I am therefore I own: Implications of organization-based identity for employee stock ownership

Most research on employee stock plan participation investigates the effects of such forms of ownership on employee attitudes, leaving our understanding of the individual differences that contribute to employee ownership largely unknown. Drawing from the consumer behavior literature, our study explores the effect of organization-based identity on the decision to participate in an employee stock purchase plan. The study was conducted in a newly public firm where we examine the effect of organization-based identity on the purchase decision in two time periods. The first point in time was the initial public offering (IPO), when the employee has little information on how the firm's stock will perform in the market. The second point in time was the first quarter following the IPO, when employees have market data to help them with decision-making. Results indicate that, as predicted, organization-based identity is associated with participation in an employee stock purchase plan, at both points in time, above and beyond the influence of several economic and psychological predictors reported in prior studies.     

Patent Breadth, Patent Life, and the Pace of Technological Progress

In active investment climates where firms sequentially improve each other's products, a patent can terminate either because it expires or because a non-infringing innovation displaces its product in the market. We define the length of time until one of these happens as the effective patent life, and show how it depends on patent breadth. We distinguish lagging breadth, which protects against imitation, from leading breadth, which protects against new improved products. We compare two types of patent policy with leading breadth: (1) patents are finite but very broad, so that the effective life of a patent coincides with its statutory life, and (2) patents are long but narrow, so that the effective life of a patent ends when a better product replaces it. The former policy improves the diffusion of new products, but the latter has lower R&D costs.     

高盛与美国政府：谁要道德？谁要效率？

美国政府正在对美国几家世界顶尖的金融机构采取刑事调查。高盛有罪与否？我看高盛是做了令人厌恶的事情,但它的行为并不违法。我们赞同高盛,因为高盛发展了抵押业务,并将其设计成对冲基金中最赚钱的“噱头”。其次,高盛人也清楚,投资基金可能会给投资者带来巨大的损失。其实,高盛赢在其战略,它将盈利用在了冲抵投资的失败。     

Characterizing the Real Roots for P,A, and F with Applications to Environmental Remediation and Home Buying Problems

Historically, work on multiple roots for the internal rate of return (PW = 0) equation focuses on tests for the root's uniqueness and interpreting the meaningfulness of computed roots. Instead, this article starts with problems that consist of P, A, and F cash flows. Then for all possible values of these cash flows, this article develops the boundary conditions for no, single, and multiple real roots of either positive or negative sign.

The results of characterizing these roots are applied to two examples as a foundation for conclusions about those multiple root problems and hypotheses about other problems with multiple roots. The first example is an important class of resource development projects that may require significant expenditures for environmental remediation at the conclusion of operation. The second example of buying versus leasing a home is often used to demonstrate the value of economic analysis to students.     

Impacts of meat product recalls on consumer demand in the USA

The impact of meat product recall events on consumer demand (beef, pork, poultry, and other consumption goods) in the USA is tested empirically. Beef, pork, and poultry recall indices are constructed from both the Food Safety Inspection Service's meat recall events and from newspaper reports over the period 1982–1998. Following previous product recall studies, recall indices are incorporated as shift variables in consumers’ demand functions. Estimating an absolute price version of the Rotterdam demand model, findings indicate that Food Safety Inspection Service's meat recall events significantly impact demand, and newspaper reports do not. Moreover, although elasticities related to recall events are significant they are small in magnitude relative to price and income effects. Any favourable effects on the demands of meat substitutes for a recall are offset by a more general negative effect on meat demand. The general negative effect indicates a shift out of meat to non-meat consumption goods.     

Overriding consumer preferences with energy regulations

The recent wave of enacted and proposed U.S. energy regulations imposes energy efficiency standards on light bulbs, appliances, and motor vehicles based on the unsupported assumption that consumers and firms are irrational and that energy efficiency should be the paramount concern. The regulatory analyses do not document these purported failures in consumer choices or firms’ energy utilization decisions with any empirical evidence. The preponderance of the benefits that agencies claim for the regulations is derived from private benefits to consumers and firms attributable to lower energy costs. Without these benefits, the regulatory costs would greatly exceed the benefits. The regulatory analyses consider only mandates as a means of achieving energy-efficiency improvements and ignore other policy options.     

Consumer Valuation of Alternative Meat Origin Labels

Results from a split‐sample survey of the US population reveal consumers prefer meat products carrying origin information to unlabelled alternatives. Consumers are largely unaware of origin labelling laws and are indifferent to an important aspect of the implementation of current mandatory country of origin information rules in the US. In particular, consumers value meat products labelled ‘Product of North America’ approximately the same as ‘Product of United States’. Despite the similarity of these two labels, they have vastly different implications in terms of trade and segregation costs. Our results suggest that a transition from one label to the other is equally satisfying for the consumer while being less costly for processors and more acceptable to trade partners.     

Codes of Ethics as Signals for Ethical Behavior

This study investigated effects of codes of ethics on perceptions of ethical behavior. Respondents from companies with codes of ethics (n = 465) rated role set members (top management, supervisors, peers, subordinates, self) as more ethical and felt more encouraged and supported for ethical behavior than respondents from companies without codes (n = 301). Key aspects of the organizational climate, such as supportiveness for ethical behavior, freedom to act ethically, and satisfaction with the outcome of ethical problems were impacted by the presence of an ethics code. The mere presence of a code of ethics appears to have a positive impact on perceptions of ethical behavior in organizations, even when respondents cannot recall specific content of the code.     

Comparison of selective hedging and options strategies in cattle feedlot risk management

A cattle feedlot marketing simulation model was developed and used to evaluate the performance of various feedlot marketing strategies. The marketing analysis included corn, feeder cattle, and fed cattle integrated marketing alternatives. A variety of strategies were compared including hedging and put option purchasing as signaled via profit margins or price forecasts. The results indicate that cattle feeders could have historically increased profitability and decreased the variability of profits through selective marketing by using either profit margins or price forecasts to signal market positions as compared to cash marketing strategies. In addition, several strategies were found that stochastically dominated cash marketing.