Let’s Not Go Down that Path Again: Lessons from the Past Applied to Immigrant-Targeted Discrimination

Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are a staple of the modern United States workplace. While much of the discussion of this fact centers on negative consequences for the U.S., far less attention has been paid to the detrimental impact on immigrants resulting from their workplace experiences, particularly relating to being targets of discrimination. In this article, we outline: a) a variety of types of workplace discrimination potentially relating to immigrant status; b) potential negative outcomes arising from said discrimination for both immigrant employees and their employers, and; c) how existing and predicted employment law standards place organizations in a legally vulnerable position when such discrimination goes unchecked. We further discuss implications of immigrant-targeted discrimination (ITD) for organizations and managers, and plausible extensions of workplace discrimination laws to specifically include ITD.     

The relevance of reputation in the nonprofit sector: the moderating effect of socio-demographic characteristics

This paper extends prior research on the reputation of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) by investigating the moderating role of socio-demographic characteristics in forming NPO reputation and reputation's effects on donating and volunteering behavior. The findings offer new insights into the role an NPO's reputation plays and its effects on key outcomes such as willingness to donate and work as a voluntary member in specific subgroups. The results show that successful reputation management is specifically important for male, older, highly educated, and affluent respondents. Communicational measures aimed at strengthening an organization's social responsibility are particularly promising regarding triggering favorable donor behavior and voluntary support. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Pressure at the Plate: Inequality Aversion,Status, and Mere Exposure

This paper uses professional baseball data to evaluate the impact of social pressures on subjective decisions made by officials. Umpires show tendencies consistent with both centrality bias and favoritism toward players with higher status in the league. Results also indicate that the odds of a strike are lower for batters in close proximity to the official throughout the game. Implications extend beyond sport to issues regarding closeness of contact in employee–manager relationships and pay and promotions decisions in the workplace. Given the persistent monitoring of officials in professional baseball, this phenomenon could be more prevalent in less scrutinized positions in other industries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neighbourhood Effects as Indirect Effects: Evidence from a Dutch Case Study on the Significance of Neighbourhood for Employment Trajectories

One of the key challenges in the study of neighbourhood effects on work is to understand the pathways through which disadvantaged neighbourhoods impact the employment opportunities of residents. Endogenous explanations for neighbourhood effects focus on social life in these neighbourhoods, identifying mechanisms of social isolation, deviant work ethics and neighbourhood disorder. This article studies these mechanisms in a low‐income neighbourhood in the Netherlands. The case study shows that unfavourable socioeconomic outcomes can be indirect and unintended consequences of actions and choices in everyday life that are not directly concerned with work. Nevertheless, these individual actions and choices reflect local social practices that are influenced by the marginalized context in which residents lead their lives.     

Two state capital accumulation with heterogenous products: Disruptive vs. non-disruptive goods

The paper considers the problem of a firm that, while producing a standard product, has the option to introduce an innovative product. The innovative product competes with the standard product and will therefore reduce revenues of the standard product. A distinction is made between innovative products that do or do not become even more relatively appealing as their market share grows (e.g., because of network externalities). It is shown that in the former case, which we call a “disruptive” good, history dependent long run equilibria can occur, which are in line with recent real life economic examples.     

Shrinkage estimation of semiparametric multiplicative error models

Within models for nonnegative time series, it is common to encounter deterministic components (trends, seasonalities) which can be specified in a flexible form. This work proposes the use of shrinkage type estimation for the parameters of such components. The amount of smoothing to be imposed on the estimates can be chosen using different methodologies: Cross-Validation for dependent data or the recently proposed Focused Information Criterion. We illustrate such a methodology using a semiparametric autoregressive conditional duration model that decomposes the conditional expectations of durations into their dynamic (parametric) and diurnal (flexible) components. We use a shrinkage estimator that jointly estimates the parameters of the two components and controls the smoothness of the estimated flexible component. The results show that, from the forecasting perspective, an appropriate shrinkage strategy can significantly improve on the baseline maximum likelihood estimation.     

The importance of measuring patient satisfaction

Managed care has demonstrated its ability to contain costs. Its emergence as a dominant factor in the health care marketplace has raised concerns about measuring health care quality. As the field of quality assurance is evolving, it is becoming clearer that patient satisfaction surveys should be an integral component of assessing care.     

Cost-effectiveness of foreign aid programs in the baltics

After the upheavals in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Western world has given considerable aid to the fledgling democracies. In this paper we draw a summary from Baltic experience in the fields of educational programs, scientific and environmental programs, and commercial projects in banking, taxation, and energy. We analyze the motivation and identify different possible effects of foreign aid. We signal possible inefficiencies arising from the lack of coordination of foreign aid, deal with possible waste as being a form of loss in cost-effectiveness, and address the policies followed by aid-providing agencies. Finally, we suggest ways that can help to achieve cost-effectiveness by assisting the donor and recipient in maximizing benefits gained and possibly reducing costs.