The Impact of Gender Similarity on Employee Satisfaction at Work: A Review and Re‐Evaluation*

abstract We used data from the British 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS98) to examine key unanswered questions about the impact of gender similarity on employee satisfaction at work. The study sample consisted of 11,848 men and 11,278 women from over 1700 workplaces across Britain. In line with gender‐specific compositional arguments, the effects of gender similarity were found to be asymmetrical for men and women, with similarity tending to have a greater positive impact on men than on women. The effects involved were primarily linear in nature. Net of the potentially confounding influence of other factors, they were also found to be quite weak, weaker than has commonly been suggested in the literature.     

Entry costs, industry structure, and cross-country income and TFP differences

Entry costs vary dramatically across countries. To assess their impact on cross-country differences in output and TFP, we construct a model with endogenous entry and operation decisions by firms. We calibrate the model to match the U.S. distribution of employment and firms by size. Higher entry costs lead to greater misallocation of productive factors and lower TFP and output. In the model, countries in the lowest decile of the entry costs distribution have 1.32 to 1.45 times higher TFP and 1.52 to 1.75 times higher output per worker than countries in the highest decile. As in the data, higher entry costs are associated with lower entry rates and business density.     

A rapid assessment of wildlife tourism risk posed to cetaceans in Asia

Dolphin-watching tourism is growing globally. In developing countries, the typically low environmental awareness of operators and poorly enforced or non-existent regulations exacerbate risks to wildlife. Ecological indicators like behavioural responses are useful to assess wildlife tourism, but obtaining such data is slow and expensive. We modified the Driver–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework to rapidly assess the risk of dolphin-watching tourism harming, displacing or causing local extinction to dolphin populations, using human dimension data to complement limited ecological data. We assessed industries at seven dolphin-watching sites in six countries in Asia: Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. All sites have reached or almost reached financial saturation except Cambodia and Malaysia. We find high risk to dolphins at the sites in India and Indonesia and intermediate risk at the site in Cambodia. Pending more ecological data, the risk at Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysian sites might be low. Our analysis also indicates site-specific conservation recommendations for Driver, Pressure and Response. We suggest that the DPSIR framework is useful to assess the risk of a wildlife watching industry, even when the impact is uncertain due to insufficient ecological data.     

Design efficiency for non‐market valuation with choice modelling: how to measure it,what to report and why*

We review the basic principles for the evaluation of design efficiency in discrete choice modelling with a focus on efficiency of WTP estimates from the multinomial logit model. The discussion is developed under the realistic assumption that researchers can plausibly define a prior belief on the range of values for the utility coefficients. D‐, A‐, B‐, S‐ and C‐errors are compared as measures of design performance in applied studies and their rationale is discussed. An empirical example based on the generation and comparison of fifteen separate designs from a common set of assumptions illustrates the relevant considerations to the context of non‐market valuation, with particular emphasis placed on C‐efficiency. Conclusions are drawn for the practice of reporting in non‐market valuation and for future work on design research.     

Optimal safety stock levels of subassemblies and manufacturing components

In order to control the time to market and manufacturing costs, companies produce and purchase many parts and components before receiving customer orders. Consequently, demand forecasting is a critical decision process. Using modular product design and super bills of materials are two effective strategies for developing a reliable demand forecasting process. They reduce the probability of stockouts in diversified production contexts. Furthermore, managing and controlling safety stocks for pre-assembled modules provide an effective solution to the problem of minimizing the effects of forecast errors. This paper develops, evaluates, and applies innovative cost-based analytical models so that the optimal safety stock of modular subassemblies and components in assembly to order and manufacturing to order systems, respectively, can be rapidly quantified. The implementation of the proposed models in two industrial case applications demonstrates that they significantly reduce the safety stock inventory levels and the global logistical cost.     

Deriving and Testing Efficient Estimates of WTP Distributions in Destination Choice Models

Estimation of welfare measures is often a dominant driver in the empirical literature on nonmarket valuation. To this end, qualitative choice models based on random utility theory have been widely employed in outdoor recreation studies. A frequent goal of applied studies has been the estimation of welfare changes associated with site attribute changes at recreation sites in order to inform regulatory policy and resource management. We review the evolution of the methodology of random utility theory in this field with a focus on taste heterogeneity models and then focus on the recent proposal of specifying utility in the WTP-space (Train K, Weeks M (2005) Discrete choice models in preference space and willing-to-pay space. In: Scarpa R, Alberini A (eds) Applications of simulation methods in environmental and resource economics, chapter 1. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1–16). Our empirical application is on outdoor alpine recreation data. We emphasize the efficiency and direct testing that using the maximum simulated likelihood estimator affords to practitioners using the WTP-space approach, and illustrate these with examples.     

The Italian Banking Structure in the 1990s: Testing the Multimarket Contact Hypothesis

The multimarket contact hypothesis holds that more contacts between firms competing in the same markets may induce more collusion. This paper tests the hypothesis for the Italian banking market, analysing the behaviour of the largest Italian banks from 1990 to 1996. Market rivalry is gauged by changes in loan market shares and interest rates in each Italian province. We estimate the effects of increasing multimarket contacts, concentration indicators, banks' costs and loan demand on variations in market shares and interest rates. No support is found for the multimarket contact hypothesis. Geographical overlap in banking is positively correlated with changes in market shares, confirming the thesis of an overall increase in competition within the Italian banking system. Greater multimarket links also seem to correspond to lower lending rates.
(J.E.L.:G21, C33, L40.)     

Exchange Rate Management and the External Debt Burden: The Case of the Philippines

The paper develops a simple macroeconomic model which is then estimated for the Philippines. Econometric evidence shows that Philippines monetary authorities have been reluctant to allow a real devaluation, because of a large public external debt and for the fear of fueling inflation. Simulations show that, while an overvalued exchange rate may bring some benefits in the form of lower inflation and improved budgetary performance, its current account costs may be significant. Brady-like deals can reduce fiscal imbalances, limit the sensitivity of fiscal aggregates to the exchange rate, and increase the benefits of a more aggressive exchange rate policy.     

New firm location: An equilibrium model and its disequilibrium dynamics

This paper is centered on two basic statements: i) the birth of new firms is spatially related to location factors endowment and ii) the set of location factors can support only up to a given number of firms.The paper firstly defines the regional ex-ante demand for firms as a function of location factors set. In the following step a definition of regional equilibrium stock of firms is given and a static equilibrium model of new firms birth is built up. In a dynamic disequilibrium model the net birth of firms is a function of two disequilibrium terms: a sectoral and a regional one.The sectoral disequilibrium depends on the industry production structure, the regional disequilibrium is linked to the adaptation elasticity of location factors set to an exogenous shock.Finally, a first estimation on Italian data is performed, on the basis of which some new lines of analysis are suggested.