Not Featherbedding,but Feathering the Nest: Human Resource Management and Investments in Information Technology

This study draws on employment relations and management theory, claiming that certain innovative employment practices and work structures pave the way for organizational innovation, namely investments in information technology (IT). It then finds support for the theory in a cross‐section of UK workplaces. The findings suggest that firms slow to adopt IT realize that their conventional employment model hinders their ability to make optimal use of new technologies. Therefore, the paper advances the literature beyond studies of unionization's impact on business investment to a broader set of issues on the employment relations features that make organizations ripe for innovation.     

Improving retirement adequacy through asset class prioritization

Highly risk-averse retirees are generally advised to adopt a fixed spending strategy such as the 4% withdrawal rule. To prevent the premature depletion of a retirement portfolio, the rule attempts to proxy as the ‘safe withdrawal rate’. But a constant withdrawal rate means that retirees accumulate unspent surpluses when markets outperform and face spending shortfalls when markets underperform. While a safe withdrawal rate can prevent spending shortfalls, the opportunity cost of unspent surpluses associated with this strategy can be extreme. We apply a range of basic investment decision rules to a retirement portfolio applying various withdrawal rates and examine the probability of shortfalls over a retirement horizon. Using a block bootstrap simulation technique, we examine decision rules relating to stock and bond investments. Our results show that retirement portfolios with a bias towards stocks coupled with a decision rule that sources withdrawals from bonds and cash before stocks significantly outperforms alternative withdrawal strategies, despite the inherent increase in volatility. This finding is in direct contrast to the safe withdrawal rate conventions used in contemporary financial advice models.     

Disaggregating operating and financial activities: implications for forecasts of profitability

Researchers, practitioners, and standard setters emphasize the importance of disaggregating financial statements into operating and financial activities. However, there is a lack of research demonstrating that this disaggregation improves forecasts of profitability. In this study, we consider whether and when the operating/financial disaggregation improves forecasts of profitability. Contrary to the use of an aggregate forecasting approach by most related prior research, we first show that the operating/financial disaggregation only provides forecast improvement over a benchmark model incorporating aggregate information when the components forecasting approach is used. We also compare the operating/financial disaggregation to the unusual/infrequent disaggregation required by US GAAP. We find that the operating/financial disaggregation yields less accurate forecasts than the unusual/infrequent disaggregation. However, when using the components forecasting approach, we find that the combination of both disaggregations improves forecasts of profitability. Finally, we document that the incremental usefulness of the operating/financial disaggregation relative to a benchmark model incorporating aggregate information is a function of growth and accounting conservatism. Overall, our study provides timely evidence concerning how analysts and investors might best use the operating/financial disaggregation for forecasting profitability.     

The consequences of managerial indiscretions: Sex,lies, and firm value

Personal managerial indiscretions are separate from a firm's business activities but provide information about the manager's integrity. Consequently, they could affect counterparties’ trust in the firm and the firm's value and operations. We find that companies of accused executives experience significant wealth deterioration, reduced operating margins, and lost business partners. Indiscretions are also associated with an increased probability of unrelated shareholder-initiated lawsuits, Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and managed earnings. Further, chief executive officers and boards face labor market consequences, including forced turnover, pay cuts, and lower shareholder votes at re-election. Indiscretions occur more often at poorly governed firms where disciplinary turnover is less likely.     

On a general periodic preventive maintenance policy incorporating warranty contracts and system ageing losses

In this paper, a general periodic preventive maintenance (PM) policy for a repairable revenue-generating system is developed and studied. We define ‘ageing losses’ as the difference in revenues generated by an ideal system (no ageing) and a real system that ages over the same period of consideration. It is assumed that preventive maintenance slows the system deterioration process and therefore reduces ageing losses. The proposed model is general in the sense that (1) both the warranty contracts and system ageing losses are incorporated in the maintenance cost modeling and (2) the implementation of PM actions does not have to be strictly periodic. A cost model is developed for the buyer under two decision variables—the calendar time of the first PM and the degree of each PM. Numerical examples are then presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed model. Sensitivity analyses are further conducted to investigate the impact of model parameters on optimal solutions.     

The new local economics: A reply to John Benington

Attempts are being made to construct a “new local economics” and important claims are being made on its behalf. In present circumstances, its contribution, though with some valuable achievements as John Benington has shown, must nevertheless be marginal. The task is to gain the maximum leverage from minimal resources, and this article suggests that the key priorities should be to use local authorities' influence as purchasers, employers and investors.     

Global Warming Policy and the Pennsylvania Economy: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

Most studies of the impacts of global warming policy have been performed at the national level. However, national averages obscure the fact that some regions may be affected much more than others. We formulated a regional computable general equilibrium model to analyze the impact of a carbon tax on the Pennsylvania economy. The model incorporates special features relating to labor mobility, trade and energy substitution for this purpose. Our results indicate significant negative overall impacts on the Pennsylvania economy, primarily because it is a major producer and user of fossil fuels, especially coal, and because it is highly industrialized. Sensitivity analyses on key parameters and model assumptions indicate that our results are robust.     

Practitioners' Corner

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. Spring at last. Here in Montreal, the transition from winteris particularly delicious. There is more light, the world looksless grey, and the trepidation that another storm may be aroundthe corner is put away with the winter tires. In this issueof JFEC, the editors appear to be underscoring seasonal changein an issue whose unifying theme involves parameter and modelstability. Parameter stability is an important issue in econometrics. Achanging economic environment may be captured by allowing theparameters of a reduced form model to vary to reflect changingconditions. The challenge for the econometrician is to constructmodels that do more than reflect changes in an ad hoc manner.For want of more insightful approaches, the challenge is oftensidestepped in practice by focusing on shorter samples whereno structural change can be assumed to have occurred. However,in so constricting the sample size, . . . [Full Text of this Article]     

Legal Minimum Wages and Employment Duration

We estimate the effect of minimum wages on employment duration using event history data from the 1988-1994 rounds of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Existing literature takes two alternative tracks: Some studies predict reduced turnover due to rents created by minimum wages, others focus on the expected increase in turnover due to reduced job amenities and imperfect information. We find that for men, the net effect of a minimum wage depends on its magnitude relative to the typical wage in the local labor market. We find some evidence that where the minimum wage is low, separation rates for men hired at the minimum wage are reduced. We also find that as the relative value of the minimum wage rises, separation hazards increase. We interpret these findings as evidence that rents may accrue to minimum wage workers, but that the job matching process is undermined when the minimum wage binds.