The Capitalization of Building Codes in House Prices

Some research shows that homes built under tougher building codes perform better in hurricanes. While houses built after the implementation of the stronger building codes could be presumed to be “safer”, no study has measured the extent to which stricter building codes are capitalized into improved property. This study measures the capitalization of stricter building codes into house prices. In addition, the study examines whether homebuyers attach greater value to the stricter building codes after the “reality check” of the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons. A hedonic pricing model is used to capture the differential effect on house prices of the stricter 1994 South Florida Building Code for properties sold from 2000 through 2007 in Miami-Dade County. The model also measures any increase in the marginal value of the stronger building code after the 2004/2005 storm season. Models are estimated for the aggregate data and for three geographical zones based on risk exposure. Results show that the stricter building code has a positive effect on selling price. The greatest effect is seen in the coastal zone, which has the greatest risk exposure. Selling prices for homes built under the new code were about 10.4% higher than prices for comparable homes built under the older, less strict code. The premium for safety is shown to decrease as the hurricane risk exposure decreases. For geographical areas with less risk exposure, there is less capitalization of the stricter building code into house prices. The post-catastrophe (“reality check”) variables show that, following the minimal impact of the 2004 hurricanes on the Miami area, the premium that consumers are willing to pay for structural integrity disappears. However, after the 2005 hurricanes, which were more devastating to the Miami area, the building code premium returns.     

Mental models,decision rules,and performance heterogeneity

This paper focuses on the role of managerial cognition as a source of heterogeneity in firm strategies and performance. We link differences in mental models to differences in decision rules and performance in a management simulation. Our results show more accurate mental models lead to better decision rules and higher performance. We also find that decision makers do not need accurate knowledge of the entire business environment; accurate mental models of the key principles are sufficient to achieve superior performance. A fundamental assumption in much of strategic management is that managers who have a richer understanding about organizational capabilities and the dynamics of industry structure can improve the performance of their firms. Our findings provide empirical evidence supporting this assumption and show that differences in mental models help explain ex ante why managers and firms adopt different strategies and achieve different levels of competitive success. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

CONSTRUCTION,STABILITY AND PREDICTABILITY OF AN INPUT–OUTPUT TIME-SERIES FOR AUSTRALIA

This paper documents the development of a time series of Australian input?output tables. It describes the construction techniques employed in order to overcome the major issues encountered. Environmentally important processes were delineated using a range of detailed commodity data, thus expanding the original tables from roughly 100 industries into a temporally consistent 344 industries. Data confidentiality and inconsistency were overcome using an iterative constrained optimisation method called KRAS???a recent modification of RAS (Lenzen et al. 2006; 2007; 2009). The article concludes by analysing the stability of input?output coefficients over time similar to work in Dietzenbacher and Hoen (2006). The issue of stability of coefficients and multipliers was investigated under the Leontief and Ghosh models of supply/demand. Finally, the predictability of the models was examined under updated final demand or primary inputs and over varying time scales.     

The effects of the national setting on employment practice: The case of downsizing

Although there is now a sizeable body of academic literature that tries to explain cross-country differences in terms of corporate control, capital market development, investor protection and politics, there is as yet very little literature on the degrees of protection accorded to other corporate stakeholders such as employees, based on a systematic comparison of firm level evidence. We find that both theories of legal origin and the varieties of capitalism approach are poor predictors of the relative propensity of firms to make redundancies in different settings. However, the political orientation of the government in place and even more so the nature of the electoral system are relatively good explanators of this propensity. In other words, political structures and outcomes matter more than more rigid institutional features such as legal origin. We explore the reasons for this, drawing out the implications for both theory and practice.     

Implementation, communication and benefits of corporate codes of ethics: an international and longitudinal approach for Australia, Canada and Sweden

This paper examines the implementation, communication and benefits of corporate codes of ethics by the top companies operating in Australia, Canada and Sweden. It provides an international comparison across three continents. It is also based on a longitudinal approach where three national surveys were performed in 2001–2002 and replications of the same surveys were performed in 2005–2006. The empirical findings of this research show in all three countries that large organisations indicate a substantial interest in corporate codes of ethics. There are, however, differences in the ways that the companies in each country implement and communicate their corporate codes of ethics and the benefits that they see being derived from them. The longitudinal comparison between 2001–2002 and 2005–2006 indicates changes in the implementation, communication and benefits of corporate codes of ethics in the three countries.     

Age diversity and firm performance in an emerging economy: Implications for cross‐cultural human resource management

This study tests the effect of age diversity on firm performance among international firms. Based on the resource‐based view of the firm, it argues that age diversity among employees will influence firm performance. Moreover, it argues that two contextual variables—a firm's level of market diversification and its country of origin—influence the relationship between age diversity and firm performance. By testing relevant hypotheses in a major emerging economy, that is, the People's Republic of China, this study finds a significant and positive effect of age diversity and a significant interactive effect between age diversity and firm strategy on profitability. We also find a significant relationship between age diversity and firm profitability for firms from Western societies, but not for firms from East Asian societies. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of this study's findings. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Discrimination and Well-Being in Organizations: Testing the Differential Power and Organizational Justice Theories of Workplace Aggression

People may be subjected to discrimination from a variety of sources in the workplace. In this study of mental health workers, we contrast four potential perpetrators of discrimination (managers, co-workers, patients, and visitors) to investigate whether the negative impact of discrimination on victims’ well-being will vary in strength depending on the relative power of the perpetrator. We further explore whether the negative impact of discrimination is at least partly explained by its effects on people’s sense of organizational justice, and whether the strength of mediation varies according to the source of discrimination. Using survey data from 1,733 UK mental health workers, a structural equation model was designed to test these hypotheses following a bootstrap approach. Discrimination from all sources was related to well-being, with that from managers having the strongest effects. The results support an explanation of the effect of discrimination on well-being in terms of organizational justice perceptions for discrimination from managers and from visitors, but less so for discrimination from co-workers or from patients. The study highlights the importance of differentiating amongst sources of discrimination at work and the salience of organizational justice perceptions in explaining the effects of discrimination from some sources.     

Owner-managers,clusters and local embeddedness: small firms in the Sheffield (UK) metal-working cluster

The primary objective of this paper is to explore the ways in which the characteristics of owner-managers influence the extent to which their firms are embedded within local clusters of economic activity. Data are drawn from an interview survey of a random sample of small metal-working firms in Sheffield, UK. The data are analysed using non-parametric statistical methods to test bivariate relationships. Owner-manager attributes are found to have no influence on the extent of the use of local material supply networks but they do influence the extent of dependence on local markets. Owner-managers born and bred in the local region with limited formal education, working as an operative (rather than executive) prior to start up and with many years experience are more likely to rely on local markets. Owner-manager characteristics are also linked to participation in business networks. Those with most experience and those previously working for large firms are more likely to participate. It is concluded that owner-manager attributes can be important in explaining the level of embeddedness of small firms in a cluster of economic activity and that such attributes need to be built into theories of cluster behaviour.