DETERMINANTS OF VOLUNTARY OVERTIME DECISIONS

This paper develops and estimates a model of the labor supply for overtime work when some workers' choices are constrained by mandatory overtime provisions of employers. Economic incentives are shown to have a significant effect on workers' overtime decisions. Policy simulations suggest that an increase in the overtime premium would lead to greater voluntary overtime work, as would a lowering of the level of weekly hours after which the mandatory premium takes effect. The estimated effects of these changes are not quantitatively large, indicating that workers are fairly insensitive to changes in monetary incentives in making overtime decisions.     

Drug wars down under: the ill-fated struggle for safe injecting facilities in Victoria, Australia

This article analyses the recent debate over the proposed introduction of safe injecting facilities (SIFs) for heroin users in the State of Victoria. It is argued that this debate strongly reflected the increasing globalisation of national social policy debates. Both supporters and opponents of SIFs drew constant attention to the alleged success or failure of existing SIFs in Europe. In addition, the debate saw the direct intervention of international and global agencies including the International Narcotics Control Board, the American Office of National Drug Policy and the Vatican. Some conclusions are also drawn about the reasons for the failure of the SIF campaign, including the conservatism of the opposition Liberal Party, the influence of the tabloid media and the use of ambiguous terminology.     

Lotteries in the real world

Observed patterns of lottery play suggest that many players believe they can improve their chance of winning by adjusting their bets according to which numbers have won in recent drawings, or in response to their dreams or other portents. This skill orientation is encouraged by state lottery advertising, which tends to be misleading in other respects as well. Patterns of lottery play and the content of lottery commercials provide readily available illustrations of psychological tendencies in risky decision-making that have been documented in laboratory experiments.This article is based on an informal presentation the authors gave at the Fifth International Conference on the Foundation and Application of Utility, Risk, and Decisions Theories at Duke University, June 11, 1990.     

Beauty and the Labor Market: Accounting for the Additional Effects of Personality and Grooming

This paper examines the influence of three non‐cognitive personal traits — beauty, personality, and grooming — on the labor market earnings of young adults. It extends the analyses of Hamermesh and Biddle [1994 , American Economic Review 84(5): 1174–1194] and others who focus primarily on the effects of beauty on labor market earnings. We find that personality and grooming significantly affect wages, and their inclusion in a model of wage determination reduces somewhat the effects of beauty. We also find some evidence of employer discrimination based on these traits in the setting of wages.     

私立高等教育之变革

指明私立高等教育在全球高等教育领域中获得迅速发展和扩张,指出其变革的因素是高等教育大众化,分析了私立高等教育的资助主要来自学费,阐述了私立高等教育的多样化结构和面临的挑战。     

Policy lessons for strengthening nonprofits

Those who develop or influence Australian public policy impacting on the nonprofit sector rarely have adequate empirical research upon which to base their judgments. Giving Australia research evidence relevant to strengthening giving and volunteering is brought together in this article to inform policy options for government, nonprofit and philanthropic entities. It begins with consideration of research findings related to the capacity of those that give or volunteer and the implications these findings have for policy. Three key criteria are developed for assessing policies to strengthening giving and volunteering, behaviours that primarily assist nonprofit organisations – policies that build trust between those that give and the recipients of their gifts, policies that strengthen affiliation and policies that encourage planned giving.     

A dynamic analysis of stock markets using a hidden Markov model

This paper proposes a framework to detect financial crises, pinpoint the end of a crisis in stock markets and support investment decision-making processes. This proposal is based on a hidden Markov model (HMM) and allows for a specific focus on conditional mean returns. By analysing weekly changes in the US stock market indexes over a period of 20 years, this study obtains an accurate detection of stable and turmoil periods and a probabilistic measure of switching between different stock market conditions. The results contribute to the discussion of the capabilities of Markov-switching models of analysing stock market behaviour. In particular, we find evidence that HMM outperforms threshold GARCH model with Student-t innovations both in-sample and out-of-sample, giving financial operators some appealing investment strategies.