Macroeconomics and Undergraduate Agricultural Economics

This paper focuses on macroeconomics in undergraduate agricultural economics curricula. We briefly review some of what leaders in the agricultural economics and economics professions, macroeconomics teachers, and textbook authors say about what is important, what should be taught and learned in modern undergraduate macroeconomics courses. We also report on a survey of faculty of agricultural economics departments who have responsibility for undergraduate instruction in 50 U.S. agricultural economics undergraduate programs. The surveys provide information on the current status of economics courses in their programs and the relative importance of different macroeconomic subjects to students in undergraduate agricultural economics.     

Institutional Bioeconomics and the Division of Labor: Reflections on Yarbrough & Yarbrough' Paper

The New Institutional Economics might have significant interactions with the economics of non-human societies. Some possibilities are considered in connection with the ideas of Yarbrough and Yarbrough on human societies. First, the need for enforcement may be less when the organisms in question treat one another as resources. Second, theories of the division of labor that have been developed in biology are applicable to human societies. There may be some interesting alternatives to traditional sociobiology as well.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Bias and Rationality of Profit Forecasts Published in New Issue Prospectuses

Our study sets out to assess the accuracy of profit forecasts made by IPOs in Hong Kong. We use a variety of measures and tests to examine the accuracy, bias, rationality, and superiority of earnings estimates. The results show that forecast accuracy compares favourably with the findings from the developed economies of Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand. Forecasts are shown to be superior to the predictions from time series models. IPOs tend to underforecast in the sense that actual profits exceed the forecasts. The rationality tests show mixed results. Cross-sectional analyses of forecast accuracy have poor explanatory power although the Big Six reporting accountants are associated with smaller forecast errors.     

Gerrymandering in personnel selection: A review of practice

Gerrymandering personnel selection systems is defined as those practices explicitly intended to improve the outcomes of individual applicants or groups of applicants to the detriment of other individuals and groups. Gerrymandering can serve a variety of purposes, such as enhancing demographic diversity, rewarding political allies, or giving hiring preference to specific individuals. This paper reviews eleven strategies for gerrymandering personnel selection systems. The strategies fall into three categories of decisions: decisions in choosing or designing personnel selection tools; decisions in scoring personnel selection tools; decisions in selecting among passing applicants. Perspectives on the appropriateness and ethics of gerrymandering are then reviewed.     

The Constitution and liberty1

The present drive for piecemeal constitutional change in Britain is ‘unprecedented in a thousand years of history’. Many of the proposed changes are ‘superfluous and irresponsible’. The one change which could be justified - removing the anti-Catholic provisions of the Act of Settlement - is not on the agenda. We should try to retain the foundations of the Constitution on which liberties rest.     

Optimal growth and stages in the balance of payments

The standard economic development literature posits the existence of stages in the balance of payments accounts through which countries pass as part of the development process. This paper presents an optimal growth model of an open economy in which no such stage tendencies exist. It then discusses applications and implications for the real world.     

THE LONG‐RUN PERFORMANCE OF COMPANIES THAT WITHDRAW SEASONED EQUITY OFFERINGS

We examine the long‐run stock price and operating performance of companies that withdraw seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). Firms that withdraw an offering provide an opportunity to examine whether markets fully adjust to the information conveyed when managers announce the intent to issue shares, independent of any agency problems that might be intensified by the completion of the offering. As in completed seasoned equity offerings, long‐horizon event‐time operating and stock price performance in sample firms is substantially lower than what is observed among control firms. Underperformance is also observed in an equally weighted calendar‐time analysis. Results are consistent with overpricing among small firms that attempt, but then withdraw, SEOs.