Value relevance of human capital based disclosures: Moderating effects of labor productivity,investor sentiment,analyst coverage and audit quality

Voluntarily disclosed employee costs in annual reports of listed firms are value relevant, according to US based studies. However, investors appear to fail to take full advantage of the signaling opportunities presented by these disclosures. This study suggests that labor productivity, audit quality, analyst coverage and high technology categorization moderate the value relevance of voluntarily disclosed employee costs in Malaysia, contributing a novel set of moderating variables to the human capital accounting and value relevance literature, and extending the extant literature to an emerging economy. The results are consistent with the findings from US based settings, after incorporating these moderating factors. Pertinent policy recommendations, based on these findings, are suggested.     

Scale,Scope and Survival: A Comparison of Cooperative and Capitalist Modes of Production

This paper draws on a comprehensive data set from Portugal to investigate the activities, internal characteristics and survival prospects of cooperatives and capitalist enterprises. Consistent with theory, high levels of market concentration and low entry costs were shown to be conducive to cooperatives. Cooperatives were found to be, on average, older and to operate with a larger, more highly educated and more productive labour force than do their capitalist counterparts. Finally, we show that cooperatives have a markedly higher probability of survival than do capitalist enterprises due, in part, to differences in industry of operation and internal characteristics.     

Be All That You Can Be?: Racial Identity Production in the U.S. Military

This analysis applies concepts from Stratification Economics to undertake an empirical investigation of racial identity production in the U.S. military. The theoretical model treats racial identity as a Becker-type commodity produced by combining market goods and services, and time, using a technology based on pre-existing cultural knowledge. The model is estimated using data from the 1996 Armed Forces Equal Opportunity Survey. The findings suggest that pre-military constructions of racial identity and patterns of racial interaction significantly constrain efforts to inculcate an identification with military culture that sublimates the sources of racial conflict. To the extent that racial tensions deteriorate in the civilian sector it is likely that the challenges facing the military in fostering unit cohesion will intensify. Existing interventions designed to promote military identity and diffuse sources of racial tension appear to have limited efficacy.     

Economic prediction and human action

Empirical prediction entails syllogistic reasoning, the major premise being a “proposition of regularity”. This latter can itself be tested empirically, as the hypothesis “Past regularity implies future regularity”. In the social sciences (in contrast to the physical sciences), the deterministic version of this hypothesis is demonstrably untrue. Though the “statistical” version of the hypothesis stands, the likelihood of its truth has never been expressed in probability terms. Thus empirical prediction in economics confronts not only uncertainty, which can be expressed in statistical terms, but an added element of “ignorance” which (at least as yet) cannot be so expressed.     

Budget regimes and internal governance: considerations for the sustainability of fiscal policy

In a fiscal policy set-up with Ricardian equivalence and rational expectations, the decision-making of private agents is based on the knowledge that current deficits will be met with future tax increases or spending decreases. This view requires that the government's budget exhibit intertemporal balance, or that fiscal policy be sustainable. This paper examines the extent to which sustainability holds in the light of changes in the institutional structure of the budget process and changes in internal House governance rules. The results indicate that certain aspects of sustainability are related to the underlying institutional structure and governance of the budget process. The authors wish to thank the editors and three anonymous referees for their thoughtful comments and suggestions. All remaining errors remain our own.