The gender difference in wages and the returns to schooling over the great recession in the U.S.

This paper examines the effects of the Great Recession on the gender difference in hourly wage and the rate of return to schooling in the United States. Using data from American Community Survey 2000–2015, we find that the male-female difference in hourly wage declined during and after the recession. The Great Recession decreased earnings for both men and women, especially for those with more education. We also find there is a significant gender difference in the effects of the Great Recession on the returns to schooling. The Great Recession increased the rate of return to schooling for both men and women, and the female-male difference in the returns to schooling decreased by 0.4 percentage points in the post-recession period. The change of the gender difference in the returns to schooling can be explained by the wage structure change for men and women over the recession.     

Prospect theory and liquidation decisions

We solve a liquidation problem for an agent with preferences consistent with the prospect theory of Kahneman and Tversky [Econometrica 47 (1979) 263-291]. We find that the agent is willing to hold a risky project with a relatively inferior Sharpe ratio if the project is currently making losses, and intends to liquidate it when it breaks even. On the other hand, the agent may liquidate a project with a relatively superior Sharpe ratio if its current profits rise or drop to the break-even point. Our results capture the spirit of the disposition effect and the break-even effect documented in empirical and experimental studies.     

Common inventory modeling assumptions that fall short: Arborescent networks, Poisson demand, and single-echelon approximations

Traditional multi-echelon inventory theory focuses on arborescent supply chains that use a central warehouse which replenishes remote warehouses. The remote warehouses serve customers in their respective regions. Common assumptions in the academic literature include use of the Poisson demand process and instantaneous unit-by-unit replenishment. In the practitioner literature, single-echelon approximations are advised for setting safety stock to deal with lead time, demand, and supply variations in these settings. Using data from a U.S. supplier of home improvement products, we find that neither the assumptions from the academic literature nor the approximations from the practitioner literature necessarily work well in practice.In a variation of the strictly arborescent supply chain, the central warehouse at our real company not only replenishes other warehouses but also meets demand from customers in the region near the central warehouse. In this paper, we study this dual-role central warehouse structure, which we believe is common in practice. Using high and low volume product demand data from this company, we use Monte Carlo simulations to study the impact of (1) the use of a dual-role centralized warehouse, (2) common demand assumptions made in multi-echelon research, and (3) single-echelon approximations for managing a multi-echelon supply chain. We explore each of these under both centralized and decentralized control logic. We find that the common assumptions of theoretical models impede their usefulness and that heuristics that ignore the actual supply chain structure fail to account for additional opportunities to utilize safety stock more effectively. Researchers should be aware of the gap between standard assumptions in traditional literature and actual practice, and critically evaluate their assumptions to find a reasonable balance between tractability and relevance.     

An analysis of bundle pricing in horizontal and vertical markets: The case of the U.S. cottonseed market

The U.S. cottonseed market has seen the rapid development and adoption of seeds with differing bundles of genetically modified (GM) traits. It has also seen an increase in vertical integration by biotechnology firms. In this article, we investigate the price impacts associated with structural changes in the U.S. cottonseed market from 2002 to 2007. We develop a structural model to examine the substitution/complementarity relationships among cottonseeds sold with different genetic trait bundles and under different vertical arrangements. We examine the price impacts emanating from product differentiation, market concentration, and market size. The econometric investigation finds evidence of subadditive bundle pricing in patented biotech traits. While higher own‐market concentrations are found to be associated with higher prices, we also uncover evidence of cross‐product complementarity effects that lead to lower prices. Simulations are used to evaluate net price effects, illustrating the usefulness of the approach in the analysis of changing market structures.     

惠特沃斯全球商业和管理学院——中美应携手投资非洲

美国的政策制定者们总是认为,他们的首要任务之一,就是减少日益膨胀的对华贸易赤字——这一问题导致美国每天背负逾10亿美元的债务。不过,美国将中国问题视为当务之急,可能带来更大的"机会成本"——美国丧失在世界其     

Contracts,Negotiation, and Learning: An Examination of Termination Provisions

Taking a temporal view of learning in partnerships, we argue that learning to contract from prior relationships can be manifested not only in an increase in the level of contractual detail but also in a decrease in negotiation time for a given level of contractual detail. We analyse the influence that the length of prior relationships and the detail of termination provisions have on negotiation time, or the time period that it takes for partners to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. We find that: (1) the length of prior relationships has a curvilinear, U‐shaped effect on negotiation time, suggesting the possibility of diverse learning mechanisms as the relationship unfolds; (2) the impact of the detail of termination provisions on negotiation time varies across different types of termination provisions; and (3) it takes a shorter time to negotiate certain types of termination provisions when partners have longer prior relationships. Beyond suggesting the need to investigate the consequences of contractual provisions for collaborators, our study proposes negotiation time as an additional indicator of a learning‐to‐contract effect that complements existing ones.     

You can't leave your work behind: Employment experience and founding collaborations

It is well known that founders typically seek assistance for their fledgling ventures, but what remains unclear are the reasons why some founders collaborate with more people than others in their startup efforts. Our study investigates the link between employment experience and the extent to which founders depend on others for assistance when starting businesses. Employment experience provides founders with opportunities to be exposed to and develop preferences for particular work environments and the conditions associated with certain organizational roles. Drawing on occupational socialization theory, we investigate why employment experience predicts founding collaboration size. Our analysis of a nationally representative sample of early-stage business founders in the United States reveals that the amount of business experience and the defining social and analytical requirements of a founder's occupational background affect the number of people founders choose to involve in their founding efforts in opposite ways: While founders possessing venture-specific industry experience are more likely to opt for solo ventures or smaller collaborations, founders with backgrounds in highly interactive occupations are more likely to recruit more collaborators as co-owners. We found this preference for collaboration is strengthened for founders with occupational backgrounds that called for both interactive and analytical work. Our findings have theoretical and practical implications on how founders' experience influences the extent to which they initiate collaborations with others.     

The future of food demand: understanding differences in global economic models

Understanding the capacity of agricultural systems to feed the world population under climate change requires projecting future food demand. This article reviews demand modeling approaches from 10 global economic models participating in the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP). We compare food demand projections in 2050 for various regions and agricultural products under harmonized scenarios of socioeconomic development, climate change, and bioenergy expansion. In the reference scenario (SSP2), food demand increases by 59–98% between 2005 and 2050, slightly higher than the most recent FAO projection of 54% from 2005/2007. The range of results is large, in particular for animal calories (between 61% and 144%), caused by differences in demand systems specifications, and in income and price elasticities. The results are more sensitive to socioeconomic assumptions than to climate change or bioenergy scenarios. When considering a world with higher population and lower economic growth (SSP3), consumption per capita drops on average by 9% for crops and 18% for livestock. The maximum effect of climate change on calorie availability is ?6% at the global level, and the effect of biofuel production on calorie availability is even smaller.