$$\mathcal{D}$$-optimal Minimum Support Mixture Designs in Blocks

An easy method to construct efficient blocked mixture experiments in the presence of fixed and/or random blocks is presented. The method can be used when qualitative variables are involved in a mixture experiment as well. The resulting designs are -optimal in the class of minimum support designs. It is illustrated that the minimum support designs are more efficient than orthogonally blocked mixture experiments presented in the literature and only slightly less efficient than -optimal designs.     

The effect of minimum wage on firm markup: Evidence from China

Our paper examines the impact of minimum wage on firm markup in China. We find that minimum wage generates a positive effect on firm markup. More value-enhancing innovative activities, TFP improvement, and efficient labor resource allocation are the potential channels. Further, the positive influence of minimum wage is more pronounced for privately-owned firms, for firms with higher labor intensity and firms with less financial constraints. Besides, these findings are generally robust to different estimation methods. Our results provide new insights into understanding the channels through which labor regulation may cause the change of markup for the emerging markets countries.     

Understanding Japanese tourists’ shopping preferences using the Decision Tree Analysis method

This study was designed to assess the factors affecting Japanese tourists’ shopping preference and intention to revisit Korea. The analytical method applied in this study was Decision Tree Analysis, which is under-utilized in tourism studies. A total of 300 questionnaires were collected on the basis of on-site survey method and used for data analysis. Among interesting findings, three groups including ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and spent US$50–300 on shopping’, ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$300–1000’ and ‘respondents who were satisfied, accompanied, and had a shopping expenditure of US$1000–5000,’ showed a high level of intention to return to Korea for the purpose of shopping. In addition, two groups ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of below high school’ and ‘those who were interested in shopping in Korea, preferred a shopping mall as a shopping destination, and had an educational level of a college graduate or above’ showed a higher level interest in merchandise than in shopping venue attractiveness.     

Resource saving and productivity enhancing impacts of crop management innovation packages in Ethiopia

Crop management innovations are often not discrete fixed stand‐alone options—and their adoption may imply various combinations and adaptations. This potentially confounds their impact assessment. This article assesses the resource saving and productivity enhancing impacts of a crop management package revolving around minimum tillage in maize‐based farming systems in northwest Ethiopia. An endogenous switching regression model was applied to plot‐ and household‐level survey data collected from 290 rural households operating 590 maize plots during the 2012 production year. Controlling for variations in plot and household characteristics, the average effect of minimum tillage package (minimum tillage package) on maize productivity is 0.44 t/ha. Compared to conventional practice (CP), adoption of the MTP decreased the average male and female labor use in maize production by 14.4 and 8.2 person‐days per ha, respectively. Similarly, MTP adoption decreased draft power use for land preparation by 13.2 pair of oxen‐days per ha. Compared to CP, in general, there is a considerable short‐run maize productivity gain and reduction in labor and draft power use under MTP.     

Trust or not: Heuristics for making trust-based choices in HR management

The present two studies examine how the participants (i.e., 150 managers) make trust-based employee selection in hypothetical situations, based on five cues of trustworthiness derived from previous surveys. In Study 1, each executive participant is presented with a pair of candidates with different cue profiles so that the choice would favor one of them based upon each of the four following heuristics: Franklin's rule, likelihood expectancy, take-the-best (TTB), and minimum requirement (MR). Study 2 adopting a within-subject design jointly compares the four heuristics. The results show that simple heuristics (MR and TTB) outperform the more complex strategies (Franklin's rule and likelihood expectancy) in their predictive accuracy. The MR heuristic, a heuristic tallying the frequency of passes against a set of minimal rather than optimal or satisfactory requirements, performs even better than the TTB heuristic, particularly when the number of the cues identified as MRs is small.     

THE IMPACT OF LABOR MARKET REGULATION ON EMPLOYMENT IN LOW‐INCOME COUNTRIES: A META‐ANALYSIS

Controversy over labor market policy often centers on achieving a balance between preventing worker exploitation, and avoiding loss of productivity or employment through excessive regulation. Although the literature documenting the impact of labor market regulation on employment is extensive, there is a dearth of evidence on the impact of such policies in low‐income countries (LICs). Since it is easier for workers, especially women, to slip into the informal sector in LICs, regulations are likely to have stronger impacts on formal employment in these countries (but lower impacts on unemployment). We systematically reviewed available research from countries that are, or were until recently, LICs. Most studies document that more stringent labor regulations are associated with lower formal sector employment and higher informal sector employment. We also conducted a metaregression analysis of the impact of minimum wages on formal and informal employment. After controlling for publication bias, higher minimum wages are associated with lower formal employment and a higher share of informal workers.     

Optimal route decision with a geometric ground-airborne hybrid model under weather uncertainty

Adverse weather is the dominant cause of delays in the National Airspace System (NAS). Since the future weather condition is only predictable with a certain degree of accuracy, managing traffic in the weather-affected airspace is a challenging task. In this paper, we propose a geometric model to generate an optimal combination of ground delay and route choice to hedge against weather risk. The geometric recourse model (GRM) is a strategic Probabilistic Air Traffic Management (PATM) model that generates optimal route choice, incorporating route hedging and en-route recourse to respond to weather change: hedged routes are routes other than the nominal or the detour one, and recourse occurs when the weather restricted airspace becomes flyable and aircraft are re-routed to fly direct to the destination. Among several variations of the GRM, we focus on the hybrid Dual Recourse Model (DRM), which allows ground delay as well as route hedging and recourses, when the weather clearance time follows a uniform distribution. The formulation of the hybrid DRM involves two decision variables - ground delay and route choice - and four parameters: storm location, storm size, maximum storm duration time, and ground-airborne cost ratio. The objective function has two components: expected total ground delay cost and expected total airborne cost. We propose a solution algorithm that guarantees to find the global optimum of the hybrid-DRM. Based on the numerical analysis, we find that ground-holding is effective only when combined with the nominal route. Otherwise, it is optimal to fly on the route determined by the DRM without ground delay. We also find the formula of the threshold ground-airborne cost ratio, which we call the Critical Cost Ratio (CCR), that determines the efficacy of ground delay: the higher the CCR, the more effective the strategies involving ground delay. We conclude that both ground delay and route hedging should be considered together to produce the best ATM decisions.     

The impact of minimum wages on employment of low‐wage workers

This study provides empirical evidence on the impact of a minimum wage increase on employment of workers in the formal sector who have wages below the minimum level in Vietnam. Using the difference‐in‐differences with propensity score matching and the Vietnam Household Living Standard Surveys of 2004 and 2006, the article finds that the minimum wage increase in 2005 reduced the proportion of workers having a formal sector job among low‐wage workers. Most workers who lost formal sector jobs became self‐employed.     

The effect of minimum wage on poverty

To the best of my knowledge, the minimum wage's influence on poverty in Russia has never been investigated. Russian data provide a unique opportunity for studying the effects of the minimum wage on poverty, given significant increases in the minimum wage in recent years, almost complete coverage, and a high representation of full-time workers in poor households. This article examines the effect of the minimum wage on the incidence of poverty and the transitions into and out of poverty in Russia using data from the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) from 2006 to 2011. The results indicate that the minimum wage in Russia had moderate poverty-reducing effects.