LABOR MOBILITY OF IMMIGRANTS: TRAINING,EXPERIENCE, LANGUAGE,AND OPPORTUNITIES*

This article analyzes the labor mobility and human capital accumulation of male immigrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel. We estimate a dynamic choice model for employment and training in blue‐ and white‐collar occupations, where the labor market randomly offered opportunities are affected by past choices. The estimated model accurately reproduces the patterns in the data. The estimated direct earning return to local training, local experience, and knowledge of Hebrew are very high, whereas imported skills have zero (conditional) return. The welfare gain from the impact of training on job offer probabilities is larger than its effect on wages.     

Board Determinants in Banking Industry. An International Perspective

This paper explores the factors influencing the board composition of an international sample of commercial banks over the period 1996–2006. After considering the dual role of the board as monitor and advisor, our analysis shows that no one board composition is optimal for the banking industry and that any such recommendation could harm bank governance. Our results suggest that more complex banks that have a low ownership concentration and are headquartered in a civil law country should have larger and more independent boards. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimum allocation in multivariate stratified random sampling: stochastic matrix mathematical programming

The allocation problem for multivariate stratified random sampling as a problem of stochastic matrix integer mathematical programming is considered, minimizing the estimated covariance matrix of estimated means subject to fixed cost or fixed total sample size. With these aims the asymptotic normality of sample covariance matrices for each strata is established. Some alternative approaches are suggested for its solution. An example is solved by applying the proposed techniques.     

Project Management Knowledge and Effects on Construction Project Outcomes: An Empirical Study

This study examines the relationships among the PMBOK® Guide, project performance, customer satisfaction, and project success by assessing the efficacy of management techniques, tools, and skills for implementing infrastructure and building construction. Experienced interviewees from private engineering firms and public agencies were asked to complete a questionnaire, and the responses were analyzed by means of a structural equation model. The analytical results indicate the appropriateness of prioritizing the practice of the PMBOK® Guide in the construction industry. This study contributes to the literature by providing insight into interactions among the PMBOK® Guide and construction project outcomes in engineering practices. Particularly, the “bidder's conference” and “procurement negotiations” are the priority techniques to minimize bidding and legal procurement problems. Moreover, the study recommends the use of “stakeholder analysis,” “communication requirements analysis,” and the “communication methods” to perform effective communication management. Although the conclusions are based on the sample collected in Taiwan, the research findings can be used by project managers and educators to tailor the PMBOK® Guide to their unique needs and to design effective training programs for construction specialists.     

Persistence Characteristics of Tourism Arrivals to Australia

This paper examines the degree of persistence in international monthly arrivals to Australia by using data disaggregated by tourism‐source countries. We employ two competing models, which are very general in the sense that they include (seasonal and non‐seasonal) unit roots as particular cases of interest. The first model is based on a long‐memory process in the non‐seasonal part of the series along with a short‐memory autoregressive (AR) seasonal structure. The second model is based on a long‐memory process for the seasonal structure of the series, the short‐term evolution being described through a non‐seasonal AR(1) process. Results based on the residuals and forecasting assessment indicate that the second model is preferable in terms of fitting the data. We provide persistence ranking of all countries included in the study and discuss the managerial implications of the main findings. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.