THE IMPACT OF PROVIDER AVAILABILITY ON ABORTION DEMAND

Variations in the availability of abortion providers may impact the demand for abortions since greater provider availability reduces the travel cost associated with acquiring an abortion. This paper applies a fertility-control model to estimate the responsiveness of abortion demand to travel-cost variations using county-level data on the state of Texas. Abortion rates as well as pregnancy rates appear to be sensitive to availability-induced variations in the travel cost of abortion services. In particular, the results suggest that residents in counties with longer travel distances to the nearest abortion provider have lower abortion rates and lower pregnancy rates.     

ESTIMATED MACROECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE U.S. STIMULUS BILL

This paper uses a multicountry macroeconometric model to estimate the macroeconomic effects of the U.S. stimulus bill passed in February 2009. The analysis has the advantage of taking into account many endogenous effects. Real U.S. output is estimated to be $554 billion larger when summed over the 12‐year period 2009:1–2020:4 (0.29% of the total sum of output). The average number of jobs is 509 thousand larger (0.37%). There is some redistribution of output and employment away from 2012 to 2015. At the end of 2020, the federal government debt is larger by $637 billion in real terms (the debt/GDP ratio is larger by 3.19 percentage points), which may increase the risk of negative asset‐market reactions. (JEL E17)     

The Role of Accruals in Asymmetrically Timely Gain and Loss Recognition

We investigate the role of accrual accounting in the asymmetrically timely recognition (incorporation in reported earnings) of gains and losses. Timely recognition requires accruals when it precedes complete realization of the gains and losses in cash. We show that nonlinear accruals models incorporating the asymmetry in gain and loss recognition (timelier loss recognition, or conditional conservatism) offer a substantial specification improvement, explaining substantially more variation in accruals than equivalent linear specifications. Conversely, conventional linear accruals models, by omitting the loss recognition asymmetry, exhibit substantial attenuation bias and offer a comparatively poor specification of the accounting accrual process. Linear specifications also understate the ability of current earnings to predict future cash flows. These findings have implications for our understanding of accrual accounting and conservatism, as well as for researchers estimating discretionary accruals, earnings management, and earnings quality.     

The Future Role of Government in Industrial Relations

The future role of government in industrial relations depends on the choices made by employers, workers, and especially governments. Technological change and internationalization have reduced the viability of both Keynesian economics and the mass production system, once integrally related to the industrial relations systems of industrialized democracies after the 1930s. Economic success will require new policies and high-performance systems more appropriate for a global, knowledge-intensive economic environment     

FOREIGN TAKEOVERS AND NEW INVESTMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

This study is unique in several respects. First, it reviews the characteristics of the top 10 industries targeted for foreign direct investment (FDI) activity in the United States between 1979 and 1987. It analyzes both overall FDI activity and new plant and expansion FDI activity. The study summarizes and tests alternative hypotheses regarding the determinants of FDI in the United States by all countries, by the United Kingdom, by the European Community, by Japan, and by Canada.
Large and growing product markets in an expanding economy have attracted FDI in the United States. Exchange rate movements have prompted opportunistic decisions to invest in U.S. production facilities. Investors' superior management skills appear to have prompted takeovers, while efforts to realize technological advantages of new physical capital and of relatively large operating plants have fostered plant and expansion investments.
Evidence exists that a desire to circumvent current—but not potential—trade restrictions has motivated foreign direct investment. FDI activities are not associated with concentrated or heavily unionized industries. Highly protected industries have attracted heavier equity FDI by Japan and heavier new plant FDI by all sources and Canada. No evidence exists that FDI in the United States by Japan or anyone else is targeted to undercut union-dominated firms or to arrest the spread of protectionist trade policies.     

The Effects of State Risk and Controllability Filters on Compensation Contract and Effort Choice

Surveys of business firms in the U.S.A. indicate that standard-based compensation contracts are common in practice. Analytical studies of this form of contract have suggested that under conditions of state risk, an employee's contract and effort choice are significantly affected by how pay relates to measured performance, and whether the compensation contract filters out the effects on measured performance of factors beyond the employee's control. This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment indicating that in the presence of state risk, an individual's choice of compensation contract depends jointly on these two contract attributes and his/her risk preference as well as performance capability. The findings also indicate that actual effort is a function of the realized state, the presence/absence of a controllability filter, and the level at which the individual had expected to perform at the time of his/her contract selection. When an adverse state was realized, subjects without a controllability filter still exerted the level of effort that they had expected at contract selection, even though their marginal return to effort had been substantially reduced. On the other hand, when the controllability filter was absent, subjects who had a favourable realized state increased their effort in response to the increased marginal return to effort.     

Differences in Spending Habits and Credit Use of College Students

In a study of college students, affective credit attitude (feeling about using credit cards) and gender influenced college students' credit purchasing. Affective credit attitude predicted the purchase of clothing, electronics, entertainment, travel, gasoline, and food away from home. Females purchased clothing; males purchased electronics, entertainment, and food away from home. Gender was more influential in predicting financial management practices than was affective credit attitude, with female students employing a greater number of financial practices. A path analysis model showed gender differences in the relationship between financial practices, financial stress, affective credit attitude, and the number of credit cards with a balance.