Strong measures of group coherence and the probability that a pairwise majority rule winner exists

A Pairwise Majority Rule Winner (PMRW) exists for a voting situation if some candidate can defeat each of the remaining candidates by Pairwise Majority Rule. The PMRW would be very appropriate for selection as the winner of an election, but it is well known that such a candidate does not always exist. This paper concludes a series of studies regarding the probability that a PMRW should be expected to exist in three-candidate elections, by introducing the notion of a strong measures of mutually coherent group preferences. In order for voting situations to be reasonably expected to fail to have a PMRW in a three-candidate election, voters’ preferences must be generated in an environment that is far removed from the situation in which there is a strong-overall-unifying candidate. So far removed, that it is extremely unlikely that a PMRW will not exist in voting situations with large electorates for a small number of candidates.     

Supervisors and Presenteeism: How do Supervisors Accommodate and Support Skilled Workers with Chronic Health Concerns?

There is a broad literature linking social support to health, which includes evidence that social support from supervisors is positively associated with worker health. In addition, once workers experience a health concern, supervisors may play a key role in supporting workers, keeping them on the job despite health issues. However, there are few studies that investigate the day-to-day strategies supervisors utilize to support their workers and help them stay on the job despite health concerns. The study presented in this paper addresses this gap. Thirty-two supervisors from three companies were interviewed about their experiences supporting and accommodating skilled workers during flare-ups of a health condition. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the text data and identify themes. Three key themes emerged from the data: 1) workplace policies provide the structure for mutual problem solving; 2) communication skills and existing relationships increase supervisor effectiveness; and 3) strategies were aimed at individual, interpersonal, and institutional supports. Supervisors regularly interact with workers to support and accommodate episodes of illness or pain. While supervisors employ novel and effective strategies, there is an opportunity to improve the range of strategies, better understand and utilize company policies, and facilitate appropriate communication about worker health concerns.     

Effects of time horizon and asset condition on the profitability of technical trading rules

In much of the literature, the debate over technical trading strategies has centered around the question of whether an actively managed portfolio, controlled by a technical indicator, can outperform a passively managed portfolio. Typically, the time horizon is considered to be years. Additionally, the trader is assumed to use a technical trading strategy that is independent of asset conditions. These assumptions may not correspond well with reality. Traders often have much shorter time horizons and may switch between rebalancing or trading strategies on the basis of perceived shifts in market condition. This paper presents a study of the profitability of technical trading rules as a function of asset state or condition. Several common technical trading strategies were run on 296 stocks over a 15 year period. Strategies were run with 1 month rolling time horizons, significantly shorter than those used in similar studies in the literature. Stocks were segmented based on volatility and volume, which allowed for the examination of a strategy’s performance in different asset conditions. Several strategies were demonstrated to have consistently better risk-to-reward ratios under specific asset conditions and short time horizons. This finding helps to explain why some practitioners implement technical trading strategies.     

Are Reports of Discrimination Valid? Considering the Moral Hazard Effect

A bstract .   Antidiscrimination laws are designed to prompt employers to stop excluding black workers from jobs they offer and from treating them unequally with respect to promotion and salaries once on the job. However, a moral hazard effect can arise if the existence of the laws leads black employees to bring unjustified claims of discrimination against employers. It has been argued that employers may become more reluctant to hire black workers for fear of being subjected to frivolous lawsuits.
Using the Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality (MCSUI), we find that male and female black workers are far more likely than whites to report racial discrimination at work. This is the case even when a host of human capital and labor market factors are controlled for. Further, nearly all black workers who report they have been discriminated against on the job in the MCSUI Surveys also show statistical evidence of wage discrimination. This is not the case for white males or females. We find little evidence to support a moral hazard effect.     

Leadership competencies: An exploratory study of what is important now and what has changed since the terrorist attacks of 9/11

This exploratory study attempts to identify the leadership competencies that managers believe are needed to be successful across different managerial levels and organization types (manufacturing, finance, insurance, and banking, health, transportation, communications, and utilities, wholesale and retail trade, private nonprofit, and public) and presents an analysis of whether changes in the importance of certain leadership competencies over time coincided with the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Our findings suggest that the leadership competencies leading employees and resourcefulness were the most important across all managerial levels and organization types studied. Moreover, leadership competencies important (or not important) for one managerial level or organization type seem to be important (or not important) for others. Furthermore, leadership competencies important before 9/11 remained important immediately after 9/11, 2 years after 9/11, and are still important today. These findings may have implications for leadership training and development, selection, and succession planning.     

Social Capital and Social Influence on the Board of Directors

It is often assumed that directors with human capital such as prior management experience or independence from the company are the most influential board members. By contrast, in a survey of all the board members in 14 companies we found that ties to others in a network of strong ties among those who meet outside of board meetings were more important predictors of social influence than human capital or ties across boards. These ties within the board represent the social capital of members in the form of prior relationships with other directors, ties to others on the board, and membership in cliques within the board's network of ties. These results support a social capital perspective on influence that emphasizes relationships with others on the board as important factors in the social dynamics of board decision-making.     

Local Industrial Conditions and Entrepreneurship: How Much of the Spatial Distribution Can We Explain?

Why are some places more entrepreneurial than others? We use Census Bureau data to study local determinants of manufacturing startups across cities and industries. Demographics have limited explanatory power. Overall levels of local customers and suppliers are only modestly important, but new entrants seem particularly drawn to areas with many smaller suppliers, as suggested by Chinitz (1961) . Abundant workers in relevant occupations also strongly predict entry. These forces plus city and industry fixed effects explain between 60% and 80% of manufacturing entry. We use spatial distributions of natural cost advantages to address partially endogeneity concerns.     

Multilateral aggregation-theoretic monetary aggregation over heterogeneous countries

We derive fundamental theory for measuring monetary service flows aggregated over countries within a multicountry area. We develop three increasingly restrictive approaches: (1) the heterogeneous agents approach, (2) the multilateral representative agent approach, and (3) the unilateral representative agent approach. These results are being used by the European Central Bank in construction of its Divisia monetary aggregates database, with convergence from the most general to the more restrictive approaches expected as economic convergence within the area proceeds. Our theory permits monitoring the effects of policy over a multicountry area, while also monitoring the distribution effects of policy among the countries.