Compulsory schooling laws and school crime

Extensive literature demonstrates that compulsory schooling laws improve educational attainment, well-being, civic involvement, and labour market outcomes. However, at-risk youth incapacitated to schools may impact the learning environment and school safety. The purpose of this article is to study whether raising the minimum dropout age (MDA) requirement above 16 increases crime committed within US public high schools. A difference-in-difference estimation exploits changes in state-level MDA laws over time and indicates that schools in states that raise their MDA requirement to 18 incur more overall crime relative to schools in states that do not, while no effect on overall crime is identified when the MDA requirement is raised to 17. Furthermore, these effects persist for 4 years after passage and more intensely in metropolitan areas. Coupling this research with existing literature suggests that when the MDA requirement is raised to 18, only a small portion of the observed reduction in juvenile crime is displaced to schools. Analysis by category of crime reveals schools incur more physical attacks, no change in illegal drug and property crimes, and fewer violent crimes in states that raise their MDA requirement to 18, while illegal drug crimes increase in states that raise their MDA requirement to 17.     

Dictator monopolies and essential goods: experimental evidence

Monopolists set prices and if the good is unessential this may place the consumer in an uncomfortable position. But if the good is essential the consumer faces a pay-to-live or -die choice. Dictator and ultimatum games are superficially similar in that one game offers the right of refusal, while the other does not. The dictator monopoly is, however, not a game, and behaviour could be radically different in the market environment versus game environment. We recast the dictator game as a dictator monopoly experiment and find that the fairness characteristic of the game evaporates quickly as rounds progress.     

Optimal fertility along the life cycle

We explore the optimal fertility timing in a four-period OLG economy with physical capital, whose specificity is to include not one, but two reproduction periods. It is shown that, for a given total fertility rate, the economy exhibits quite different dynamics, depending on the timing of births. If all births take place in the late reproduction period, there exists no stable stationary equilibrium and the economy exhibits cyclical dynamics due to labor growth fluctuations. We characterize the long-run social optimum and show that optimal consumptions and capital depend on the optimal cohort growth factor, so that there is no one-to-one substitutability between early and late fertility. We also extend Samuelson’s Serendipity Theorem to our economy and study the robustness of our results to: (1) endogenizing fertility timing, (2) assuming rational anticipations about factor prices, (3) adding a third reproduction period.     

Matching using semiparametric propensity scores

This paper considers the application of semiparametric methods to estimate propensity scores or probabilities of program participation, which are central to certain program evaluation methods. To evaluate the practical benefits, we first conduct a Monte Carlo study. Second, we use data from the NSW experiment, CPS, and PSID. We compare treatment effect and evaluation bias estimates using propensity scores estimated from parametric logit, semiparametric single index, and semiparametric binary quantile regression models. Our results suggest that it is important to account for very general forms of heterogeneity in (semiparametric) estimation of the propensity score, particularly when the treatment effects vary in an unsystematic manner with the true propensity score.     

利比亚危机下中国承包商的应对策略——不可抗力影响下的暂停、终止、索赔与没收保函风险防范

2011年2月,席卷阿拉伯世界的动乱在利比亚数个城市爆发,并迅速演变为政府和反政府力量之间的武装冲突。中国在利比亚至少有27个项目遭到袭击和抢劫。为此,中国政府在利比亚迅速而高效地组织了撤侨行动     

Control-based channel governance and relative dependence

Control and governance theories recognize that exchange partners are subject to two general forms of control, the unilateral authority of one firm and bilateral expectations extending from their social bond. In this way, a supplier both exerts unilateral, authority-based controls and is subject to socially-based, bilateral controls as it attempts to manage its brand successfully through reseller channels. Such control is being challenged by suppliers’ growing relative dependence on increasingly dominant resellers in many industries. Yet the impact of supplier relative dependence on the efficacy of control-based governance in the supplier’s channel is not well understood. To address this gap, we specify and test a control model moderated by relative dependence involving the conceptualization and measurement of governance at the level of specific control processes: incenting, monitoring, and enforcing. Our empirical findings show relative dependence undercuts the effectiveness of certain unilateral and bilateral control processes while enhancing the effectiveness of others, largely supporting our dual suppositions that each control process operates through a specialized behavioral mechanism and that these underlying mechanisms are differentially impacted by relative dependence. We offer implications of these findings for managers and identify our contributions to channel theory and research.     

FAIR RETIREMENT UNDER RISKY LIFETIME*

A premature death unexpectedly brings a life and a career to their end, leading to substantial welfare losses. We study the retirement decision in an economy with risky lifetime and compare the laissez‐faire with egalitarian social optima. We consider two social objectives: (1) the maximin on expected lifetime welfare, allowing for a compensation for unequal life expectancies, and (2) the maximin on realized lifetime welfare, allowing for a compensation for unequal lifetimes. The latter optimum involves, in general, decreasing lifetime consumption profiles as well as raising the retirement age. This result is robust to the introduction of unequal life expectancies and unequal productivities.     

Schools of thought in organizational learning

This article attempts to bring coherence to the diversity that characterizes organizational learning research. It argues that organizational learning is embedded in four schools of thought: an economic school, a managerial school, a developmental school, and a process school. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the schools, describes how they differ from each other, and outlines how each of them can be employed effectively. To demonstrate the benefits of theoretical plurality, the four schools are applied to the key marketing topics of market orientation and new product development. Implications for future research in marketing are provided. Simon J. Bell is a lecturer in marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Gregory J. Whitwell is an associate professor of marketing in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne. Bryan A. Lukas is an associate professor of marketing and director of the Master of Applied Commerce Program in the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at the University of Melbourne.