Unemployment Duration and Inflows onto the Disability Support Pension Program: Evidence from FaCS LDS Data

From the administrative data of the Australian Department of Family and Community Services it is found that a large proportion of Disability Support Pension (DSP) recipients transferred from unemployment benefits. Among those who transferred to DSP from unemployment benefits, a large proportion experienced multiple spells of income support receipt prior to the transition and a majority had more than a half‐year pre‐transition unemployment duration, with the average pre‐transition unemployment duration being more than one year. These findings suggest that the unemployment benefit is not simply a‘hold‐on’ benefit for those who experienced the unemployment—DSP transition. This article further examines what factors are associated with the transition. It is found that, among other things, the probability of transition to DSP from unemployment increases with duration on unemployment benefits.     

Institutional Dynamics on the U.S. Court of Appeals: Minority Representation Under Panel Decision Making

This article assesses how the institutional context of decisionmaking on three-judge panels of the federal Court of Appealsaffects the impact that gender and race have on judicial decisions.Our central question is whether and how racial minority andwomen judges influence legal policy on issues thought to beof particular concern to women and minorities when serving onappellate panels which decide cases by majority rule. Properanalysis of this question requires investigating whether womenand minority judges influence the decisions of other panel members.We find that the norm of unanimity on panels grants women influenceover outcomes even when they are outnumbered on a panel.     

Projecting growth of metropolitan areas

"This paper is about the determinants of growth of [U.S.] metropolitan areas (MSAs)." The authors review and evaluate the relevant literature.     

Ethical Unit Trust Financial Performance: Small Company Effects and Fund Size Effects

Recent papers which have examined unit trusts have controlled either for a 'fund size effect' or for the 'small firms effect' in the investment portfolio. The contribution of this paper is an analysis of the 'small firms effect' whilst simultaneously controlling for the 'fund size effect'. We show that the ethical unit trusts have significantly greater exposure than general unit trusts to the 'small firms effect', and that net of this there is no significant evidence of over or under performance by ethical trusts using an adjusted Jensen measure. Using two cross-sectional approaches, we demonstrate that whilst a 'small firms effect' has a role to play in explaining unit trust performance, fund size is not correlated with the financial performance of unit trusts. This cross-sectional analysis also provides some evidence that ethical unit trusts may perform less well than general unit trusts.     

The Relevance of Stock and Flow-Based Reporting Information In Assessing the Likelihood of Emergence from Corporate Financial Distress

A number of recent studies have shown that earnings information is less useful and value relevant when firms are financially troubled. This finding has given rise to the consideration of alternatives. In this paper, we examine the contributions of book value-based proxies (normal earnings and abandonment value) and flow-based proxies (earnings and operating accruals) to the assessment of the likelihood of emergence from financial distress. Our prior reasoning is that while book value-based proxies may provide information about potential future cash resources, flow-based proxies, because they capture the progress of reorganization efforts underway, as opposed to mere potential, should be relatively more useful in assessing the likelihood of emergence from distress. Our findings are consistent with this explanation. We document that the primary predictors of emergence are flow-based proxies—in particular, cash from operations, net of earnings.     

The potential benefits of herbicide-resistant transgenic rice in Uruguay: Lessons for small developing countries

In many developing countries, the potential benefits from adopting a transgenic variety developed by a multinational corporation are limited by the crop’s small production base. This paper presents an ex-ante evaluation of the economic impact of herbicide resistant transgenic rice in a small developing country, Uruguay. To fully account for the multinational’s market power, the firm’s seed markup is assumed to affect the adoption rate for the variety. Stochastic simulation techniques are employed to understand how potential benefits may vary with changes in technology, yield, costs, and adoption parameters. The results indicate a $1.82 million mean net present value for producers from the development and utilization of transgenic rice in Uruguay and $0.55 million for the multinational. These relatively small multinational firm benefits suggest that a firm will not undertake significant efforts to develop transgenic varieties adapted to local conditions without either strategic partnerships with local institutions or access to wider regional markets.     

The macroeconomic consequences of terrorism

We perform an empirical investigation of the macroeconomic consequences of international terrorism and interactions with alternative forms of collective violence. Our analysis is based on a rich unbalanced panel data set with annual observations on 177 countries from 1968 to 2000, which brings together information from the Penn World Table data set, the ITERATE data set for terrorist events, and data sets of external and internal conflict. We explore these data with cross-sectional and panel growth regression analysis and a structural VAR model. We find that, on average, the incidence of terrorism may have an economically significant negative effect on growth, albeit one that is considerably smaller and less persistent than that associated with either external wars or internal conflict. As well, terrorism is associated with a redirection of economic activity away from investment spending and towards government spending. However, our investigation also suggests important differences both regarding the incidence and the economic consequences of terrorism among different sets of countries. In OECD economies, in particular, terrorist incidents are considerably more frequent than in other nations, but the negative influence of these incidents on growth is smaller.     

Why Do We Have Urban Density Controls?

Almost all urban land use controls reduce permitted densities. This article analyzes restrictions on residential densities in a conventional model of density–distance functions. Density controls force development to extend farther than in competitive equilibrium, thus increasing commuting distances and dwelling costs. Residents benefit if, as is likely, they prefer lower densities than in competitive equilibrium. But there is a limit to the extra commuting and housing costs that nevertheless make residents better off. Theoretical and numerical analyses are presented to show that likely parameter values almost certainly result in reductions in residents' welfare.     

Environmental Kuznets Curve: Conclusive Econometric Evidence for CO2

This paper begins with a statistical formulation of the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) and discusses the major econometric problems raised in the literature in testing this hypothesis using panel data. A simple t‐test is then presented that avoids these econometric problems. The result from applying the t‐test confirms conclusively the EKC for CO₂ as formulated.     

The Profit‐Maximizing Case for Corporate Social Responsibility in a Bilateral Monopoly

We analyze a stylized distribution channel (bilateral monopoly) model where an upstream manufacturer sells output to a downstream retailer. In a two‐stage linear demand game setting, we show that a two‐part contract, consisting of a wholesale price and corporate social responsibility (CSR) component, can be utilized by the manufacturer to fully coordinate and control its retailer. Thus, a CSR contract can be used in place of the traditional two‐part tariff scheme (wholesale price and fixed franchise fee) to optimally coordinate the marketing channel. Our model provides a novel theoretical profit‐maximizing rationale for the strategic use of CSR. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.