Marketing Genius: The Impact of Educational Claims and Cues on Parents' Reactions to Infant/Toddler DVDs

Infant/toddler‐directed DVDs have become commonplace in American homes. Most of these DVDs carry direct claims or implied cues of educational benefit, despite complaints from the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood and others regarding a lack of confirmatory research. Using a DVD package created for this study, this experiment tested the impact of DVD brand name, educational claim specificity, and a personality dimension (i.e., regulatory focus orientation) on parents' perceptions of educational value and purchase intentions. Parents reacted similarly to specific and ambiguous educational statements, but gave higher educational value estimations when the brand name had an educational cue. An interaction suggested that the effect of the claim outcome specificity depended on the claim verb specificity. Parents with a strong focus on pursuing possible rewards (promotion focus) had higher perceptions of educational value and stronger desires to purchase the DVD. Implications for policy and further research are discussed.     

Do PCAOB Inspections Improve the Accuracy of Accounting Estimates?

Despite issuing extensive guidance related to the evaluation of accounting estimates, the PCAOB continues to identify deficiencies related to the audit of estimates through their inspections process. We examine whether PCAOB inspections lead to more accurate audited accounting estimates, defined as those that more closely match economic reality, by examining a significant estimate within the banking industry. We find that in contrast with the PCAOB's goal of more accurate and unbiased estimates, allowance for loan losses (ALL) estimates become less accurate and more conservative with higher levels of ALL‐related inspection findings for public company audits. We find no evidence of auditor response to PCAOB inspection findings for private‐company audits, which are not subject to PCAOB inspection. Overall, our findings cast doubt on the efficacy of PCAOB inspections in improving estimate accuracy and suggest that firms are managing inspection risk to the potential detriment of audit quality.     

Evaluating the Macroeconomic Effects of the ECB's Unconventional Monetary Policies

We quantify the macroeconomic effects of the European Central Bank's unconventional monetary policies using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model which includes a set of shadow interest rates. Extracted from the yield curve, these shadow rates provide unconstrained measures of the overall stance of monetary policy. Counterfactual analyses show that, without unconventional measures, the euro area would have suffered (i) a substantial loss of output since the Great Recession and (ii) a period of deflation from mid‐2015 to early 2017. Specifically, year‐on‐year inflation and GDP growth would have been on average about 0.61% and 1.09% below their actual levels over the period 2014Q1–17Q2, respectively.     

The Politics of Land Reform: Tenure and Political Authority in Rural Kwazulu-Natal

When South Africa's land reform programme finally reached rural Umbumbulu, a potential for conflict over land emerged unexpectedly. Strategically located near a major urban centre, residents of this region have long relied on wages and social welfare grants. Land was valued primarily for residential security and as a symbolic representation of community membership, rather than for productive purposes. This emphasis on community membership, however, created the potential for conflict when a local chief challenged a civil society group over their authority to claim land. With the government's continued hesitancy to challenge the authority of chiefs, land reform provided an opportunity for local chiefs to reinforce their position and potentially to expand the amount of land under their jurisdiction. This agenda conflicted both with the government's interest in developing commercial agriculture and local residents' desire for rural land as security in the context of high levels of unemployment.     

Manager‐Specific Effects on Earnings Guidance: An Analysis of Top Executive Turnovers

We investigate how managers contribute to the provision of earnings guidance by examining the association between top executive turnovers and guidance. Although firm and industry characteristics are important determinants of guidance, we conclude that CEOs participate in firm‐level policy decisions, whereas CFOs are involved in the formation or discussion of guidance. Among firms that historically issued frequent guidance, breaks in guidance following CEO turnovers are relatively permanent and are potentially attributable to firm‐initiated changes in guidance policy. Breaks following CFO turnovers, however, likely reflect uncertainty on the part of the newly appointed executive—they are concentrated in the two quarters following the turnover, are associated with the background of the newly appointed CFO, and extend to the relative precision of the guidance. Among firms that did not issue guidance historically, we find some evidence that newly appointed externally hired CEOs increase the likelihood of providing guidance.     

The Contribution of Intermittent Labour Force Participation to the Gender Wage Differential*

Despite equal pay decisions in 1969 and 1972 a gender wage differential of around 15 per cent exists in 1990. This paper uses information on the number of years worked from the 1984 National Social Science Survey to provide an understanding of the role of intermittent labour force participation in the wage determination process in Australia. Differences in years worked between males and females are shown to account for approximately 40 per cent of the gender wage gap. The analyses also reveal that males receive higher returns for each additional year of schooling than females