A Reexamination of Public-Sector Wage Differentials in the United States: Evidence from the NLSY with Geocode

While many researchers have sought to estimate federal-private wage differentials in the United States, most of them ignore the issues of unobserved heterogeneity and selectivity among sectors. This article seeks to fill the gap in previous literature by using a more appropriate data set and several compelling techniques. The main results suggest substantial bias in ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates of federal-private wage differentials due to individual heterogeneity and self-selection. The direction of bias under selectivity correction (upward for men and downward for women) is consistent with results from both test-score approach estimates and the fixed-effects estimates.     

The Evolutionary Theory of Time Preferences and Intergenerational Transfers

At each age an organism produces energy by foraging and allocates this energy among reproduction, survival, growth, and intergenerational transfers. We characterize the optimal set of allocation decisions that maximizes fitness. Time preference (the discount rate) is derived from the marginal rate of substitution between energy obtained at two different times or ages, holding fitness constant. Time preference varies with age in different ways depending on whether an individual is immature or mature, and during the transition between these stages. We conclude that time preference and discount rates are likely to be U-shaped across age.     

Estimating the factors determining the demand for induced abortions among married women in Taiwan

This paper purports to estimate the characteristics of women who had experiences of abortion in 1991 based on an economic model of fertility. The study makes use of a national survey on the knowledge of, attitude towards, and practice of family planning and reproductive health among married women in Taiwan. The results show that older women with higher family income and who live in urban areas were more likely to have the pregnancy terminated. In addition, the decision to have an abortion was negatively correlated with prior pregnancy loss, but positively associated with the number of previous live births. On the other hand, the availability of abortion services as measured by the number of legal abortion providers at city and county levels had a negative effect on the demand for abortions. The local female unemployment rate was found to be positively correlated with the woman's decision to have an abortion.     

Expected Proficiencies for Undergraduate Economics Majors

The case for adopting a proficiencies approach to instruction and learning in the economics major is reiterated. This approach focuses on what graduating majors should be able to do with the knowledge and skills they acquire in the major, that is, their ability to demonstrate their learning in practical ways. The author's list of five proficiencies, advanced in the mid-1980s, is reviewed and revised; one additional proficiency is added and several others are refined. The author discusses the emphasis given to these proficiencies with top economics undergraduates at two major research universities, the author's experience with incorporating these proficiencies into his instruction, and the challenge of assessing the ability of economics majors to demonstrate these proficiencies.     

Who is governing whom? Executives,governance, and the structure of generosity in large U.S. firms

We examine how organizational structure influences strategies over which corporate leaders have significant discretion. Corporate philanthropy is a strategic activity commonly managed through a specific, differentiated organizational structure—the corporate foundation—that formalizes and constrains the influence of individual senior managers and directors on corporate strategy. Our analysis of Fortune 500 firms from 1996 to 2006 shows that characteristics of senior management and directors affect corporate philanthropic contributions. We also find that organizational structure constrains the philanthropic influence of board members, but not of senior managers, a result contrary to what existing theory would predict. We discuss how these findings advance understanding of how organizational structure and corporate leadership interact and how organizations can more effectively realize the strategic value of corporate social responsibility activities.     

What Drives Target Price Forecasts and Their Investment Value?

This paper examines the informativeness of analysts’ target price forecasts by relating the investment value of target prices to their primary drivers. Decomposing target price forecasts into near‐term earnings forecasts and price‐to‐earnings ratio forecasts, we show that target price revisions reflect information from both components. In addition, we also find that the relative importance of each component in target price revisions is related to firm characteristics. A portfolio based on target price implied expected returns delivers significant abnormal returns. More importantly, we find that the abnormal returns are associated with both earnings and price‐to‐earnings forecasts, which suggests that the informativeness of target price forecasts comes not only from analysts’ ability to forecast short‐term earnings but also from their ability to assess risk and long‐term growth prospect implied in price‐to‐earnings forecasts.     

Control Function Approach for Partly Ordered Endogenous Treatments: Military Rank Premium in Wage

In treatment effect analysis, there are many cases where the treatment of interest is ordered (e.g. general‐education years or medicine doses) and the control treatment is not zero, but a different type of treatment (a vocational training or a surgery). We develop an approach to find effects of partly ordered treatments, while correcting for possible treatment endogeneity with nearly parametric control functions. We use this control function approach, along with its supplementary version, to estimate effects of military ranks (ordered treatments) on wage relative to non‐veteran status (control treatment) with the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study data. In our empirical analysis, the military rank effects differ much: officer has large positive effects, but enlisted ranks have small or no effects.     

The impact of HR configuration on firm performance in Singapore: a resource-based explanation

This study investigates how the characteristics of a firm's human resource practices and processes (HRPPs) are associated with firm performance. The results found that the extent to which HRPPs can be substituted by information technology or codified in employee manuals, made them easy to be imitated and were therefore associated with an attenuation of the firm's financial performance. On the other hand, constant positive investments into a firm's HRPPs were associated with enhanced firm performance. No significant relationships were found between the embeddedness of HRPPs with information technology or the uniqueness of the firm's HRPPs and firm performance. The results are explained in terms of the resource-based view of the firm.