Archetyping relationships with companion animals to understand disaster risk-taking propensity

Pets factor into the daily decision-making of many people. Importantly, various characteristics of these human–animal relationships are known to strongly influence pet owners’ risk behaviour and, consequently, their animals’ welfare during disasters. Yet, few studies have examined a range of such characteristics concurrently in order to describe risk propensity differences in these relationships. In this study, 437 Australian companion-animal (pet) owners reported human–animal relational, personality and attitudinal characteristics, to examine differences in stated tendency to act to secure their pet’s welfare whilst risking potential harm in a hypothetical disaster dilemma. Cluster analysis identified five archetypal profiles differing in relational, personality, attitude and risk-propensity characteristics, as well as in stated willingness to risk personal safety for the well-being of a pet. Results suggest that relational archetypes are an effective means of examining pet–owner risk propensity, to better understand owners’ risk-taking to protect their animals from harm during a disaster.     

Human resource management practices and voluntary turnover: a study of internal workforce and external labor market contingencies

We tested relationships between employee quit rates and two bundles of human resource (HR) practices that reflect the different interests of the two parties involved in the employment relationship. To understand the boundary conditions for these effects, we examined an external contingency proposed to influence the exchange-based effects of HR practices on subsequent quit rates – the local industry-specific unemployment rate – and an internal contingency proposed to shape employees’ conceptualization of their exchange relationship – their employment status (i.e. full-time, part-time and temporary employment). Analyses of lagged data from over 200 Canadian establishments show that inducement HR practices (e.g. extensive benefits) and performance expectation HR practices (e.g. performance-based bonuses) had different effects on quit rates, and the former effect was moderated by unemployment rate. The effects of HR practices on quit rates did not differ between FT and PT employees, but a different pattern of main and interactive effects was found among temporary workers. These findings suggest that employees’ exchange-based decisions to leave may be less affected by the number of hours they expect to work each week, and more by the number of weeks they expect to work.     

Aid volatility and poverty traps

This paper studies the impact of aid volatility in a two-period model where production may occur with either a traditional or a modern technology. Public spending is productive and “time to build” requires expenditure in both periods for the modern technology to be used. The possibility of a poverty trap induced by high aid volatility is first examined in a benchmark case where taxation is absent. The analysis is then extended to account for self insurance (taking the form of a first-period contingency fund) financed through taxation. An increase in aid volatility is shown to raise the optimal contingency fund. But if future aid also depends on the size of the contingency fund (as a result of a moral hazard effect on donors' behavior), the optimal policy may entail no self insurance.     

Takeoffs

This paper identifies factors associated with takeoff—a sustained period of high growth following a period of stagnation. Countries that experience takeoffs average 2.3% annual growth following their stagnation episodes, while those that do not average 0%. Using probit, we find that de jure trade openness is positively and significantly associated with takeoffs. A one‐standard‐deviation increase in de jure trade openness is associated with a 55% increase in the probability of a takeoff in our default specification. Capital account openness encourages takeoff responses, but measures of de facto trade openness are found to be poor predictors of takeoffs. We also examine the determinants of nations achieving “sustained” takeoffs; i.e. those lasting eight years or longer. Takeoffs in countries with more commodity‐intensive output bundles are less likely to be sustained, suggesting that adverse terms‐of‐trade shocks may play a role in ending long‐term high growth episodes.     

Did Vietnam veterans get sicker in the 1990s? The complicated effects of military service on self-reported health

The veterans disability compensation (VDC) program, which provides a monthly stipend to disabled veterans, is the third largest American disability insurance program. Since the late 1990s, VDC growth has been driven primarily by an increase in claims from Vietnam veterans, raising concerns about costs as well as health. We use the draft lottery to study the long-term effects of Vietnam-era military service on health and work in the 2000 Census. We find no evidence that military service affected overall employment rates or overall work-limiting disability rates (that is, health conditions that make work difficult). At the same time, military service sharply increased federal transfer income, especially for lower skilled white men, among whom there was also a large negative impact on employment and a marked increase in disability rates. The differential impact of Vietnam-era service on low-skilled men cannot be explained by more combat or war-theatre exposure for the least educated, because high school graduates were at least as likely to be exposed to combat or war theatre as the less-educated. This leaves the relative attractiveness of VDC for less-skilled men and the work disincentives embedded in the VDC system as a likely explanation for our findings.     

Piecewise linear incentive scheme and participative budgeting

This paper studies the economic incentives of participative budgeting through the design of incentive schemes within the agency theory framework. In particular, a piecewise linear incentive scheme (PLIS), an optimal version of Weitzman's New Soviet Incentive Scheme (NSIS), is derived. The characteristics of PLIS are: first, unlike NSIS, the bonus (penalty) rates of the optimal PLIS vary according to the agent's type in order to improve the principal's welfare, second, a penalty may be imposed on the overfulfillment of the agent's performance in order to maintain incentive compatibility, and finally, it is shown that if the coefficients are constant as in NSIS, there is no need for participative budgeting. Also, PLIS is compared with a quadratic incentive scheme. Both incentive schemes achieve the optimal solution, but each incentive scheme has its own advantage over the other depending on the situation.     

Modeling dividends,earnings, and book value equity: An empirical investigation of the ohlson valuation dynamics

This study empirically investigates the information dynamics of the Ohlson valuation framework. Single-period lagged linear autoregressive relationships among dividends, earnings, and book values of equity are estimated for a sample of stochastically stationary firms and are found not to support the valuation framework. This study further extends the empirical analysis to a multilagged vector autoregressive linear information system. Consistent with the Ohlson valuation framework,the past time series of all three variables are generally found to be relevant for firm valuation. This study brings into question empirical research utilizing the Ohlson framework that presupposes a single-period lagged information dynamic.     

Demand for the truth in principal–agent relationships

Consider the following puzzle: If earnings management is harmful to shareholders, why don’t they design contracts that induce managers to reveal the truth? To answer this question, we model the shareholders–manager relationship as a principal–agent game in which the agent (the manager) alone observes the economic outcome. We show that the limited liability (LL) of the agent, defined as the agent’s feasible minimum payment, might explain the demand for earnings management by the principal. Specifically, when the LL level is high (low), a contract that induces earnings management may be less (more) costly than a truth-revealing contract. This finding offers a new explanation of the demand for earnings management.