The value of commuting time in an empirical on-the-job search model – an application based on moments from two samples

This article estimates the Value of Commuting Time (VOCT) among Swedish males in an empirical on-the-job search model. It uses a large sample of employee-establishment linked data obtained from administrative registers. The sample lacks information on mode choice for the journey to work. We therefore estimate a mode choice model on another sample and use this model to link the administrative data to the relevant set of travel times, costs and distances. The VOCT is found to be 1.8 times the net hourly wage rate in the sample. The relatively high estimate results from a high VOCT among cohabiting men.     

Job preferences of students and new graduates in nursing

This article investigates the preferences of student and newly graduated nurses for pecuniary and nonpecuniary aspects of nursing jobs. It is the first study applying methods based on discrete choice experiments to a developed country nursing workforce. It is also the first to focus on the transition through university training and into work. This is particularly important as junior nurses have the lowest retention levels in the profession. We sample 526 individuals from nursing programmes in two Australian universities. Flexible and newly developed models combining heteroscedasticity with unobserved heterogeneity in scale and preference weights are estimated. Overall, salary remains the most important feature in increasing the probability that a job will be selected. ‘Supportive management/staff’ and ‘quality of care’ follow as the most important attributes from a list of 11 nonpecuniary characteristics. However, the subset of new graduates rank ‘supportive management/staff’ above salary increases, emphasizing the importance of a supportive workplace in the transition from university to the workplace. We find substantial preference heterogeneity and some attributes, such as the opportunity for clinical rotations, are found to be attractive to some nurses while seen as negative by others. Nursing retention could be improved by designing different employment packages to appeal to these different tastes.     

Precautionary savings of agents with heterogeneous risk aversion

This article focuses on the estimation of the importance of the precautionary motive in the wealth accumulation decision. We use the micro data set of the De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB) Household Survey (DHS) (CentERdata, Tilburg University), a Dutch household survey containing information on wealth, a subjective measure of income uncertainty and subjective qualitative measures of risk aversion. We find that only a small share of wealth is accumulated for the precautionary motive by the Dutch households. This share of wealth is constant across assets with different degrees of liquidity. The economic downturn of the period 2008 to 2010 seems to affect risk attitudes and precautionary saving. Our findings also suggest that the more risk-averse individuals are those who hold less savings.     

How store format choices and market structure affect agglomeration economies and competition among chain stores in the US supermarket industry

This article studies how store format choices and market concentration affect agglomeration economies and competition among chain stores. Using data on supermarket chains in Arizona, Georgia and Illinois, we decompose a store’s sales into parts stemming from local market conditions, such as demographics, and parts stemming from competition measures, which can be of its own chain’s stores or of other chains’ stores. Our results show that local market conditions are still a key factor in generating store sales. In more concentrated markets of Georgia and Illinois, a supermarket chain suffers from business-stealing among its own stores – agglomeration economies not sufficient to offset competition among its stores – but ironically tolerates the presence of other chains’ stores. Can a retail chain favourably tip the balance of agglomeration economies and competition? We find the answer by looking at the two big corporations in Arizona – Bashas Markets Inc. and Kroger Co. – which own two and three store formats, respectively, catering to distinct consumer segments, and thus promoting agglomeration economies while minimizing competition among their own stores.     

Modeling Student Subject Choice at Secondary and Tertiary Level: A Cross-Section Study

Cross-section data on secondary level student choices provide evidence on factors influencing the decision to study economics. Such evidence makes a key contribution to the broader debates on why student numbers have been falling in economics and why women are reluctant economists. Greater mathematical aptitude and prior knowledge of the subject influence the decision to study economics, and a significant effect is attributable to relative underachievement in economics. There are also significant peer group and teacher effects. Female students are more likely to study economics when there is a critical mass of women studying the subject. There is a positive role model effect of female teachers—although this does not carry over to the decision to continue with economics at the university.     

国有企业思想政治工作创新机制的路径选择——基于企业社会责任视角

《中共中央关于加强和改进企业思政治工作的通知》中阐述了思想政治工作是企业现代化管理不可缺少的重要组成部分。国有企业作为中国国民经济的重要支柱,长期以来非常重视思想政治工作。通过对国有企业思想政治工作发展历程的回顾,发现其思想政治工作亟待创新,并从三个方面分析了其创新的原因。通过辨析企业思想政治工作和社会责任之间的逻辑关系来说明在国有企业思想政治工作中引入社会责任是一个重要创新。最后提出利用企业社会责任来创新国有企业思想政治工作的路径选择。     

Productivity and technical change: the case of Taiwan

This paper analyses productivity growth in 16 of Taiwan's manufacturing industries during the period 1978–1992. The non-parametric Data Envelopment Analysis approach is used to compute Malmquist productivity indexes. These are decomposed into efficiency change and technical change. The latter is further decomposed into an output bias, an input bias and a magnitude component. In addition, the direction of input bias is identified. Empirical results indicate that the sector's TFP increased at a rate of 2.89% per annum, which could be ascribed to a technical progress (2.56%) and an efficiency improvement (0.33%).     

Pricing to market in European automobile exports to OECD countries: a panel data approach

This paper investigates pricing to market behaviour using data for European auto exports. The empirical analysis uses forward instead of spot exchange rates. Cross-country and cross-product analyses reveal that pricing behaviour depends mainly on the class of product, while the country of origin and destination appears as less important. Furthermore, the data do not usually reject the hypothesis of a symmetric response of export prices to depreciations and appreciations of the exporter's currency. Finally, although the point estimates confirm the combined influence of the business cycle and the direction of the exchange rate movements on pricing to market in most cases, formal tests seldom provide statistical significance for this result.     

中国钢铁长期需求:影响因素与政策选择

近年来,我国钢铁工业得到了长足的发展。但随着国内外市场供求关系变化,钢铁工业供求结构不相适应的矛盾日益显现。钢铁工业要实现可持续发展,必须重视对市场长期需求规律的研究,将数量增长和产品结构调整相结合。本文利用协整方程对市场经济条件下经济增长等因素对我国钢铁工业推动作用进行动态分析,探讨钢铁市场的长期需求规律,对于当前钢铁产业政策发展导向、政策选择等提出建议。