Surveying Mobile Populations: Lessons from Recent Longitudinal Surveys of Indigenous Australians

Geographically mobile populations are notoriously difficult to survey, especially in a cross–cultural context. In broad terms, it is difficult to ensure that respondents are representative of the underlying population, can be relocated, and that data obtained are relevant to them. At a practical level, the problem can be as basic as not having any well–formed notion of what defines a household. Consequently, the resulting analysis of households is at best imprecise and, at worst, conceptually confused. This article documents the lessons for the design and conduct of longitudinal data collection from three recent surveys of an exceptionally mobile population, Indigenous Australians. There appears to be a trade–off between cultural relevance, data quality, response rates and survey costs. The use of Indigenous interviewers does not, in itself, guarantee that response rates will be acceptable.     

Household Composition, Equivalence Scales and the Reliability of Income Distributions: Some Evidence for Indigenous and Other Australians

Indigenous families experience substantial and multiple forms of economic burden arising from the size and structure of their families and households. Indigenous households are more likely to have more than one family in residence than other Australian households and are more likely to be multigenerational with older Indigenous people living with younger people in extended family households. This paper seeks to characterise the economies of household size in Indigenous and other Australian households using equivalence scales that cover the range of feasible values and 1995 National Health Survey data.     

损失规避与经济波动的福利成本研究

目前经济波动的福利成本研究均建立在基于消费的效用函数基础上，而引入收入波动后我们发现：收入波动导致的福利成本才是更为重要的因素。本文定义的偏好具有损失规避的特点，在比较温和的参数设定下，考虑了收入波动后得到的福利成本指标A在1．4％--13．4％之间，比此前各种技术方法得到的A值提高了1—2个数量级。采用中国转型期以来的统计数据，消除短期波动的福利效果等同于将消费的长期增长率再提高约0．25个百分点，这表明如能进一步稳定经济的运行，仍会带来可观的福利提升。     

Persistence of Employment Fluctuations: A Model of Recurring Job Loss

Standard models of employment fluctuations cannot reconcile the unemployment rate's remarkable persistence with the high job-finding rates found in worker flows data. A matching model emphasizing high hazard rates among newly formed firm–worker matches can resolve this shortcoming. In the model, matches are experience goods; consequently, newly employed workers face higher hazard rates. Following a job loss, workers may experience several short-lived jobs before finding stable employment. At an aggregate level, an initial burst of job loss precipitates a steady flow of recurring job loss. A simulation shows that this recurring job loss can account for the fact that the unemployment rate remains elevated for as much as 4 or 5 years following an initial jump.     

国内外传统服务业员工工作满意度研究述评

国内外许多研究表明,员工工作满意度是企业发展的"晴雨表",是诊断组织现状最为重要的"温度计"和"地震预测仪",它与顾客满意度、员工流动率、工作绩效、甚至企业利润等都密切相关。然而,随着我国服务业的快速发展,企业利润不断增长,服务业的主体、服务的提供者——服务业员工并没有因此而感到满意,他们的工作满意度普遍较低。首先,文章回顾了有关员工工作满意度定义的研究。然后,说明了服务业员工工作满意度的效应,分析了服务业员工工作满意度的影响因素,并指出了相应的解决措施。最后,指出了服务业员工工作满意度的未来研究趋势。     

工作要求与创新工作行为关系的研究

员工创新工作行为是员工有效完成工作任务和目标,达到组织既定工作标准的有效途径,对组织的生存与发展具有重要作用。本文基于工作要求一工作控制模型与社会交换理论,探讨在中国情号下,工作要求、员工感知的组织支持与创新工作行为的关系。通过296个有效样本,研究结果表明：工作要求与创新工作行为显著正相关;员工感知的组织支持对工作要求与创新工作行为具有正向调节作用,在工作要求压力下,相对于感知到较低组织支持的员工,感知到较高组织支持的员工更容易产生创新工作行为,并基于中国本土文化的角度分析其内在原因。研究告诉企业领导者,提高工作要求可以提高员工创新工作行为,同时要提高员工对组织支持的感知,这样才可能使员工在面临高强度的工作要求时,更积极主动地开展创新工作行为,提高工作效率和工作绩效。     

环境和情感因素对工作满意度的作用机理研究

本文采用规范的组织测量量表,研究了积极情感、消极情感、分配公平性以及人际关系对于工作满意度的直接影响,同时还研究了工作环境变量对于情感变量与工作满意度之间关系的调节作用.结果表明:积极情感,消极情感,分配公平性,人际关系,年龄和婚姻状况与工作满意度相关.积极情感、分配公平性以及人际关系与工作满意度有正向关系,消极情感和工作满意度变量负相关.回归模型解释了工作满意度变动的39%.人际关系在积极情感和工作满意度的关系以及消极情感和工作满意度的关系间都起到中介作用;分配公平性只对消极情感和工作满意度关系间起中介作用,对于积极情感与工作满意度之间的关系不起中介作用.     

Automobile Loss Rates and the Expected Capital Cost of Vehicles: An Empirical Note*

Knowledge of the market loss rate of vehicles is necessary for the determination of the expected capital cost of vehicles, a major influence on vehicle demand. It is also required in its own right for predicting the availability of specific vehicles of known vintage at future dates. We draw on the existing literature on vehicle scrappage and its links with future vehicle prices to provide a simple framework for determining the loss rates and relevant capital costs of the stock of vehicles available in 1982 in the Sydney metropolitan area. The empirical evidence shows that vehicle prices haw an influence on vehicle life expectancy. and that technical deterioration alone is an inappropriate basis for loss rate determination.     

Improving Work Incentives and Incomes for Parents: The National and Geographic Impact of Liberalising the Family Tax Benefit Income Test*

The effective tax rates and possible work disincentives created by Australia’s tax and welfare systems have been receiving extensive policy attention in recent years. Family Tax Benefit‐Part A (FTB‐A) is one of the key causes of high effective marginal tax rates for many families. This study uses national and spatial microsimulation models to evaluate the national and local impacts of a possible FTB‐A reform option, which involves reducing the income test withdrawal rate associated with the FTB‐A income test. The modelling suggests that the option would be an effective way to reduce high effective marginal tax rates for around 415,000 parents of FTB‐A children, would benefit around 850,000 families, and would deliver additional assistance to middle income families living on the outskirts of our cities.     

房地产业非均衡发展导致的社会成本损失研究--基于短命建筑视角

借鉴国内外学者关于短命建筑的最新研究成果,首次在国内以较科学的方法探讨因房屋过早拆迁引致建筑寿命缩短进而产生的社会成本或额外损失,旨在为纠正房地产业近年来盛行的“大拆大建”非均衡发展态势、促进规范有序的城市化和工业化发展提供有针对性的政策依据。     

Leaving Home: What Economics Has to Say about the Living Arrangements of Young Australians

Like their counterparts elsewhere, more young Australians than ever are delaying the move to establish residential independence from their parents. This paper reviews the developing economics literature surrounding young people's decisions to continue living in their parents' homes in order to begin to assess the causes and consequences of this decision. In particular, co‐residence with parents appears to be an important form of intergenerational support for young adults. It is important to understand the extent to which young people rely on this form of support as they complete their education, enter the labour market and establish themselves as independent adults. Specific attention is paid to the ways in which Australian income support, education and housing policies may influence these patterns.     

信息、承诺与激励——理解中国农业生产激励变迁中的国家角色

平均化的分配方式和退出权的剥夺导致人民公社内部的作物生产激励不足。但由国家管制政策引起的作物生产激励问题经常被研究者所忽略。文章发展了信息分权基础上的国家承诺分析框架,由于工业化目标,国家通过建立人民公社以降低治理成本,其中,人民公社承担了收集、处理作物种植信息并提取相应农业剩余的职能,从而导致人民公社面临严重的外部激励问题。20世纪70年代末期,财政困境促使国家放松对农业部门的组织化治理,允许以家户为单位的作物生产方法。这事实上放松了对作物生产的信息控制,由信息分权引起的国家承诺具有可信性,有效地增加了农民权利的安全性及其生产激励,构成农业部门生产效率改善的重要源泉。     

Incentives and the structure of teams

This paper studies the relationship between moral hazard and the matching structure of teams. We show that team incentive problems may generate monotone matching predictions in the absence of complementarities in the production technology. Second, we analyze how complementarity in the underlying technology affects the matching predictions arising due to moral hazard. We find that (i) even when the production technology is strongly complementary, the incentive problem may lead to formation of negatively sorted teams; (ii) as the degree of complementarity increases, the optimal matching structure may switch from positive to negative, solely due to the need to provide incentives.     

Forcing Firms to Think About the Future: Economic Incentives and the Fate of Hazardous Waste

What is the cost of off-site hazardous waste disposal? In addition to paying for disposal fees and shipments costs, generators of hazardous waste can potentially be held liable for the cost of cleanup if the waste disposal site contaminates the environment after closure or abandonment and thus falls under the federal or state Superfund legislation. This paper empirically examines the sensitivity of individual hazardous waste generators to these categories of costs, exploiting the variation across states in factors influencing disposal costs, and in the structure of the liability imposed on waste generators under certain circumstances by state laws. We fit nested logit models to predict the waste management method (incineration or landfill disposal) and the state of destination for shipments of halogenated solvent waste used for metal cleaning in manufacturing and reported in the Toxic Release Inventory in 1988–1990. Waste generators respond to transportation costs and to proxies for current disposal costs. Generators also find the concurrent presence of strict and joint-and-several liability a deterrent, but this deterrent effect does not vary with the wealth of the firm or the volume of the waste shipped.     

控制权与激励的冲突——兼对股权激励有效性的实证分析

控制权配置与激励安排是组织治理中的两个重要工具,本文首先从组织中委托人私人收益角度分析委托人控制权与代理人激励之间可能的冲突,进而通过上市公司数据对这一冲突关系进行经验检验。我们的研究发现,中国上市公司大股东控制权与管理层股权激励之间存在显著的冲突,而且这种冲突与股权性质、公司成长速度相关。民营控股公司中的冲突程度显著弱于其他类型公司,国资委控股公司中的冲突显著强于其他类型公司;而公司成长速度越快,大股东控制权与管理层激励之间的冲突越强。本文的研究结果能够很好地解释中国上市国有企业中股权激励效果不显著、甚至出现负效应的经验现象,并由此提出相应的政策建议。     

卫生费用的决定因素:跨省比较研究

文章使用我国14个省份1994年和1998年的横截面数据,研究了GDP、老龄化、诱导需求三个因素与卫生费用之间的关系,并采用死亡率作为标准对卫生服务的效果进行了检验。研究表明:在我国卫生费用的增长大部分可以由GDP的增长来解释,而卫生服务是一种奢侈品;人口老龄化对卫生费用的增长有显著的影响;我国大部分省份面临的仍是如何增加卫生服务供给的问题,少数较发达地区可能存在诱导需求的问题。对卫生服务效果的检验发现卫生费用的进一步增长对死亡率的影响越来越小,边际卫生费用的支出更多是用来购买服务而不是治疗。     

Improving Incentives: Changing the Interface of Tax and Social Security

This paper proposes a scheme to improve incentives by consolidating all means tests, and discusses how this could enhance proposals for tax reform.     

Privatization and Management Incentives: Evidence from the United Kingdom

This article examines whether privatization affects managementincentives and provides an estimate of the magnitude of thechange. Using data from large firms in the United Kingdom, wefind no relationship between compensation and financial performancein state-owned firms, both before and after corporate governancereforms. In contrast, we find a strong sensitivity in privatizedfirms both immediately and in more mature privatized firms drivenlargely by stock options and shareholding. For more mature privatizedfirms, compensation and dismissal sensitivities are complementarywith our estimates, suggesting a £443,000 increase inmanagement returns for a one standard deviation improvementin firm performance. This estimated incentive intensity is higherthan in established publicly traded firms. Our results supportthe theoretical focus on incentives in the dominant theoriesof state and private ownership.