Do Professors’ Opinions Affect Students?

This paper estimates the effect that professors’ opinions have on changes in student opinions during introductory economics classes. The paper shows that students are more likely to change their opinion during the course of the semester if their initial response differs from that of the professor, and this result emerges even after controlling for students’ tendency to move toward the consensus opinion held by all the economics professors. Students are also more likely to change their opinions if they differ from the opinions of their classmates, and the estimates show that in the aggregate, classmate opinions matter more than professor opinions do. The data also show that students choose which section to attend at least partly based on how closely their pre-class opinions match those of the professor. These results have important implications for both heterodox and orthodox economists.     

An Examination of the Relationship between Culture and Cyberloafing Using the Hofstede Model

This article explores the relationship between culture and cyberloafing. A survey measuring individuals’ propensity to engage in cyberloafing in the workplace was conducted with people from 17 countries representing a wide range of cultures. Tests were performed to explore relationships between participants’ propensity to cyberloaf and the cultural dimension ratings for their individual countries of origin. The results show that some types of cyberloafing activity relate significantly with culture. This has potential implications for multinational organizations. Employees from different cultures may have different workplace tendencies.     

Canadian wage inequality over the last two decades

We study the dispersion of wages of full-time full-year workers over two decades controlling for both education and experience. Applying non-parametric statistical methods we find statistically significant and large increases in inequality for males with low levels of education and experience coexist with more modest changes in inequality for those with average education and experience, and with actual declines in inequality for older, more experienced workers with a university degree. These relative patterns tend to be similar for females though with a stronger tendency towards inequality in each education-experience category. Given the recent focus in this debate on the issue of polarization, we also show graphs of the actual distributions of wages and analyze these to conclude that the groups experiencing increased dispersion do display what is commonly known as polarization though it would be an exaggeration to claim that the jobs in the middle of the distribution have vanished.     

Downsizing decisions: The joint influence of equity incentives and behavioral biases

Although new investment can be viewed as a decision to pursue projects from a wide number of growth opportunities with easily discernible (and presumably preferable) risk profiles, downsizing (e.g., through layoffs, plant closings, asset divestitures, etc.) is a dichotomous choice to either abandon or continue an existing project where the relative risk between these options is not clear. Our evidence suggests that vega in the pre-downsizing period is associated with risky investment that necessitates future downsizing. We further find that contemporaneous vega is associated with a greater likelihood of downsizing. On the other hand, our evidence suggests that delta is a significant impediment to downsizing. We examine the influence of behavioral factors in the decision-making process and find downsizing decisions are discouraged by managerial overconfidence but encouraged by managers’ aversion to ambiguity. Finally, we investigate whether equity incentives and behavioral factors lead to better downsizing decisions. We find that downsizing firms with high ambiguity perform better after downsizing relative to their matched pair with lower ambiguity.     

Teaching Preparation and Placement in “Non‐top‐tier” Ph.D. Programs

In a recent article, Jacobson (2015) provides an invaluable economics job market guide for economics Ph.D. candidates from “non‐top‐tier” programs in the United States. Her treatment is detailed and, to a large extent, thorough. However, Jacobson fails to discuss the development of effective lead teaching experience in graduate school as a (potentially central) aspect of job market preparation. In the present comment, we develop and summarize a job posting and placement data set that focuses on Ph.D. candidates from non‐top‐tier programs. The data strongly suggests that the development of lead teaching experience in graduate school, rather than an optional line on one's vita, is an often pivotal element of realized job placement for Ph.D. candidates of non‐top‐tier programs. These findings corroborate with List's (2000) finding that, “a candidate's teaching portfolio was highly influential in the academic market” (p. 197). We also discuss the acquisition of lead teaching experience and benefits of early teaching experience that may extend beyond first job placement.     

The Face of Invention: Skills, Experience, and the Commitment to Patenting in Nineteenth-century Victoria

This paper uses patent data from Victoria to examine the roles played by skill and experience in Australian invention during the colonial era. In addition to identifying a broadening involvement of Australians in inventive activity in the second half of the nineteenth century, this paper also provides evidence which indicates that technological creativity in Australia in this period did not depend on either the existence of a body of highly skilled workers or major advances in the stock of knowledge of which only they were cognizant. Rather, common sense and the acquisition of basic practical skills appear to have been the only prerequisites for inventiveness. Given the widespread availability of such skills in the colonies, the article concludes that the supply of patentable ideas in nineteenth-century Australia must have been fairly elastic.