The Impact of Racial Discrimination on the Early Career Outcomes of Young Men

The NLSY dataset is utilized to measure the extent of employer wage discrimination between white and black males during their first 5 years of post-school employment. We look at the respondent’s first job and the jobs 1 and 5 years after school completion. Oaxaca wage decompositions are employed to gauge the effect of discrimination. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find that the discrimination component of the wage gap falls over time. For the first job out of school the unexplained wage gap between blacks and whites is 35%. By year 5, the unexplained component falls to about 13%. Thus, while discrimination continues to play a role in explaining the white–black wage gap over time, its impact decreases as time in the labor market increases.

The lack of an expected relationship between travel cost and contingent value estimates of forest recreation value

Abstract

Using data obtained from visitors to forest campgrounds, travel cost models were developed. Bid functions and willingness‐to‐pay estimates of recreation value were derived from contingent value questions posed to campers. The willingness‐to‐pay responses were based on both photographic representations of forest scenes and on actual forest conditions at each campground. The photo‐based willingness‐to‐pay estimates were significantly correlated with scenic beauty rating estimates made for photo‐based scenes, but there was little correlation between these values and willingness‐to‐pay estimates for actual forest conditions, or estimates from travel cost models. Further, no correlation was found between travel cost estimates and contingent value estimates of the value of forest conditions on‐site. The findings raise questions about the validity and comparability of willingness‐to‐pay measures that are applied to particular types of forest recreation situations.     

A Bayesian approach to bandwidth selection for multivariate kernel regression with an application to state-price density estimation

This paper presents a Bayesian approach to bandwidth selection for multivariate kernel regression. A Monte Carlo study shows that under the average squared error criterion, the Bayesian bandwidth selector is comparable to the cross-validation method and clearly outperforms the bootstrapping and rule-of-thumb bandwidth selectors. The Bayesian bandwidth selector is applied to a multivariate kernel regression model that is often used to estimate the state-price density of Arrow–Debreu securities with the S&P 500 index options data and the DAX index options data. The proposed Bayesian bandwidth selector represents a data-driven solution to the problem of choosing bandwidths for the multivariate kernel regression involved in the nonparametric estimation of the state-price density pioneered by Aït-Sahalia and Lo [Aït-Sahalia, Y., Lo, A.W., 1998. Nonparametric estimation of state-price densities implicit in financial asset prices. The Journal of Finance, 53, 499, 547.]     

Demographics, dividend clienteles and the dividend premium

The catering theory of dividends proposed that corporate dividend policy is driven by prevailing investor demand for dividend payers, and that managers cater to investors by paying dividends when the dividend premium is high. While earlier research found that the dividend premium is not driven by traditional clienteles derived from market imperfections such as taxes, transaction costs, or institutional investment constraints, we find empirical evidence that demographic clienteles are an important source of the time-varying demand for dividend payers. In particular, we find that, as consistent with the behavioural life-cycle theory and the marginal opinion theory of stock price, the dividend premium is positively driven by demographic clientele variation represented by changes in the proportion of the older population. Our results are robust when controlled for the factors of investor sentiment, signalling, agency costs, tax clienteles, time trend, business cycle fluctuations and varying sample periods.     

Profiling Sport Tourists: The Case of Super 12 Rugby Union in the Australian Capital Territory,Australia

The concept of sport related tourism has become more prominent in the last few years as both an academic field of study and an increasingly popular tourism product (Gibson, 1998). Sport tourism includes travel to participate in a passive (e.g. sports events and museums) or active sport holiday (e.g. scuba diving and cycling), and it may involve instances where sport or tourism itself is the dominant activity or reason for travel. However, little research has been undertaken to examine the profile of sport tourist market segments in an attempt to understand these segments and their potential as tourism markets. This paper will examine one such attempt to profile sport tourist spectators through surveying sport tourists attending Super 12 Rugby Union matches at Bruce Stadium, Canberra in April/May 2000. The paper discusses the preliminary results of this exploratory study, and examines the sporting behaviour and travel behaviour of spectators. The paper will then discuss differences between spectator characteristics with an emphasis on examining high yield segments based on sport and travel behaviour, and will conclude with a discussion of future research possibilities.     

The empirical estimation of the cost-minimizing jury size and voting rule in civil trials

Since the early 1970s, the literature examining the court system has placed much emphasis on the importance of the jury size and voting rule when analyzing the jury decision-making process. In addition, researchers have also used deductive reasoning to theoretically determine the cost-minimizing jury size and voting rule with regards to Type I and Type II errors. In this paper, we take this analysis one step further by empirically estimating the cost-minimizing jury size and voting rule in civil jury trials.     

Managing and Concluding the Pfi Process for a New High School

This article reports the findings from an in-depth investigation of a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) project to replace a local authority high school. Through a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviewing and document review, the research seeks to establish whether the belief that the PFI will result in cost-effective innovative design and operation and maintenance cost savings is justified. The findings suggest little evidence of innovation on the part of the private sector. This observation has implications for the comparative cost of the PFI vis-a-vis traditional public sector procurement, given that innovation (on the part of the private sector) is believed to be one of the key drivers of cost savings. In addition the article makes recommendations with regard to best practice in management and completion of PFI projects with reference to issues around consultation, planning, finance and service delivery.     

Institutions,research and development: tourism and the Asian financial crisis

This report examines the repercussions of the Asian financial crisis on regional institutions and on tourism research and development. It is concluded that the importance of regional institutions for the provision of quality information, research and development will continue to grow. In the short term the crisis has lessened the commitment of key intraregional and national institutions to tourism research and development activity, although some useful collaboration between countries within the region has been evident. Asia should re‐emerge as the world's fastest growing tourism region, provided that the countries most affected by the Asian financial crisis do not impose restrictions on tourist movements or turn away from their long‐term commitment to strategies underpinned by research and development. The move by Pacific Asia Travel Association from San Francisco to Bangkok is identified as an important symbol of the role that regional institutions will continue to play in tourism research and development. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.