Catching hipos: screening, wages, and competing for a job

In this paper, I study the wage a firm sets to attract highability workers (hipos) in situations where people compete fora job. I show that the more people compete, the larger a firm'sincentives to sort high and low ability workers. Moreover, workerswill signal their (high) ability in situations with many competitorsonly if a job offers a high enough wage. The main result, therefore,is that a firm sets higher wages, when more people compete.     

Comment: Policy First,Research Afterward— The History of RESPA

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics -     

An Experimental Analysis of the Impact of Intermediaries on the Outcome of Bargaining Games

We conduct an experimental analysis of the bargaining between a buyer and a seller of the exchange of a single good by means of an intermediary or broker. We examine how an intermediary affects the price, the likelihood of a successful negotiation, and the time it takes to complete a negotiation. We first examine the impact of the intermediary as a pure middleman, and then as an information source about the distribution of seller and buyer reservation prices. The results show that an intermediary, whether or not informed, increases the sale price, reduces the likelihood of an agreement, and increases the time to reach an agreement (though the number of bargaining rounds declines). The results suggest that the benefits of brokerage may be predominantly in the matching of buyers and sellers rather than in facilitating bargaining.     

Taxes and capital structure: evidence from firms' response to the Tax Reform Act of 1986

While the theoretical relation between taxes and capital structurehas been extensively analyzed, the empirical evidence on thisissue has thus far been inconclusive. One of the main difficultiesconfronting previous empirical studies of the cross-sectionalrelationship between taxes and leverage was the control of interveningvariables. The Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA), which drasticallychanged the tax regime, provides a unique opportunity to assessthe interaction between taxes and leverage decisions in a controlledenvironment. We test the relationship between leverage and certaintax-related variables for a large sample of companies in theyears surrounding the enactment of the TRA. The results supportthe tax-based theories of capital structure. The findings indicatethat there exists a substitution effect between debt and nondebttax shields, and that both corporate and personal tax ratesaffect leverage decisions.     

Contingent Valuation and Actual Behavior: Predicting Connections to New Water Systems in the State of Kerala, India

In 1988, families in Kerala State in India were surveyed toascertain their willingness to pay for household connectionsto a piped water supply system. In 1991 the families in thesecommunities were surveyed again and their actual decisions recorded.This article explores the validity of the findings of the 1988study on the basis of actual behavior. It looks at the questionof benefit revelation: did people behave as they said they would?And it looks at the question of benefit transfer: did peoplein one site behave as they were predicted to behave, on thebasis of the predictions of a behavioral model for a differentsite? The data were also used to analyze the policy relevanceof behavioral modeling.     

Investment trust IPOs: Issuing behaviour and price performance Evidence from the London Stock Exchange

In this paper, we document an average first day return of 1.91 percent for the population of 105 investment trust IPOs during the period from January 1984 through August 1992 on the London Stock Exchange. This is the first study that finds evidence of significant first day returns for a sample of closed-end fund IPOs. The results also suggest that investment trust IPOs are subject to ‘hot’ issue periods. These tend to occur when there is a marked narrowing in the discounts of seasoned investment trusts. Initial gains are, however, short lived; by the end of their first year, investment trust IPOs substantially underperform a number of relevant benchmarks and, on average, trade at discounts to their underlying net asset values.     

Managed care, consolidation among health care providers, and health care: evidence from mammography

We discuss the effects of managed care on the structure of the health care delivery system, focusing on managed-care-induced consolidation among health care providers. We empirically investigate the relationship between HMO market share and mammography providers. We find evidence of consolidation: increases in HMO activity are associated with reductions in the number of mammography providers and with increases in the number of services produced by remaining providers. We also find that increases in HMO market share are associated with reductions in costs for mammography and with increases in waiting times for appointments, but not with worse health outcomes.     

Book Reviews

Idris F. Sulaiman, G. Hanafi Sofyan and Shannon Luke Smith (eds) (1998), Bridging the Arafura Sea: Australia-Indonesia Relations in Prosperity and Adversity, Asia Pacific Press, Asia Pacific School of Economics and Management, The Australian National University, pp. xxi + 325.

David C. Cole and Betty F. Slade (1996), Building a Modern Financial System: The Indonesian Experience, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. xxvii + 379. Cloth: US$59.95; paper, US$25.

Chris Manning (1998), Indonesian Labour in Transition: An Indonesian Success Story?, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. xxii + 323.

Hal Hill and Thee Kian Wie (eds) (1998), Indonesia's Technological Challenge, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, paper, pp. xxv + 414.

Steven J. Keuning (1996), Accounting for Economic Development and Social Change, IOS Press, Amsterdam, Oxford, Tokyo, Washington DC, pp. x + 233. NLG100; £39; DM90;US$58.

Thomas Brandt (1996; English trans. 1997), Kunci Budaya. Business in Indonesia: The Cultural Key to Success, goasia Verlag, Bad Oldesloe, Germany.