Can Consumer Attitudes Forecast Household Spending in the United States? Further Evidence from the Michigan Survey of Consumers

This article examines the usefulness of various measures of consumer confidence in forecasting household spending in the United States. Using the reduced-form equation of Carroll, Fuhrer, and Wilcox (American Economic Review 84:1397-1408, 1994), we find that for the post-World War II period, the Index of Consumer Expectations is incrementally more informative about household spending than the Index of Consumer Sentiment for all categories of consumption examined. A similar conclusion emerges when Carroll, Fuhrer, and Wilcox's data set is used. Our overall results confirm the view that indices of consumer confidence reflect consumers' perception of future economic conditions. Also, the ability of these confidence indices to predict future consumption growth can be construed as a clear rejection of the random walk hypothesis of Hall (Journal of Political Economy 86:971-87, 1978).     

Structures of foreign trade and income distribution: The case of Mexico

Using Mexico's input-output tables and household survey data, this paper examines various trade strategies and their relationship to commodity production with a view to assesing their effect on the distribution of income. The model incorporates income-induced multiplier effects, taking into account the full range of input import-substitution possibilities. The results show that the differences in the impact on income, particularly, of the lower incomes, are most marked in the tensions between exportable and import-competing activities. On the whole, production per unit of output in the non-tradable sector produces as much factor income as that in the export sector. Expansion of exportable activities marginally improves the economic position of the poor in relation to other income groups, but only when direct effects are taken into account. If, however, domestic production meets the needs of intermediate imports, then the distribution of income remains unaffected by alternative trade strategies.     

Equitable,productive employment targets for the international development strategy

Although economic growth in many developing countries has matched and even surpassed the growth targets of the UN's International Development Strategy (IDS), it often has failed to alleviate the problems of employment and income distribution. Nonetheless, preparations for an IDS for the Third Development Decade continue to focus on aggregate and sectoral growth targets.Recognizing the essential linkage between growth, employment and poverty, this paper formulates targets for employment and growth with equity and integrates them with the proposed overall IDS growth objective using a consistent macro framework. This paper examines the dynamic implications of this equitable, productive employment strategy for the sectoral distribution of labour and capital and for the income distribution and compares it with alternative scenarios.The basic results show that an equitable productive employment strategy will not only raise absolute incomes of the poor but improve the income distribution, whether measured by the relative income of the poorest 40% or, perhaps more important, of those who continue to obtain only low-productivity employment. Evidence from some countries in the 1970s indicates that the strategy is feasible, provided appropriate policies are pursued. An important element in the strategy appears to be the maintenance of a demand for goods produced by the poor; in this context the high growth of industry recommended in the IDS for low-income countries is likely to lead to increasing inequality. This paper concludes with some broad policy recommendations for achieving the equitable productive employment target.     

Hostile Attribution Bias and Negative Reciprocity Beliefs Exacerbate Incivility’s Effects on Interpersonal Deviance

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating roles of hostile attribution bias and negative reciprocity beliefs in the relationship between workplace incivility, as perceived by employees, and their interpersonal deviance. Data were collected using a three-wave survey research design. Participants included 233 employees from a large manufacturing company in China. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the hypothesized relationships. Our study revealed that hostile attribution bias and negative reciprocity beliefs strengthened the positive relationship between workplace incivility and interpersonal deviance. This relationship was the most positive when both hostile attribution bias and negative reciprocity beliefs were high. The findings provided evidence that directing employees to depress hostile attribution bias and negative reciprocity beliefs may attenuate the effects of workplace incivility on interpersonal deviance. Implications for theory, research, and management practice are discussed.     

Similarity of endowments and the factor price equalization condition

Summary. We give a geometric interpretation of the lens condition, proposed by Deardorff as a shortcut for checking the factor price equalization (FPE) condition. We identify the conditions under which the lens condition implies the FPE condition. If the FPE zone is not a neighborhood of the diagonal allocations, however, the lens condition is irrelevant despite the implication since the FPE condition (hence the lens condition) is unlikely to be satisfied in that case. We give precise conditions under which the lens condition is equivalent to the FPE condition and simultaneously, the FPE zone is a neighborhood of the diagonal allocations. Received: January 2, 2002; revised version: July 1, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The author would like to thank an anonymous referee, Bruce Dieffenbach and Michael Jerison for helpful comments.     

Workplace Harassment Intensity and Revenge: Mediation and Moderation Effects

This study examines the mediating role of rumination, state anger, and blame attribution, and the moderating role of trait forgiveness in the relationship between workplace harassment intensity and revenge among employed students at a medium-sized Midwestern U.S. university (N = 310) and full-time employees from various industries in Shanghai, China (N = 251). We tested the proposed model using techniques described by Hayes (Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis, The Guilford Press, New York, 2013). Results within both samples suggested that workplace harassment intensity is positively associated with both major and minor revenge. Results of multiple mediation tests showed that state anger and blame attribution mediated the relationships between workplace harassment intensity and both types of revenge behavior. Furthermore, trait forgiveness moderated the relationship between blame attribution and major revenge.