much higher representation in the more lucrative occupations, and earn significantly more in them. Muslims generally suffer from the largest income gaps, while Druze have the lowest income gaps, reflecting direct and indirect benefits reaped from serving in the army. Among minorities, Christians are the most educated and most concentrated in the top occupations, which explains why they have the lowest gaps in the highest percentiles of the income distribution.     

The Assessment: Gender and the Life Cycle

This assessment is an introduction to the Oxford Review of EconomicPolicy's issue on gender and the life cycle. It sets the stageby providing background information on various dimensions ofgender differences, pointing out differences across countriesas well as over time, and relates this evidence to the papersthat follow. It further briefly reviews the articles in theissue and puts them into context. Footnotes ¹ E-mail address: c.dustmann{at}ucl.ac.uk