Government wage differentials

This paper shows that public sector wages usually exceed private but the size and composition of the differentials depend on sex and level of government. Using a technique derived from the literature on sex discrimination, these differentials are decomposed into a portion attributable to differences in productivity between the two types of workers and a portion ascribed to economic rent. This rent results from public workers' relatively greater political influence in the government wage-setting process and a systematic upward bias in public wages imparted by present government pay policy.     

Method in Experiment: Rhetoric and Reality

The methodological ideal of experimentalists, E, is easily stated: derive a testable hypothesis, H, from a well-specified theory, T; implement experiments with a design; implicitly in the latter are auxiliary hypotheses, A, that surface in the review/discussion of completed research reports (payoffs are 'adequate,' Ss are 'relevant,' instructions, context are 'clear,' etc.). We want to be able to conclude, if statistical test outcomes support not-H, that T is 'falsified.' But this is not what we do; rather we ask if there is a flaw in the test, i.e. not-A is supported, and we do more experiments. This is good practice—much better than the statistical rhetoric of falsificationism. Undesigned social processes allow E to accumulate technical and instrumental knowledge that drive the reduction of experimental error and constitute a more coherent methodology than falsificationism.     

A theory of natural addiction

Economic theories of rational addiction aim to describe consumer behavior in the presence of habit-forming goods. We provide a biological foundation for this body of work by formally specifying conditions under which it is optimal to form a habit. We demonstrate the empirical validity of our thesis with an in-depth review and synthesis of the biomedical literature concerning the action of opiates in the mammalian brain and their effects on behavior. Our results lend credence to many of the unconventional behavioral assumptions employed by theories of rational addiction, including adjacent complementarity and the importance of cues, attention, and self-control in determining the behavior of addicts. We offer evidence for the special case of the opiates that “harmful” addiction is the manifestation of a mismatch between behavioral algorithms encoded in the human genome and the expanded menu of choices faced by consumers in the modern world.     

OPPORTUNISTIC MATCHING IN THE HOUSING MARKET*

We construct a model of the housing market in which agents differ in their flow values while searching. Agents enter the market relaxed (with high flow values) but move to a desperate state (low flow values) at a Poisson rate if they have not already transacted. We characterize the equilibrium steady‐state matching pattern and the joint distribution of price and time to sale (for sellers). The expected price conditional on time to sale falls with time spent on the market, whereas the conditional variance of price first rises and then falls with time on the market.     

Can Oxford heal itself?

The fast-growing HMO was hammered on Wall Street after revealing its massive computer problems. Those foul-ups are being fixed, but now comes the hard part--reclaiming the trust of stunned shareholders and outraged doctors.     

Demographic change and income inequality in the United States, 1976-1989

"The U.S. economy experienced significant increases in the degree of income inequality over the past two decades.... In this paper we consider the effects of race, age, female headship, and college education on the distribution of family income by developing a multivariate methodology that allows us to gauge the influence of one factor while holding other determinants of family incomes constant. Over the period studied we find that race had only a minor effect on the overall size distribution of income. Age had a somewhat greater effect than race. In contrast, the impact of female heads and college education were quite substantial. The multivariate estimates reveal that the effects of female heads and college education both increase the Gini to a much greater extent than the progressivity of federal income taxes decreases it. The effects of college education and female headed families on inequality have grown larger across time, while the influence of age has declined. We find that the effects of race on inequality have changed little over the 1976 to 1989 period."     

In search of a residual dividend policy

We survey 309 sample firms exhibiting behavior consistent with a residual dividend policy and their matched counterparts to learn how they set their dividend policies. The findings reveal that the sample firms are more likely than their counterparts to maintain a long-term dividend payout ratio, use long-run earnings forecasts in setting the dividend, and be unconcerned about the cost of raising external funds. Yet, firms behaving as though they follow a residual dividend policy generally do not profess to follow the policy. At best, the sample firms follow a “modified” residual policy in which they carefully manage their payout ratio and dividend trend. Although it may not be an explicit goal of such a dividend policy, consistently low free cash flow typically results.     

Feedback loops, fair value accounting and correlated investments

This paper presents and tests a model of the price dynamics that arise when investors fail to recognize the redundancy of unrealized gains and losses (“UGLs”) that are correlated with the firm’s past returns. Consistent with the predictions of our model, our experiment shows that a firm’s prices and earnings become highly volatile when correlated investment is large and correlated UGLs are made salient by comprehensive income reporting. The results suggest that including correlated UGLs in performance numbers could induce violations of weak-form efficiency that exacerbate volatility in share prices and earnings.     

北欧维修指标分析和欧盟维修学会的关键指标

在欧洲，把维修指标作为全部管理系统一部分的公司越来越多。本重点介绍欧盟维修学会(EFNMS)的关键指标及其定义。在丹麦、芬兰和瑞典曾经使用(北欧维修指标分析)(Nordic Benchmarking Analysis)一中的欧盟维修学会指标，提高了他们工业的维修效率和生产效率。本着重说明关键指标的分析与使用所带来的成果，以及把这些成果与世界级水平相比较。