The Expectations Hypothesis of the Term Structure and Time-Varying Risk Premia: a Panel Data Approach

One implication of the expectations hypothesis is that the yield spread should forecast subsequent changes in the long yield. However, regression tests based on this specification strongly reject the expectations hypothesis. One explanation for this rejection is that these tests fail to allow for a time varying risk premium that is correlated with this yield spread, leading to a bias in the estimated regression coefficients. This paper uses panel data in order to testm the expectations hypothesis under the assumption that risk premia are time-varying but driven by a single factor. It is found that while the expectations hypothesis is still rejected, the bias in the estimated coefficient is verysubstantially reduced.     

Do managers make takeover financing decisions that circumvent more effective outside blockholders?

Consistent with agency theory, we find that bidder managers make takeover financing decisions in ways that circumvent more effective monitors. Bidder managers are more likely to use cash rather than stock when targets have aggressive outside blockholders. We also find that the likelihood of a cash offer decreases when aggressive outside bidder block ownership is relatively low. However, the likelihood of a cash offer increases when aggressive outside bidder blockholding is in the intermediate range, a range of ownership where their continued influence over managerial decisions is threatened by a stock offer. Furthermore, we find that bidder management tends to use cash when its outside bidder blockholders are less aggressive. Overall, our findings indicate that managerial decisions on financing takeovers are motivated to prevent aggressive outside blockholders from gaining more control.     

A note on the incompatibility of strategy-proofness and Pareto-optimality in quasi-linear settings with public budgets

We show that any deterministic mechanism, for allocating identical items that are complements to budget-constrained bidders, cannot simultaneously satisfy individual-rationality, strategy-proofness, Pareto-efficiency, and no-positive-transfers. This holds even for two bidders, two items, and commonly-known budgets, and generalizes to richer settings.     

Constructing Multi‐Country Rational Expectations Models

This article considers some of the technical issues involved in using the global vector autoregression (GVAR) approach to construct a multi‐country rational expectations (RE) model and illustrates them with a new Keynesian model for 33 countries estimated with quarterly data over the period 1980–2011. The issues considered are: the measurement of steady states; the determination of exchange rates and the specification of the short‐run country‐specific models; the identification and estimation of the model subject to the theoretical constraints required for a determinate rational expectations solution; the solution of a large RE model; the structure and estimation of the covariance matrix and the simulation of shocks. The model used as an illustration shows that global demand and supply shocks are the most important drivers of output, inflation and interest rates in the long run. By contrast, monetary or exchange rate shocks have only a short‐run impact in the evolution of the world economy. The article also shows the importance of international connections, directly as well as indirectly through spillover effects. Overall, ignoring global inter‐connections as country‐specific models do, could give rise to misleading conclusions.     

Gender-Based Vicarious Sensitivity to Disempowering Behavior in Organizations: Exploring an Expanded Concept of Hostile Working Environment

The purpose of this study was to explore evidence of gender-based vicarious sensitivity to disempowering behavior in organizations, expanding the concept of hostile working environment beyond the context of sexual harassment. Male and female graduate and undergraduate students viewed 10 video segments of Anita Hill's interview by U.S. senators during the October 1991 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Nominee, Clarence Thomas. Although no significant relationship was found between the personal attributes of age and ethnicity to perceptions of disempowering behavior, female participants reported seeing significantly more offensive behavior in the video segments than did male participants. The results are discussed in terms of greater female sensitivity to common forms of disempowering behavior in organizations, and having a disparate negative impact and systematically placing women at a disadvantage in today's workforce.     

When an NGO Takes on Public Participation: Preparing a Plan for a Neighborhood in East Jerusalem

It is often non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) that promote empowered participation processes, and assume active roles in leading them. However, the ability of NGOs to take on such processes is under‐theorized. In many cases empowered participation involving NGOs takes place without political support from above (or with limited or conditional support). Our goal in this article is to use a case study of participatory planning in East Jerusalem to theorize processes of empowerment in an oppositional political environment. We argue that it is useful to analyze such processes of empowered participation through the concept of power. We describe the process of empowerment as a speculative process in which the NGO has to hedge two mediums of power: it has to build the power of the community to discuss its own goals; and it has to simultaneously manage the transfer of decision‐making power from government bodies to the community.     

Consultation and communication in family businesses in Great Britain

Nationally representative data on family businesses are available in the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, alongside comparable information for other types of firms. We use these data to compare differences in the use of different consultation and communication procedures. We cover such practices as the use of direct communication schemes (e.g. briefings; the provision of information on financial performance to the workforce) as opposed to indirect methods such as the use of joint consultative committees. There is an a priori expectation in the literature that family-owned businesses are either more likely to use direct forms of communication (vis-à-vis indirect forms) or that they will not be involved in direct communication or consultation with their employees, and we test this using multivariate techniques. Finally, we consider whether the type of consultation/communication structure matters in terms of establishment performance, and what differences exist with respect to family-owned businesses. In particular, this paper tests if those firms that consult directly with staff, as opposed to those that consult through joint consultative committees or trade unions, have higher productivity and/or other measures of performance. Concurrently we test whether there are separate ‘family business’ effects or whether it is generally establishment size that ‘matters’, by estimating a model for family-owned and non-family-owned establishments. In general, our results show that not only do family-owned establishments have lower levels of communication and consultation, but, when the latter is present, this does not generally translate into greater economic benefits (as is the case in non-family-owned firms).     

The coffee-machine system: how international selection really works

The literature on expatriate selection tends to present lists of criteria, with the implicit assumption that the process is formal and rational. The limited empirical work there is in this area suggests that these criteria have little impact on selection in practice. This paper argues that a deeper understanding of selection systems is needed and presents research showing the outcomes of different kinds of systems, suggesting that closed, informal systems predominate and outlining the practical and research implications of such systems.     

A systematic review of cost-effectiveness modeling of pharmaceutical therapies in neuropathic pain: variation in practice,key challenges,and recommendations for the future

Objectives: Complexities in the neuropathic-pain care pathway make the condition difficult to manage and difficult to capture in cost-effectiveness models. The aim of this study is to understand, through a systematic review of previous cost-effectiveness studies, some of the key strengths and limitations in data and modeling practices in neuropathic pain. Thus, the aim is to guide future research and practice to improve resource allocation decisions and encourage continued investment to find novel and effective treatments for patients with neuropathic pain.

Methods: The search strategy was designed to identify peer-reviewed cost-effectiveness evaluations of non-surgical, pharmaceutical therapies for neuropathic pain published since January 2000, accessing five key databases. All identified publications were reviewed and screened according to pre-defined eligibility criteria. Data extraction was designed to reflect key data challenges and approaches to modeling in neuropathic pain and based on published guidelines.

Results: The search strategy identified 20 cost-effectiveness analyses meeting the inclusion criteria, of which 14 had original model structures. Cost-effectiveness modeling in neuropathic pain is established and increasing across multiple jurisdictions; however, amongst these studies, there is substantial variation in modeling approach, and there are common limitations. Capturing the effect of treatments upon health outcomes, particularly health-related quality-of-life, is challenging, and the health effects of multiple lines of ineffective treatment, common for patients with neuropathic pain, have not been consistently or robustly modeled.

Conclusions: To improve future economic modeling in neuropathic pain, further research is suggested into the effect of multiple lines of treatment and treatment failure upon patient outcomes and subsequent treatment effectiveness; the impact of treatment-emergent adverse events upon patient outcomes; and consistent and appropriate pain measures to inform models. The authors further encourage transparent reporting of inputs used to inform cost-effectiveness models, with robust, comprehensive and clear uncertainty analysis and, where feasible, open-source modeling is encouraged.