Eigenstructure,multiplier and game characterizations of administrative personnel requirements and activities

A time-and-cost accounting characterization of the structure of administrative personnel in an organization (industry) is used to relate the primary input of a Leontief economy to models of attenuation, promotion and recruitment of staff. A multiplier analysis is then utilized to obtain direct and indirect administrative load requirements. The effects of variation in wages and pattern of administrative activities on the size of the administrative component are discussed in the context of a matrix game formulation.     

When are two-stage and three-stage least squares estimators identical?

Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the numerical equivalence of the two-stage and three-stage least squares estimators in a linear simultaneous equations model. The conditions are easy to verify in any practical application.     

Co-evolutionary Dynamics Within and Between Firms: From Evolution to Co-evolution

abstract The extensive selection–adaptation literature spans diverse theoretical perspectives, but is inconclusive on the role of managerial intentionality in organizational adaptation. Indeed this voluminous literature has more to say about selection and sources and causes of structural inertia than about self‐renewing organizations that might counteract such inertia. In this introductory essay, we identify four co‐evolutionary generative mechanisms (engines) – naïve selection, managed selection, hierarchical renewal and holistic renewal – which illustrate the extensive range of evolutionary paths that can take place in a population of organizations. In particular, the managed selection engine provides the foundations of the underlying principles of co‐evolving self‐renewing organizations: managing internal rates of change, optimizing self‐organization, and balancing concurrent exploration and exploitation. However, it is altogether clear that empirical co‐evolution research represents the next frontier for empirically resolving the adaptation selection debate. The essay concludes with a discussion of requirements for co‐evolutionary empirical research and introduces the empirical papers in this Special Research Symposium.     

Interdependent welfare functions and optimal income distribution

The relationship between income distribution and social welfare is empirically analyzed, while explicitly allowing for the interdependence of individual welfare functions. The social welfare function is taken to be an additive function of individual welfare functions of income (WFIs). On the basis of Dutch data it is found that under certain conditions (such as absence of effects of income redistribution on productivity) an equal distribution of incomes is suboptimal. The interdependence of WFIs appears to have a pronounced effect on policy conclusions concerning the desirability of income redistribution vis-à-vis economic growth.     

A recommendation for applied researchers to substantiate the claim that ordinal variables are the product of underlying bivariate normal distributions

A simulation study was carried out to study the behaviour of the polychoric correlation coefficient in data not compliant with the assumption of underlying continuous variables. Such data can produce relatively high estimated polychoric correlations (in the order of .62). Applied researchers are prone to accept these artefacts as input for elaborate modelling (e.g., structural equation models) and inferences about reality justified by sheer magnitude of the correlations. In order to prevent this questionable research practice, it is recommended that in applications of the polychoric correlation coefficient, data is tested with goodness-of-fit of the BND, that such statistic is reported in published applications, and that the polychoric correlation is not applied when the test is significant.     

Workers' committees in the Israeli labour relations system: an appraisal

In recent years the workers' committees—the lowest level of trade union organization—in manufacturing industry in Israel have shown increasing disregard for their central body, the Histadrut. So far the Histadrut's attempts to stem this alienation have been unsuccessful.     

Intertemporal consumption with directly measured welfare functions and subjective expectations

Euler equation estimation of intertemporal consumption models requires many, often unverifiable assumptions. These include assumptions on expectations and preferences. We aim at reducing some of these requirements by using direct subjective information on respondents’ preferences and expectations. The results suggest that individually measured welfare functions and expectations have predictive power for the variation in consumption across households. Furthermore, estimates of the intertemporal elasticity of substitution based on the estimated welfare functions are plausible and of a similar order of magnitude as other estimates found in the literature. The model favored by the data only requires cross-section data for estimation.