The Allocation of German Aid: Self‐interest and Government Ideology

We investigate the importance of geo‐strategic and commercial motives for the allocation of German aid to 138 countries over the 1973–2010 period. We find that geo‐strategic and commercial motives matter. When we relate them to the political color of the German government in general, and the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Federal Foreign Office in particular, we find their importance to be at least as strong under the socialist leadership. Socialist leadership decreases the amount of aid commitments, controlled for other factors.     

Job location and the journey-to-work: An empirical analysis

In this paper we present and estimate a single equation model designed to explain the job-location behaviour of individuals living in a multi-centered metropolitan area. We test the model separately for heads of households and non-heads of households, as well as for the total working population, in order to isolate differences in commuting behaviour between primary and secondary wage earners. The relationships are estimated from 1971 Census, cross-section data using least squares multiple regression.The results of the location equation indicate that wage gradient variables are important determinants of job location for heads of households. On the other hand, non-heads are rather insensitive to the wage gradient. Rather, contrary to the decisions of heads, the job-location choices of non-heads are strongly influenced by socio-economic attributes, notably occupation, family size and age. Clearly, job-location decisions of primary wage earners (usually the household heads) are influenced by earnings-maximizing considerations while secondary earners (non-heads in general) put more weight on other socio-economic factors. The results also suggest that there is a hidden cost associated with uneven directional growth in the Toronto CMA. It is suggestive that urban planning strategies should reflect consideration of the greater desire or need for accessibility on the part of secondary wage earners (non-heads) and the need to balance residential and job opportunities at the extending margin of the urban area.     

Neo-pluralism as a theoretical framework for understanding HRM in sub-Saharan Africa

This paper discusses the 'social' nature of employment management problems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). 'Applied' Western HRM is largely based on unitarist conceptions of organizational reality. Where conceptions suggest a 'stakeholder' perspective, they tend to follow orthodox formulations of pluralism. In that regard, notions of 'stakeholding' refer to the divergent internal organizational interests (mainly economic) of labour and management. In the SSA context, however, the broader social and moral issues of the wider community have a decisive influence on the employment relationship. And internal employment relations structures, such as trade unions, do not constitute the main representative channels for employee grievances. Consequently, established Western employment frames of reference do not represent suitable theoretical frameworks for analysing all the relevant social factors that influence the SSA employment relationship. This paper proposes a modified version of Ackers' (2002) 'neo-pluralist' theoretical framework as the basis for understanding and resolving some of issues involved in HRM in SSA. From this analysis, it proposes a model of HRM that attempts to institutionalize some elements of the 'African social system' into formal HRM policies and strategies.     

On the distribution of tax effects on headquarters location

This paper sheds light on the distribution of profit and personal income tax elasticities of headquarters location across 13,074 firms in 68 countries over 1999–2012. Results suggest high variability in elasticities, which is overlooked in virtually all earlier work on the matter.     

Foreclosure,REO, and Market Sales in Residential Real Estate

Assessment of lender and third-party bidder acquired properties at foreclosure auction is provided. Properties acquired at foreclosure auction by third-party bidders transact at a discount to lender dispositions of real estate owned (REO) properties. The discount reflects a reduction in costs associated with lender owned (REO) dispositions and uncertainty faced by third-party bidders. Moreover, there is a ranking in transaction prices among initial purchases by third-party bidders at foreclosure auction, REO sales, non-distressed property sales and the subsequent sales of third-party bidder acquired properties. Third-party bidder auction prices are below REO sale prices, which are below non-distressed property sale prices, which are below the subsequent sale prices of third-party bidder acquired properties. The price spacing by cohort is logical, intuitive and economically justified in a market with rational participants. Implications are also apparent for the measurement of price changes, net sale proceeds and returns to residential real estate.     

Transitive measurable utility

This paper continues a study of theories of preferences under risk that do not use the independence axiom of the von Neumann-Morgenstern theory. Unlike its predecessor, it assumes that preferences are transitive. The effects of transitivity are noted in two representations of preferences. The first, which also uses continuity and dominance axioms, involves a function u on a set P of probability measures for which u(p) > u(q) if and only if p is preferred to q. Although u might be nonlinear, it has other features of a von Neumann-Morgenstern linear utility function. The second representation has linear functions u and w on P, with w strictly positive except perhaps at preference-extreme measures—where it might vanish, such that u(p) w(q) > u(q) w(p) if and only if p is preferred to q. A symmetry axiom along with the axioms for the first representation are necessary and sufficient for the second representation.     

Inequality and volatility moderation in Russia: Evidence from micro-level panel data on consumption and income

We construct key household and individual economic variables using a panel micro data set from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) for 1994–2005. We analyze cross-sectional income and consumption inequality trends and find that inequality decreased during the 2000–2005 economic recovery. The decrease appears to be driven by falling volatility of transitory income shocks. The response of consumption to permanent and transitory income shocks becomes weaker later in the sample, consistent with greater self-insurance against permanent shocks and greater smoothing of transitory shocks. Finally, expenditure and income inequality in Russia are not far apart.     

An exploratory study of operational reasons to budget

Budgets are used widely but criticized, mainly for performance evaluation reasons. We find that organizations regard budgets as more important for planning and control than evaluation, thus proposing a rationale for their continued use irrespective of evaluation‐based criticisms. This finding is also important, because most extant budget research focuses on evaluation, suggesting a potential disconnect between budget research and practice. We also find that rolling forecasts are used in tandem with the annual budget in most organizations, and for the same reasons. This was unexpected, as coexistence suggests their adoption for different reasons.     

Publishing in accounting journals: A fair game?

Publication in the social sciences appears to have evolved into a game, played by four parties: the author, the reviewers, the editor and the bureaucrats using the simple criterion that a quality researcher publishes in quality journals. Acceptance rates for top quality journals now hover around the 10% mark. Something cannot be right with a system which creates so much apparent waste. Either too many authors are submitting substandard articles or too many reviewers are setting unrealistically high hurdles over which authors have to jump. Most of the literature has focussed on the unrealistically high hurdle rate explanation and also on the fallibility of reviewers and editors. The aim of this paper is to explore the issues of low acceptance rates as well as an increasingly lengthy publication process. The paper considers what is the purpose of publishing in academic journals and what are the motivations of authors, reviewers and editors. In order to inform both authors and reviewers of best practice, a summary of the extensive literature is given in the Appendix. The paper concludes with a survey of the suggestions that have been made to improve the publishing process in order to link back to the original purpose of publishing, that of communicating important results to inform public debate on major issues.