Exploring reallocation’s apparent weak contribution to growth

Two recent meta-analyses use variants of the Baily et al. (Brookings Papers Econ Act Microecon 1:187–267, 1992) (BHC) decompositions to ask whether recent robust growth in aggregate labor productivity (ALP) across 25 countries is due to lower barriers to input reallocation. They find weak gains from measured reallocation and strong within-plant productivity gains. We show these findings may be because BHC indices decompose ALP growth using plant-level output-per-labor (OL) as a proxy for the marginal product of labor and changes in OL as a proxy for changes in plant-level productivity. We provide simple examples to show that (1) reallocation growth from labor should track marginal changes in labor weighted by the marginal product of labor, (2) BHC reallocation growth can be positively correlated, negatively correlated, or uncorrelated with actual growth arising from the reallocation of inputs, and that (3) BHC indices can mistake growth from reallocation as growth from productivity, principally because OL is neither a perfect index of marginal products nor plant-level productivity. We then turn to micro-level data from Chile, Colombia, and Slovenia, and we find for the first two that BHC indices report weak or negative growth from labor reallocation. Using the reallocation definition based on marginal products we find a positive and robust role for labor reallocation in all three countries and a reduced role of plant-level technical efficiency in growth. We close by exploring potential corrections to the BHC decompositions but here we have limited success.     

第三方物流企业优选的混合多属性决策方法研究

在分析研究的基础上，将第三方物流服务企业选择问题归结为一类典型具有多类评价信息的多属性决策问题，据此提出根据多类评价信息对备选第三方物流企业进行综合排序，为企业选择物流合作伙伴提供参考依据。文中实例分析说明，该方法在进行第三方物流供应商的选择上是可行有效的。     

Survival in 19th century cities: The larger the city, the smaller your chances

Using Union Army veterans’ lifetime socioeconomic and health records, this essay finds a consistent and persistent hierarchy in survival rates and hazard ratios by urban size at and across three stages of life: birth, late adolescence, and death. This urban mortality penalty remains after controlling for variables associated with each individual veteran. The results of our geographical mobility analyses suggest that, with respect to these veterans, the search for an explanation should focus on late adolescence and adulthood as much as on early life. A complete explanation of the penalty requires a project of greater scope.     

Mixed Causal–Noncausal Autoregressions: Bimodality Issues in Estimation and Unit Root Testing1

This paper stresses the bimodality of the likelihood function of the Mixed causal–noncausal AutoRegressions (MAR), and it is shown that the bimodality issue becomes more salient as the causal root approaches unity from below. The consequences are important as the roots of the local maxima are typically interchanged, attributing the noncausal component to the causal one and vice-versa. This severely changes the interpretation of the results, and the properties of unit root tests of the backward root are adversely affected. To circumvent the bimodality issue, this paper proposes an estimation strategy which (i) increases noticeably the probability of attaining the global MLE; and (ii) selects carefully the maximum used for the unit root test against a MAR stationary alternative.     

TRADING COSTS OF NON‐U.S. STOCKS ON THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE: THE EFFECT OF INSTITUTIONAL OWNERSHIP,ANALYST FOLLOWING,AND MARKET REGULATION

We investigate the differences in market microstructure between U.S. and non‐U.S. stocks cross‐listed on the New York Stock Exchange using a sample of 316 pairs of matched stocks. We find that non‐U.S. stocks have wider spreads and larger adverse‐selection costs than U.S. stocks even after controlling for macro‐level institutional differences. Regression analysis shows that spreads and adverse‐selection costs are negatively correlated with institutional ownership and analyst followings. Thus, the higher spreads and adverse‐selection costs for non‐U.S. stocks can be partly explained by the lower institutional ownership and analyst following of non‐U.S. stocks. In addition, we find that although the spreads and adverse‐selection costs for non‐U.S. stocks are significantly higher before the implementation of Regulation Fair Disclosure (FD), the differences become even greater after Regulation FD, suggesting that Regulation FD has improved the information environment for U.S. stocks.     

Going Off Script: How Managers Make Sense of the Ending of Their Careers

The extant retirement literature primarily focuses on factors that influence the decision to retire and the generic retirement decision‐making process. While these approaches have extended our understanding of retirement decision‐making, we propose a sensemaking perspective that orients our attention towards the subjective meanings people attach to the factors that trigger the retirement decision, rather than simply the factors themselves. Accordingly, we see the retirement decision‐making process as bounded by situational constraints and rooted in identity work. Based on interviews with 48 retired Canadian executives and managers, we use thematic narrative analysis to identify six types of end‐of‐career narratives. Drawing on these narratives, we present a model of identity work that distinguishes between retirement decision‐making factors that are perceived as identity opportunities and those that are perceived as identity threats. Our findings contribute to scholarly understanding of subjective meanings and identity considerations in the process of ending one's career.     

How diversity contributes to academic research teams performance

The objective of this paper is to analyse how the job-related diversity in academic research teams influences their scientific performance. To achieve that objective, an empirical study of a university's research teams was carried out during the years 2006–2009. The results reflect a non-significant effect of functional diversity on research teams' performance, whereas status diversity affects in a positive and significant way. However, educational diversity has a significant negative impact when a certain threshold is exceeded. The effect of institutional diversity presents an inverted U-shaped relation with the number of published articles by the research teams. The results reveal that the relationship between diversity and research performance may not be a simple and direct one because its effect could depend on the organisational context and the type of diversity attributes.     

控制方位论在监狱人力资源开发中的价值和功能

当前正是知识经济的时代，组织之间的竞争关键在于人力资源的竞争。开发人力资源，加强人力资源能力建设．已经成为各个组织发展的重大问题。监狱作为国家机器的一个重要组成部分，作为一种包含固定意义和特殊意义的组织，在人力资源建设蓬勃发展的今天，没有理由将人力资源的开发和发展拒之门外。组织是由个人构成的，他偿在组织理论中是分析的基本单位。     

全球国际收支失衡与新兴市场

十个亚洲经济体,包括中国、日本以及四个最新的工业化国家和地区--就是东亚的四个经济体,还有其他的东盟国家,他们的外汇储备合起来已经达到了2.6万亿(整理者注:这是2006年3月末数字).在过去的几个月当中,我们可以看到:虽然外汇储备的增加量不像过去那么明显,但是我们仍然可以通过这样一个数字看到,中国和日本在外汇储备中占了66%,而那些新兴的工业化国家和地区占了28%,其他的东盟国家占了差不多7%.     

论"中国近现代史纲要"课程的定位及其基本功能

"中国近现代史纲要"课程属于思想政治理论课,它是高校思想政治理论课新课程体系的重要组成部分.它区别于一般的历史课,又区别于其他的思想政治理论课,它是从历史教育的角度对大学生进行思想政治理论教育的课程.它具有历史教育、思想教育、理论教育、价值观教育等多重功能.要充分实现其基本功能,需要处理好历史教育与思想政治教育、历史事件与历史规律以及历史与现实的关系.