Non-elective C-sections in public hospitals: capacity constraints and doctor incentives

Using administrative records of births from the Perinatal Surveillance System of the Peruvian Social Security System (ESSALUD), we test whether high admissions of pregnant women affected non-elective caesarean section (C-section) rates in the ESSALUD public hospitals during 2005–2006. We present a basic theoretical model that considers physician preferences for leisure and hospital capacity constraints, and test the model predictions. We find that physician demand for leisure increases the probability of C-sections in small and medium-size hospitals, while hospital capacity constraints set a limit on them. We discuss the policy implications as well as the policies implemented to avoid unnecessary C-sections.     

Opportunistic customer complaining: Causes, consequences, and managerial alternatives

Should a hospitality firm yield to a customer complaint that is suspected [or even known] to be opportunistic? While the answer to this question varies based upon numerous factors, this conceptual article synthesizes multiple streams of empirical research to enumerate: (1) customer-centric, firm-centric [such as the influence of firm size], and relationship-centric determinants of opportunistic customer complaining; (2) means of detecting whether a complaint is opportunistic [such as through employee knowledge of operations]; and (3) potential consequences to the firm of yielding and not yielding to opportunistic complaints.     

Aplicación de bicorrelación cruzada al rendimiento diario del precio del café

This paper uses the cross bicorrelation methodology, which can capture nonlinear trascendence periods through window functions and third-order moments. It applies to the return of four sets of commodities of coffee traded on the New York market (Arabica Colombian, mild Arabica, Arabica Brazilian and Other Arabicas), during the 20/06/1997 - 27/10/2010 period. The results conclude that there is a cross bicorrelation among the four series, with Brazilian type coffee being the leader and a lower bicorrelation with other Arabicas. This complicates decisions for investors in such series.     

An Empirical Evaluation of the Effect of Peer and Managerial Ethical Behaviors and the Ethical Predispositions of Prospective Advertising Employees

An advertising firm's ethical culture (as defined by the firm's managerial and peer ethical behaviors) may affect the employees' comfort levels and ethical behaviors. In this research, scenarios were used to describe advertising firms with various ethical cultures. Respondents' perceived comfort levels in working for the firms described in the scenarios and the respondents' behavioral intentions when faced with various advertising situations were assessed. Results of the study indicate that peer ethical behavior exerts a strong influence on the comfort or discomfort level and the ethical behavioral intentions of potential advertising employees. Further, the strong influence exerted by peers seems to transcend the ethical behavior of the manager and carry over to the attitude toward the entire corporate advertising environment. This study provides insights for firms and researchers interested in assessing the impact of an advertising firm's ethical culture on potential employees.     

Why is the teen birth rate in the United States so high and why does it matter?

Teens in the United States are far more likely to give birth than in any other industrialized country in the world. U.S. teens are two and a half times as likely to give birth as compared to teens in Canada, around four times as likely as teens in Germany or Norway, and almost 10 times as likely as teens in Switzerland. Among more developed countries, Russia has the next highest teen birth rate after the United States, but an American teenage girl is still around 25 percent more likely to give birth than her counterpart in Russia. Moreover, these statistics incorporate the almost 40 percent fall in the teen birth rate that the United States has experienced over the past two decades. Differences across U.S. states are quite dramatic as well. A teenage girl in Mississippi is four times more likely to give birth than a teenage girl in New Hampshire--and 15 times more likely to give birth as a teen compared to a teenage girl in Switzerland. This paper has two overarching goals: understanding why the teen birth rate is so high in the United States and understanding why it matters. Thus, we begin by examining multiple sources of data to put current rates of teen childbearing into the perspective of cross-country comparisons and recent historical context. We examine teen birth rates alongside pregnancy, abortion, and "shotgun" marriage rates as well as the antecedent behaviors of sexual activity and contraceptive use. We seek insights as to why the rate of teen childbearing is so unusually high in the United States as a whole, and in some U.S. states in particular. We argue that explanations that economists have tended to study are unable to account for any sizable share of the variation in teen childbearing rates across place. We describe some recent empirical work demonstrating that variation in income inequality across U.S. states and developed countries can explain a sizable share of the geographic variation in teen childbearing. To the extent that income inequality is associated with a lack of economic opportunity and heightened social marginalization for those at the bottom of the distribution, this empirical finding is potentially consistent with the ideas that other social scientists have been promoting for decades but which have been largely untested with large data sets and standard econometric methods. Our reading of the totality of evidence leads us to conclude that being on a low economic trajectory in life leads many teenage girls to have children while they are young and unmarried and that poor outcomes seen later in life (relative to teens who do not have children) are simply the continuation of the original low economic trajectory. That is, teen childbearing is explained by the low economic trajectory but is not an additional cause of later difficulties in life. Surprisingly, teen birth itself does not appear to have much direct economic consequence. Moreover, no silver bullet such as expanding access to contraception or abstinence education will solve this particular social problem. Our view is that teen childbearing is so high in the United States because of underlying social and economic problems. It reflects a decision among a set of girls to "drop-out" of the economic mainstream; they choose non-marital motherhood at a young age instead of investing in their own economic progress because they feel they have little chance of advancement. This thesis suggests that to address teen childbearing in America will require addressing some difficult social problems: in particular, the perceived and actual lack of economic opportunity among those at the bottom of the economic ladder.     

Experiences of learning styles in an intensive collaborative course

Computer science as a field requires curricular guidance, as new innovations are filtered into teaching its knowledge areas at a rapid pace. Furthermore, another trend is the growing number of students with different cultural backgrounds. These developments require taking into account both the differences in learning styles and teaching methods in practice in the development of curricular knowledge areas. In this paper, an intensive collaborative teaching concept, Code Camp, is utilized to illustrate the effect of learning styles on the success of a course. Code Camp teaching concept promotes collaborative learning and multiple skills and knowledge in a single course context. The results indicate that Code Camp as a concept is well liked, increases motivation to learn and is suitable for both intuitive and reflective learners. Furthermore, it appears to provide interesting creative challenges and pushes students to collaborate and work as a team. In particular, the concept also promotes intuition.     

Same Work,Different Pay? Evidence from a US Public University

Abstract

This study examines detailed data for faculty at a typical public research university in the United States between 1995 and 2004 to explore whether gender wage differentials can be explained by productivity differences. The level of detail – including the number of courses taught, enrollment, grant dollars, and number and impact of publications – largely eliminates the problem of unmeasured productivity, and the restriction to one firm eliminates unmeasured work conditions that confound investigations of wider labor markets. The authors find that direct productivity measures reduce the gender wage penalty to about 3 percent, only 1 percentage point lower than estimates from national studies of many institutions and with fewer productivity controls. The wage structure for women faculty differs markedly from the wage structure for men. Interpreted against the institutional features of wage setting for this population, the paper concludes that penalties for women arise at the department level.     

Towards Ending the Silence: Working Women Caring for Children with Chronic Illness

This paper presents stories from women who work and care for a child with a significant chronic illness or disability. The purpose of this paper is to move towards ending the silence on their lives. A three-phase emergent research design responds to the question: What is life like for a full-time worker who is concurrently the primary carer of a chronically ill child? This paper considers the theory of Silencing the Self (Jack, 1991) in relation to the emergent themes of “Otherness” and “Doing it All.” As in Jack’s study, these women also engaged in silencing of the self. However, unlike the respondents in Jack’s study, these women did not demonstrate feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness for the future, nor were they alone in contributing to their silence. Indeed, many experienced silencing behaviors from others around them, and many rallied against the silence, not accepting that their burden should continue. Consideration of Jack’s theory is made to point out the distinctions between the women in this study and Jack’s study, and analytical commentary is provided to demonstrate the relevance of this analysis in light of the current debates surrounding the Work–Home Conflict and the rising levels of informal care provided by women in our communities.     

Wrongful firing in violation of public policy: Who gets fired and why

We extend the whistle-blowing literature to the context of wrongful firings that violate a public policy. Our results suggest that the incidence of wrongful firings varies, depending on the employee’s gender and tenure, and the industry in which the organization operates. Wrongful firings do not occur more frequently in certain occupations, since firms wrongfully discharge professional and managerial employees as often as employees in technical, clerical, and laborer occupations. We also show that gender, tenure, occupation, and industry, in combination, can distinguish between three types of wrongful firings in violation of public policy. Our results support the application of theory and empirical research on whistle-blowing to the wrongful firing context, aiding researchers interested in developing explanations of wrongful firings in violation of public policy. For managers, our study points to the need to develop more effective responses to employees exercising legal rights, refusing to participate in illegal or unethical activities, and performing a public duty or obligation, such as whistle-blowing.     

The role of medium content and ad format congruity in influencing advertising outcomes

This study examines how (in)congruence regarding the format of the ad and the context in which the ad is placed influences ad recognition, perceived advertiser sensitivity, ad comprehension, and persuasion. Highly visual or informational ads were placed congruently or incongruently within a(n) highly visual or informational surrounding context. There was some positive support for mismatching the format of the ad and surrounding context in terms of ad recognition. Specifically, a highly visual ad placed within a highly informational setting resulted in the greatest ad recognition. However, in terms of the audience's perceptions of advertiser sensitivity, subjective ad comprehension, and ad persuasion, there was more positive support for matching the format of the ad with that of the surrounding context. In this regard, it is better to place visual ads congruently within visual contexts. Theories from information processing and hemispheric lateralization are drawn on to support this research.