A study of the effect of age and gender upon student business ethics

The present survey was voluntarily and anonymously completed by 2,196 students enrolled in business courses at the University of Southern Mississippi. The intent of the survey was to determine whether or not age or gender played a role in a person's perception of proper ethical conduct.The findings suggests that gender is a significant factor in the determination of ethical conduct and that females are more ethical than males in their perception of business ethical situations.Students were divided into groups according to age as follows: under 21 years, 22–30 years, 31–40 years, and 40 plus years. The results of this survey also suggest that age is a determining factor in making ethical decisions. The statistics suggest that those students falling in the 40 plus years age group were the most ethical, followed in order by the 31–40 group, the 22–30 group and those of 21 years of age and under.Durwood Ruegger is currently an Associate Professor of Finance and General Business at the University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to joining the University, he was a practicing attorney and former municipal judge. His publications have appeared in theJournal of Health and Human Resources Administration, Labor Law Journal, Business Insights, andThe Practical Real Estate Lawyer.Ernest W. King is an Assistant Professor of Finance and General Business at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is a member of the Florida and Washington, D.C. Bars. His publications have appeared inBusiness Insights, Nursing Administration Quarterly, and theCPCU Journal.     

Time Series Concepts for Conditional Distributions*

The paper asks the question – as time series analysis moves from consideration of conditional mean values and variances to unconditional distributions, do some of the familiar concepts devised for the first two moments continue to be helpful in the more general area? Most seem to generalize fairly easy, such as the concepts of breaks, seasonality, trends and regime switching. Forecasting is more difficult, as forecasts become distributions, as do forecast errors. Persistence can be defined and also common factors by using the idea of a copula. Aggregation is more difficult but causality and controllability can be defined. The study of the time series of quantiles becomes more relevant.     

Quasi‐rational and ex ante price expectations in commodity supply models: an empirical analysis of the US broiler market

A statistically optimal inference about agents' ex ante price expectations within the US broiler market is derived using futures prices of related commodities along with a quasi‐rational forecasting regression equation. The modelling approach, which builds on a Hamilton‐type framework, includes endogenous production and allows expected cash price to be decomposed into anticipated and unanticipated components. We therefore infer the relative importance of various informational sources in expectation formation. Results show that, in addition to the quasi‐rational forecast, the true supply shock, future prices, and ex post commodity price forecast errors have, at times, been influential in broiler producers' price expectations. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hazardous waste disposal: A comparative analysis of regulation,taxes and subsidies

This paper contains a critique of existing legislation which deals with hazardous waste disposal and expands on the efforts made by the Office of Technology Assessment and other economists to develop a public policy which will deal effectively with the problems associated with hazardous waste generation and disposal. A new policy is set forth here which encourages both waste reduction and safe disposal while providing revenue to pay for cleanups at Superfund sites.     

UNIT MANAGEMENT BUYOUTS, STOCKHOLDER WEALTH, AND SELLING FIRMS' CHARACTERISTICS

Previous research on unit management buyouts, UMBs, has shown that selling firms benefit from the selloff transaction. The current research demonstrates that when the selling firm has either poor liquidity or poor earnings, selling firm shareholders do not benefit as much. We hypothesize that the unit managers have knowledge about the selling firm's difficulties so they do not pay as large a premium for the assets. Since the unit managers technically are employed by the selling firm shareholders, their bargaining to achieve a better price is an agency cost. Finally, selloff frequency does not affect seller abnormal returns.     

The impact of a shift in organizational role on ethical perceptions: A comparative study

This study investigates ethical decision-making by considering the differences in ethical judgments between undergraduate business and MBA students on selected ethical issues facing employees and managers of today's businesses. The study further investigates differences in ethical judgments between undergraduates and MBAs in terms of a perceived position as an employee or as a manager. The findings indicate that undergraduate students tend to be more ethical than MBA students and that both groups tend to be more ethical when they perceive themselves as managers rather than employees. The authors discuss the implications for both business practitioners and educators.Shohreh A. Kaynama is Associate Professor of Marketing in the School of Business and Economics at Towson State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned a Ph.D. in Marketing and the Decision Sciences. Dr. Kaynama has published extensively in numerous National and International proceedings. Her area of research is strategic marketing, consumer behavior, applications of computers and decision sciences in marketing and global marketing. Louise W. Smith is Professor of Marketing in the School of Business and Economics at Towson State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Smith's main professional interest is consumer behavior. Dr. Smith's articles have appeared in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Health Care Marketing, Journal of Marketing Education, Journal of Services Marketing, and Journal of Consumer Marketing among others. Algin B. King is Professor of Marketing in the School of Business and Economics at Towson State University in Baltimore, Maryland. He has served on the Faculties of seven universities, publishing numerous articles in National Professional Meetings Proceedings and scholarly journals including Journal of Euro-Marketing, Atlantic Economic Journal. In addition he has served as a business consultant to numerous business firms.     

The local economic impact of construction projects in a small and relatively self-contained economy: The case of Lancaster University

Whilst the local multiplier impacts of the annual operation of universities has been the subject of intensive research, the economic impacts of capital construction projects have been almost completely ignored. This paper presents the results of detailed analysis of capital projects at Lancaster University in 1993-The reasons for the radically different annual operation and construction multipliers estimated in the Lancaster study are examined. Despite the smaller size of construction multipliers it is argued that it is a serious mistake to estimate local construction multipliers by making simplifying assumptions on the size of the key parameters in the multiplier equations.