Works Councils and Labour Productivity: Looking beyond the Mean

After more than 25 years of empirical investigation, the analysis of works council effects on establishment productivity is still an active field of economic research. I present first evidence for works council regression coefficients along the unconditional log labour productivity distribution in Germany. The highest (lowest) coefficients were found at the bottom (top) of the distribution, which suggests that works councils have the most beneficial effects at low levels of productivity. Importantly, coefficients are positive at each productivity level. The results shed light on a classical theoretical argument concerning moderating factors for the productivity effect of employee participation.     

Exploring the (un-) usefulness of mandatory assessment documents in primary technology

Every student in the Swedish compulsory school system is entitled to information regarding their progress in all school subjects given. In 2008, a mandatory assessment tool, called the individual development plan (IDP) with written assessment, was introduced by the Government. The statutory purpose was to provide teachers with a formative assessment tool to be used mandatory in the follow-up of student’s progress all thru mandatory compulsory school (year 1–9). This study explores the use of the IDP documents in technology education. Authentic documents from different municipalities, different schools and different school years have been studied. In this article findings regarding formal assessment documents and teacher’s formal assessment practice in primary (year 1–6) technology education are presented.     

Linking people management and extra‐role behaviour: results of a longitudinal study

This article examines the validity of the assumption that employees' perceptions of those people management activities of their supervisor that impact on employees' abilities, motivation and opportunities to perform influence employee extra‐role behaviour. The results of a longitudinal survey with data from 3,368 employees provide support for this assumption. This study's distinctive features – the concept of people management that involves the management of HR implementation, the longitudinal research design, and the use of the AMO framework for specifying the linkages between HRM and performance – make it possible to address the core questions in the HRM‐performance debate that still remain unanswered according to Guest.     

A Cautionary Tale About Control Variables in IV Estimation

Many instrumental variable (IV) regressions include control variables to justify (conditional) independence of the instrument and the potential outcomes. The plausibility of conditional IV independence crucially depends on the timing when the control variables are determined. This paper works through different IV models and discusses the (conditions for the) satisfaction of conditional IV independence depending on whether the control variables are measured prior to or after instrument assignment. To illustrate the identification issues, we consider the Vietnam War draft risk as instrument either for veteran status or education to evaluate the effects of these variables on labour market and health outcomes. Our empirical analysis based on the ‘Young Men in High School and Beyond’ survey suggests that commonly used conditional IV strategies to estimate the impact of draft induced military service or education may be severely biased due to the use of improper controls.     

The role of the physical work environment for creative employees – a case study of digital artists

The purpose of the study was to explore the role of the physical environment for creative employees. The results are based on interviews with office-working digital artists. The physical work environment was considered to offer three types of support for creative work for the participants: functional, psychosocial and inspirational. Creative processes would find better breeding ground if functional support, such as adequate lighting and tools, and psychosocial support, such as spatial possibilities for both privacy and communication, were provided. Without inspirational support, such as brainstorming rooms, dynamic planning and imaginative interior design, the work outcome was believed to become less creative. The physical environmental support model can be used by companies with an interest to provide creativity supportive workplaces.     

Yahoo!骑虎难下

唐骏认为。雅虎再次复兴的机会不大,虽然它有很多现金和很好的资源。但是它缺乏了创新的文化和动力,现在更像一个投资公司.     

Effects of supervision on tax compliance: Evidence from a field experiment in Austria

We conduct a field experiment on tax compliance, focusing on newly founded firms. As a novelty the effect of tax authorities’ supervision on timely tax payments is examined. Interestingly, results show no positive overall effect of close supervision on tax compliance.     

The term structure of cross-sectional dispersion of expectations in a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment

In this paper, we present the results of a Learning-to-Forecast Experiment (LtFE) where we eliciting short- as well as long-run expectations regarding the future price dynamics in markets with positive and negative expectations feedback. Comparing our results on short-run expectations with the LtFE literature, we prove that eliciting long-run expectations has no impact on the price dynamics nor on short-run expectations formation. In particular, we confirm that the Rational Expectation Equilibrium (REE) is a good benchmark only for the markets with negative feedback. Interestingly, our data show that while the term structure of the cross-sectional dispersion of expectations is convex in positive feedback markets, it is concave in negative feedback markets. Differences in the slope of the term structure stem from diverse degrees of uncertainty regarding the evolution of prices in the two feedback systems: (1) in the negative feedback system, the convergence of the price to the REE reflects a tendency for coordination of long-run expectations around the fundamental value; (2) conversely, oscillatory price dynamics observed in the positive feedback system is responsible for the diverging pattern of long-run expectations. Finally, we propose a new measure of heterogeneity of expectations based on the scaling of the dispersion of expectations over the forecasting horizon.