The Bright and Dark Side of Altruism: Demographic,Personality Traits,and Disorders Associated with Altruism

This study looked at personality trait and personality disorder correlates of self-rated altruism. In two studies over 4,000 adult British managers completed a battery of tests including a ‘bright side’ personality trait measure (HPI); a ‘dark side’/disorders measure (HDS), and a measure of their Motives and Values which included Altruism. The two studies showed similar results revealing that those who were low on Adjustment (Neuroticism) but high on Interpersonal Sensitivity (Agreeableness), Prudence (Conscientiousness) and Inquisitiveness (Openness) were more likely to value Altruism and be motivated to commit altruistic acts which concerns helping others and creating an environment that places emphasis on customer service. Those more interested in “Getting Along” with others were more Altruistic than those more interested in “Getting Ahead” of others. Implications for the selection and management of altruistic people in a business are considered. Limitations and future directions of this research are also noted.     

Effective pollution control policy for China

China began enforcing a system of pollution levies in 1982. However, senior environmental officials expressed doubt that this system was improving the environment and, in 1996, they began to place greater reliance on mill closure as the penalty for poor environmental performance. Since then, managers have found means of subverting many of the intended mill closures, and this causes us to return to the question of the abatement efficiency and effectiveness of the levies. This paper uses production evidence from 34 papermills in two representative provinces to examine the abatement efficiency and effectiveness of the levies. The paper industry is an important industry for this question because it is the largest polluter of China’s rural environment. We use a distance function to determine individual output-based and revenue-based shadow prices for each mill during the years that the levies were the main environmental incentive. The output-based shadow prices for pollutants display no recognizable trends over time and they are very different for firms in different locations. The revenue-based shadow prices are widely variable between mills and locations as well. These findings indicate that the marginal opportunity costs of abatement were also widely divergent and that there was no trend toward improved abatement efficiency. The way to correct this is to improve the performance of the market—not to reject the market altogether as the more recent reliance on mill closures does. This observation suggests that a system of tradable permits would be an improvement on relatively less successful administrative measures such as forced mill closures.     

Organizational Failure and Turnaround: Lessons for Public Services from the For-Profit Sector

As the performance of public services is increasingly scrutinized, it is now commonplace for some schools, hospitals, local authorities and other public organizations to be deemed 'failing' and for attempts to be made at creating a turnaround in their performance. This article explores the literature on failure and turnaround in for-profit organizations, presents a number of models or frameworks for describing and categorizing failure and turnaround, and examines the relevance and transferability of theoretical and empirical studies in the for-profit sector to the emerging field of failure and turnaround in public services.     

Multiple equilibria in bargaining models of decentralized trade

Summary A market in which population size is endogenously determined is modeled. Buyers and sellers are randomly matched upon entering the market, whereupon they engage in non-cooperative bilateral bargaining. It is shown that general matching technologies and heterogeneity of buyer or seller populations often result in multiple market equilibria. Up to four equilibria can occur and the equilibria can always be ranked according to population size. Under some conditions all equilibria can also be Pareto ranked. The set of equilibria depends on the relative population sizes of different types of potential entrant, market entry costs, and the degree of differentiation between agents on the same side of the market.This paper evolved from a chapter in my dissertation. I am indebted to Leo Simon for many helpful conversations. Michael Hanemann, Jeff Perloff, Stefan Reichelstein, Jim Vercammen, Brian Wright, and participants in seminars at U.C. Berkeley, the University of Maryland, the University of British Columbia and the Australian National University also provided useful comments. Lastly, I benefited greatly from the thorough comments and corrections provided by an anonymous referee.     

FOREX Risk: Measurement and Evaluation Using Value‐at‐Risk

Abstract:   We measure and evaluate the performance of a number of Value‐at‐Risk (VaR) methods using a portfolio based on the foreign exchange exposure of a small open economy (Ireland) among its trading partners. The sample period highlights the changing nature of Ireland's exposure to risk over the past decade in the run‐up to EMU. Our results offer an indication of the level of accuracy of the various approaches and discuss the issues of models ensuring statistical accuracy or more conservative leanings. Our findings suggest that the Orthogonal GARCH model is the most accurate methodology while the EWMA specification is the more conservative approach.     

The ecology of organizations and the concept of acceptance change

We see in analogy an effective and creatively led organisation as a thriving and successful tree. To understand a'successful tree' we need to study the ecology of the tree—the tree's own fundamental characteristics and how they relate to the total environment. We also need to understand how the tree adapts and renews itself in the continual battle for survival. We see some possible adaptations as being readily accepted by the tree while others as being resisted to the extent that if forced will result in its death. Relating our analogy back to organisations we have developed a system by which senior managements can study the ecology of their own organisations and give priorities to particular courses of adaptive action for survival. We also consider two methods by which managers can assess the acceptability of particular changes in their organisations.     

Habit formation,surplus consumption and return predictability: International evidence

On an international post World War II dataset, we use an iterated GMM procedure to estimate and test the Campbell and Cochrane (1999, By force of habit: a consumption-based explanation of aggregate stock market behavior. Journal of Political Economy 107, 205–251.) habit formation model with a time-varying risk-free rate. In addition, we analyze the predictive power of the surplus consumption ratio for future stock and bond returns. We find that, although there are important cross-country differences and economically significant pricing errors, for the majority of countries in our sample the model gets empirical support in a variety of different dimensions, including reasonable estimates of risk-free rates. Further, for the majority of countries the surplus consumption ratio captures time-variation in expected returns. Together with the price-dividend ratio, the surplus consumption ratio contains significant information about future stock returns, also during the 1990s. In addition, in most countries the surplus consumption ratio is also a powerful predictor of future bond returns. Thus, the surplus consumption ratio captures time-varying expected returns in both stock and bond markets.     

The Piotroski F‐score: evidence from Australia

A market‐neutral strategy that is long [short] stocks with a high [low] Piotroski F‐score generates an index‐weighted 0.8 percent pm on S&P/ASX 200 stocks and 1.4 percent pm on smaller stocks. Equal‐weighted returns are higher and in all cases returns are statistically significant. However, the Carhart model alphas are not statistically significant except in the case of equal‐weighted small cap portfolios. For such portfolios, however, most of the alpha comes from the short side and most institutional investors would find them uninvestable due to capacity constraints. A range of tests indicate that analyst neglect does not explain the F‐score premium.     

Evaluating Mergers in the Australian Petroleum Industry

We study the effects of mergers in the Australian petroleum industry during 1980–1994. The effect on the profitability of both the merging and non–merging firms is estimated. There is robust evidence that mergers have been associated with a decrease in profitability for all firms. Thus, the results are not consistent with the view that mergers have acted primarily to increase market power or that they have acted primarily to increase efficiency. There is some support for the more complicated view that mergers have both increased market power and decreased efficiency, with the latter effect dominating.