Worktime control and work stress: the moderating effect of self-comparisons and social comparisons

Abstract

Perceived work-related stress has increased notably in recent years, reducing individuals’ well-being and increasing organizations’ and economies’ costs. This study focuses on worktime control as a key approach to reducing work stress, as the extant research on its effects reports inconsistent results. The study argues that comparisons play a major role in how work stress, conceptualized as effort-reward imbalance, occurs. Ordinary least squares is used to test hypotheses with a sample of 1721 employees from Germany to determine whether employees’ prior worktime control and employees’ referents’ worktime control affect the relationship between worktime control and work stress. Results show that (1) worktime control is negatively associated with the experience of work stress, (2) employees’ prior worktime control moderates the relationship between worktime control and work stress, and (3) there is no moderating effect of employees’ referents’ worktime control. The results are discussed in light of gift-exchange theory and related empirical findings.     

Testing time-homogeneity of rating transitions after origination of debt

When modelling rating transitions as continuous-time Markov processes, in practice, time-homogeneity is a common assumption, yet restrictive, in order to reduce the complexity of the model. This paper investigates whether rating transition probabilities change after the origination of debt. Accordingly, we develop a likelihood-ratio test for the hypothesis of time-homogeneity. The alternative is a step function of transition intensities. The test rejects time-homogeneity for rating transitions observed over 7 years in a real corporate portfolio. Especially 1-year transition probabilities increase over the first year after origination. This time effect suggests that banks should manage their credit portfolios with respect to the age of debt.      

Predicting uncertainty: the impact of risk measurement on value of real estate portfolios

This paper presents a theoretical framework for an assessment and valuation of real estate assets and funds, based on modern stochastic discounted cash flow (DCF) models, which accurately captures the nature of related risks. We show that an accurate risk-adjusted valuation is particularly difficult for real estate investments, due to practical limits to diversification and difficulties in approximating total risk with systematic risk. We develop a risk assessment framework that includes idiosyncratic risk but focuses on insolvency risk related to a specific cash flow profile. We also present a methodology of rating this risk, using forecasts and simulations. We conclude that simulation techniques are a valuable tool in property risk assessment. Further, we show that cost of capital and value of assets depend on diversification of specific risks, investors can achieve in their portfolios.     

有限理性视角下知识产权质押贷款风险形成、评估与检验

创新型企业面临的信贷配给等融资约束已为经验研究所证实。中国政府为解决该问题,制定了知识产权质押贷款融资等政策并在实施后取得了阶段性效果,但后续的贷款风险正在形成和积累。借助有限理性理论解释知识产权质押贷款风险的形成机理是一种新尝试。同时,运用中国早期专利质押贷款试点数据,基于有限理性理论对知识产权质押贷款风险进行评估与检验。研究结果能够为检验、完善和改进中国知识产权质押融资政策提供经验依据。     

Forecasting the Adoption of GM Oilseed Rape: Evidence from a Discrete Choice Experiment in Germany

This paper explores farmers’ willingness to adopt genetically modified (GM) oilseed rape prior to its commercial release and estimates the ‘demand’ for the new technology. The analysis is based upon choice experiments with 202 German arable farmers. A multinomial probit estimation reveals that GM attributes such as gross margin, expected liability from cross pollination, or flexibility in returning to conventional oilseed rape significantly affect the likelihood of adoption. Neighbouring farmers’ attitudes towards GM cropping and a number of farmer and farm characteristics were also found to be significant determinants of prospective adoption. Demand simulations suggest that adoption rates are very sensitive to the profit difference between GM and non‐GM rape varieties. A monopolistic seed price would substantially reduce demand for the new technology. A monopolistic seed supplier would reap between 45% and 80% of the GM rent, and the deadweight loss of the monopoly would range between 15% and 30% of that rent. The remaining rent for farmers may be too small to outweigh possible producer price discounts resulting from the costs of segregating GM and non‐GM oilseed rape along the supply chain.     

Comparing Compliance Behaviour of Students and Farmers. An Extra-laboratory Experiment in the Context of Agri-environmental Nudges in Germany

Increasing popularity of economic experiments for policy impact analysis has led to an on-going debate about the suitability of students to substitute professionals as experimental subjects. To date, subject pool effects in agricultural and resource economics experiments have not been sufficiently studied. In order to identify differences and similarities between students and non-students, we carry out an experiment in the form of a multi-period business management game that is adapted to an agri-environmental context. We compare the compliance behaviour of German agricultural students and German farmers with regard to water protection rules and analyse their responses to two different green nudge interventions. The experimental results reveal that the direction of the response to the policy treatments is similar. Even unexpected behaviour could be reproduced by the student sample. Nevertheless, the magnitude of the treatment effects differed between the two samples. This implies that experimenters in the field of agricultural and resource economics could use the subject pool of students to analyse the direction of nudge policies. If predictions should be made about the magnitude effects, we suggest using a professional subject pool.     

Discouraging Rainforest Transformation: An Ex-ante Policy Impact Analysis

Despite extensive efforts made by national and international certification agencies, Indonesian smallholder farmers’ participation in palm oil certification schemes adoption remains low. A fundamental obstacle is the smallholder practice of rainforest transformation into oil palm plantation which is forbidden by the agencies. In this context, we investigate three policies that could lead to a reduction in rainforest deforestation by smallholders: price premium on certified palm oil; the provision of environmental information; contributor recognition. In order to evaluate the influence of the policies ex-ante, we conduct a social dilemma experiment involving rubber and oil palm smallholders in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. The findings indicate that the price premium and provision of context-specific environmental information could reduce rainforest transformation. However, a statistically significant effect of contributor recognition was not found.