Family and sex-specific U.S. immigration from Europe, 1870–1910: A panel data study of rates and composition

This paper develops and estimates models of family and sex-specific emigration, as well as the sex composition of this emigration, from 12 European source countries to the U.S. for the period 1870–1910. The models are based on the distinction between economic migrants (males, single females, and some married females) and tied or trailing migrants (females) and are estimated with panel data, including data that relate to the occupational/industrial structure of male and female economic activity in source countries. Hausman-Taylor instrumental variable estimates suggest that although both males and females responded to labor-market signals, males were more responsive than females to per capita GDP differences. Moreover, compared to the rest of Europe, Ireland, and Scandinavia were the sources of many young, single male, and female migrants, who responded strongly to gaps in economic opportunities. In fact, much of the European response to such gaps appears to be due to migrants from Ireland and Scandinavia. Females tended to originate in English-speaking countries and countries that were agriculturally oriented. Service and manufacturing jobs in source countries discouraged the migration of females relative to males. Males tended to follow recent migrants more than females, but females responded more to long-term influences as measured by stocks of migrants from their source countries who had previously settled in the U.S. Countries with high birth rates had relatively fewer female emigrants, whereas those with high rates of natural increase 20 years earlier experienced relatively more male emigration. Intact families, other family members (including family-strategy male migrants and trailing female migrants), and single males and females responded strongly to economic incentives, but the singles were most responsive followed by family-strategy males.     

Regulatory incentives and financial reporting quality in public healthcare organisations

English National Health Service Foundation Trusts are subject to a regulatory regime in which the level of monitoring and intervention is determined by performance against two key performance metrics: a ‘financial risk rating’, based on a number of performance metrics, such as the reported surplus margin and return on assets, and a ‘prudential borrowing limit’. In this paper, we investigate the variation in financial reporting quality, proxied by discretionary accruals, with the incentives introduced by this regime. We find: first, that discretionary accruals are managed to report small surpluses; second, that, consistent with the avoidance of regulatory intervention in both the short and medium term, discretionary accruals are more positive when pre-managed performance is below intervention triggering thresholds and more negative when well above threshold; third, that, despite a move away from financial breakeven as the primary performance objective, there remains an aversion to small loss reporting. We further find that the level of discretionary accruals is driven by two metrics of strategic significance: the surplus margin (a measure of retained earnings) and the prudential borrowing limit (a measure of borrowing capacity).     

The Three Faces of Labor: Sustainability and the Next Wave of Automation

This article develops a model of three faces of labor from Figart, Mutari, and Power’s three faces of wages. This is integrated with sustainability models to locate the process of human and social capital formation and explore issues arising from technological change. The latest wave of automation, involving robotics and artificial intelligence, is expected to be an even greater challenge for worker well-being than globalization and immigration. The model supports a new narrative around labor that incorporates the caring economy as well as a framework for thinking about labor issues and long-term well-being.     

Agency Costs,Mispricing, and Ownership Structure

Standard theories of ownership assume insiders ultimately bear all agency costs and therefore act to minimize conflicts of interest. However, overvalued equity can offset these costs and induce listings associated with higher agency costs. We explore this possibility by examining a sample of public listings of Japanese subsidiaries. Subsidiaries in which the parent sells a larger stake and subsidiaries with greater scope for expropriation by the parent firm are more overpriced at listing, and minority shareholders fare poorly after listing as mispricing corrects. Parent firms often repurchase subsidiaries at large discounts to valuations at the time of listing and experience positive abnormal returns when repurchases are announced.     

The Lognormal Distribution as a Model for Survival Time in Cancer, With an Emphasis on Prognostic Factors

Despite their long history, parametric survival-time models have largely been neglected in the modern biostatistical and medical literature in favour of the Cox proportional hazards model. Here, I present a case for the use of the lognormal distribution in the analysis of survival times of breast and ovarian cancer patients, specifically in modelling the effects of prognostic factors. The lognormal provides a completely specified probability distribution for the observations and a sensible estimate of the variation explained by the model, a quantity that is controversial for the Cox model. I show how imputation of censored observations under the model may be used to inspect the data using familiar graphical and other technques. Results from the Cox and lognormal models are compared and shown apparently to differ to some extent. However, it is hard to judge which model gives the more accurate estimates. It is concluded that provided the lognormal model fits the data adequately, it may be a useful approach to the analysis of censored survival data.     

The impact of relative residence times on the distribution of heavy drinkers in highly distinct environments

Alcohol consumption is a function of social dynamics, environmental contexts, individuals' preferences and family history. Empirical surveys have focused primarily on identification of risk factors for high-level drinking but have done little to clarify the underlying mechanisms at work. Also, there have been few attempts to apply nonlinear dynamics to the study of these mechanisms and processes at the population level. A simple framework where drinking is modeled as a socially contagious process in low- and high-risk connected environments is introduced. Individuals are classified as light, moderate (assumed mobile), and heavy drinkers. Moderate drinkers provide the link between both environments, that is, they are assumed to be the only individuals drinking in both settings. The focus here is on the effect of moderate drinkers, measured by the proportion of their time spent in “low-” versus “high-” risk drinking environments, on the distribution of drinkers.A simple model within our contact framework predicts that if the relative residence times of moderate drinkers are distributed randomly between low- and high-risk environments then the proportion of heavy drinkers is likely to be higher than expected. However, the full story even in a highly simplified setting is not so simple because “strong” local social mixing tends to increase high-risk drinking on its own. High levels of social interaction between light and moderate drinkers in low-risk environments can diminish the importance of the distribution of relative drinking times on the prevalence of heavy drinking.     

SIR ALAN WALTERS' ROLE IN THE REVIVAL OF CURRENCY BOARDS1

In a speech given in 2004, at a meeting held at the Institute of Economic Affairs in honour of Sir Alan Walters who died in 2009, John Greenwood explains Sir Alan's critical role in the creation of a currency board in Hong Kong in 1983.     

Public and private sector auditors and accruals quality in English NHS hospital Trusts

To promote auditor independence and audit quality in English NHS Trusts the Audit Commission regulates auditor rotation, fees and the appointment of its own and private sector auditors. NHS sanctioned departures from GAAP, some of which allow the financial breakeven target to be achieved, have been criticised by the Audit Commission as detrimental to financial discipline. In this paper, we investigate the association between abnormal accruals and the achievement of financial breakeven in NHS hospital Trusts over the period 1998–2005. We also investigate the association between abnormal accruals, audit fees and the Trusts audited by public and private sector auditors. We find evidence that abnormal accruals are used to achieve financial breakeven and they differ across different types of auditor. We also identify a negative relationship between abnormal accruals and NHS Trust star ratings. These findings raise questions about the ‘quality’ of NHS audit where compliance with NHS-specific regulations overrides the wider GAAP-based requirement for financial statements to show a true and fair view and they warrant reconsideration of the nature of audit in NHS Trusts.