Correct and incorrect use of child restraints: results from an urban survey in New Zealand

This study describes the incorrect use of child restraints among car drivers with young children and examines factors that may influence their misuse. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken in supermarket car parks with car drivers travelling with children under the age of 8 years. The main measure was errors in child restraint use. Short interviews were conducted with 1113 drivers with a close inspection of the child restraints used in the vehicles. Only 4% of children were unrestrained but 64% of drivers made at least one error in restraint use. Most respondents thought using a restraint was easy, but 65% of these drivers made at least one error. Child restraints are used, but many are incorrectly fitted and/or have the child incorrectly placed in them. Correct use is a moderately complex task. Restraint systems need to be designed to minimize the opportunity for error and maximize safety.     

Managerial incentives, derivatives and stability

In this paper we model the derivative strategies optimally undertaken by a manager (or head of a profit center in a hedge fund) when the detailed derivative positions taken are not contractible. We show that with commonly-used incentive features in the compensation structure, managers have incentives to implement complex derivative strategies that lead to a slight reduction in default probabilities (or a slight increase in performance measures) with a high probability at the cost of allowing for the possibility of disaster states involving large losses, although with a very small probability. Such disaster states cause systemic instability (similar to the experience of Long-Term Capital Management in September 1998). We discuss possible audit strategies, governance mechanisms and incentive structures that will ameliorate the probability of systemic instability arising from such incentives in a market with a rich enough menu of derivatives. We characterize the optimal intensity of audit effort with and without the presence of such derivative strategies. The dependence of the optimal audit intensity on the legal liability regime and different rules for apportioning the auditor's liability is derived. Our results also relate the optimal audit intensity to the cost and efficiency parameters of the audit firm.     

Deconstructing the Tower of Babel: a design method to improve empathy and teamwork competences of informatics students

The competence-based education recently launched in Spanish universities presents a set of abilities and skills that are difficult to teach to students in higher and more technologically-oriented grades. In this paper, a teaching intervention that is based on design methodologies is proposed, to upgrade the competitive capacities of computer engineering students. In particular, this intervention targets those aspects relating to working in multidisciplinary teams and to defining requirements based on the user’s empathy and knowledge. The main idea inspiring this technique is that the underlying challenge is a communication problem. As Brooks (1995) states in his book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, even a project having all of the prerequisites for success (a clear mission, manpower, materials, time and adequate technology) could fail as a Tower of Babel. The proposed technique through mixed methods has been evaluated with students enrolled in different courses, confirming the repeatability and validity of this method from quantitative measurement, from observation of the results, and from ascertaining the value perceived by students and their attitudes.     

The value of entrepreneurship by gender on regional behaviour

This paper examines how the value of entrepreneurship by gender is related to regional behaviour. Researchers have traditionally defined entrepreneurial organization as separate to gender and to economic growth. Using the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) we complete a dataset of 50 countries using variables such as total early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) and opportunity-driven entrepreneurial activity (OPP). The methodology used proposes an analysis of regional convergence, comparing the evolution over time of both the rate of entrepreneurial activity and the ratios of opportunity-driven and need-driven entrepreneurial activity, distinguishing by gender. On the other hand, a regression model is proposed that explains the greater presence of female entrepreneurship. The results show that entrepreneurship by gender is an important factor to define different cluster of countries according to how men and women entrepreneurs create new economic opportunities.

     

Did the 2016 election cause changes in substance use? An intersectional approach

This paper examines the impact of the 2016 election on substance use. One of Donald Trump's major campaign initiatives was to build a wall at the American/Mexican border, and he frequently made negative comments about various underrepresented groups. I hypothesize that this unorthodox rhetoric, coupled with Donald Trump's proposed policies during his campaign, created an exogenous shock of discrimination for women, and ethnic and racial minority groups when he was elected. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System dataset, which has a variety of health measures and demographic information compiled at the individual level, is utilized to empirically examine the hypothesis. I examine the average treatment effects of the election using a difference-in-differences estimation strategy. The results indicate that there has been an increase in cigarette use for Hispanic individuals. These results highlight the impact that discriminatory rhetoric by political leaders and public figures has on marginalized groups within society. Policy implications include new ways to target substance use by targeting discrimination.     

Ride the trend: Is there spread momentum profit in the US commodity markets?

Some previous researchers have argued that trading strategies based on calendar spread time series momentum (STSM) can deliver significant returns (Szymanowska et al. 2014; Boons and Prado 2019), which, if true, is at odds with the efficient market hypothesis. These arguments however, do not exclude the unrealisable futures contract roll yield and are also affected by other empirical and statistical issues that may lead to misleading results. With more than 30 years of data, we investigate STSM in 22 US commodity futures markets. First, we assess whether past spread returns can predict future returns, a necessary condition for the existence of momentum. We find predictability to be very weak after correcting for the issues affecting prior research. Second, we implement STSM-based investment strategies. We compare STSM profits for individual markets and portfolios to profits generated by a simple long-only benchmark strategy that does not require any predictability. STSM does not generate returns statistically different from the benchmark trading strategy, with both strategies generating very low or negative returns. For the momentum to outperform the benchmark strategy, predictability should be three times larger than observed from real data, but would entail substantial downside risk. In sum, the empirical evidence indicates that returns from STSM-type strategies are illusive for the commodities and period studied. Our results strongly suggest that inclusion of unrealisable roll yield generates the illusion of profitable STSM trading strategies in previous research.