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."     

Strategic Internet application trends in supply chain management

The Internet is evolving as a powerful force in the new marketplace where the nexus of competition has changed from individual firms to efficient supply chain networks both between firms and within industries. This study explores Internet adoption patterns and operational applications in US supply chain networks. The data reveal that the integration of the Internet into supply chain management applications has increased and has moved away from indiscriminate application of novel Internet technologies towards becoming a focused endeavor with precise expectations and measurable goals. Specifically, the study finds that Internet usage within supply chains is maturing as evidenced by enhanced and increased productivity, reduced costs and increased profit for participating firms.     

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。     

Bank CEO materialism: Risk controls,culture and tail risk

We investigate how the prevalence of materialistic bank CEOs has evolved over time, and how risk management policies, non-CEO executives’ behavior and tail risk vary with CEO materialism. We document that the proportion of banks run by materialistic CEOs increased significantly from 1994 to 2004, that the strength of risk management functions is significantly lower for banks with materialistic CEOs, and that non-CEO executives in banks with materialistic CEOs insider trade more aggressively around government intervention during the financial crisis. Finally, we find that banks with materialistic CEOs have significantly more downside tail risk relative to banks with non-materialistic CEOs.     

Owning and testing smoke alarms: findings from a qualitative study

Reducing injury and death in house fires is an important public health intervention activity with the presence of an operating smoke alarm widely considered an important way of reducing harm from fire. Yet despite a number of initiatives and fire-safety campaigns, a number of households at greater risk of domestic fire fail to have a functioning alarm. This paper provides empirical insight into everyday experiences of owning, maintaining and testing smoke alarms among a purposive sample of individuals identified as being less likely to own a functioning smoke alarm. Analysis from focus group data identifies a number of reasons why individuals may not own or test an alarm, and provides new insight into how fire risk is understood in the context of a range of competing, and potentially more prominent, individual and household risks. We suggest that while initiatives that aim to reduce fire injury and death should be continued, their success, and indeed future research on fire risk, should pay attention to the mundane and everyday contexts within which individuals currently rarely reflect on their risk of experiencing a domestic fire.