Deux définitions de la collégialité et leur articulation: le cas d’un diocèse catholique

Against the background of the conflict observed between managers and professionals, two definitions of collegiality are identified: on the one hand, as a specific organizational form (bottom up) and, on the other, as a procedure of bureaucratic management (top down). A study of networks of priests in a catholic diocese in France is used to explore how these two definitions are related. Questions are raised about the effects of a too narrow organizational rationalization that uses collegiality only as a top down, bureaucratic managerial procedure. This always entails the risk of making the work done by experts sterile because it overlooks the first type of collegiality, which is based on the nature of the nonroutine tasks that members perform jointly thanks to an endogenous organizational structure of a bottom up type.     

The Impact of Family Policies on Fertility Trends in Developed Countries

We examine how strongly fertility trends respond to family policies in OECD countries. In the light of the recent fertility rebound observed in several OECD countries, we empirically test the impact of different family policy instruments on fertility, using macro panel data from 18 OECD countries that spans the years 1982–2007. Our results confirm that each instrument of the family policy package (paid leave, childcare services and financial transfers) has a positive influence on average, suggesting that the combination of these forms of support for working parents during their children’s early years is likely to facilitate parents’ choice to have children. Policy levers do not all have the same weight, however: in-cash benefits covering childhood after the year of childbirth and the provision of childcare services for children under age three have a larger potential influence on fertility than leave entitlements and benefits granted around childbirth. Moreover, we find that the influence of each policy measure varies across different family policy contexts. Our findings are robust after controlling for birth postponement, endogeneity, time-lagged fertility reactions and for different aspects of national contexts, such as female labour market participation, unemployment, labour market protection and the proportion of children born out of marriage.     

Welfare, labor supply and heterogeneous preferences: evidence for Europe and the US

Following the report of the Stiglitz Commission, measuring and comparing well-being across countries has gained renewed interest. Yet, analyses that go beyond income and incorporate non-market dimensions of welfare most often rely on the assumption of identical preferences to avoid the difficulties related to interpersonal comparisons. In this paper, we suggest an international comparison based on individual welfare rankings that fully retain preference heterogeneity. Focusing on the consumption-leisure trade-off, we estimate discrete choice labor supply models using harmonized microdata for 11 European countries and the US. We retrieve preference heterogeneity within and across countries and analyze several welfare criteria which take into account that differences in income are partly due to differences in tastes. The resulting welfare rankings clearly depend on the normative treatment of preference heterogeneity with alternative metrics. We show that these differences can indeed be explained by estimated preference heterogeneity across countries—rather than demographic composition.     

Midlife Women Online: Evaluation of an Internet-Based Program to Prevent Unintended Pregnancy & STIs

Background: Midlife women are an underserved population in the areas of unintended pregnancy and STI prevention yet remain at risk for both health conditions. Methods: A randomized controlled trial of an Internet-based multimedia program to reduce risk of unintended pregnancy and STIs among midlife women was conducted with 164 women ages 40–55 years of age. Results: Women in the treatment condition compared to the control condition reported significant gains in attitudes, self-efficacy, and behavioral intentions at posttest. Conclusion: Interventions specifically targeted to midlife women can impact constructs known to reduce risk. Implications for future research and intervention development are presented.     

Nonparametric Instrumental Variable Estimation of Structural Quantile Effects

We study the asymptotic distribution of Tikhonov regularized estimation of quantile structural effects implied by a nonseparable model. The nonparametric instrumental variable estimator is based on a minimum distance principle. We show that the minimum distance problem without regularization is locally ill‐posed, and we consider penalization by the norms of the parameter and its derivatives. We derive pointwise asymptotic normality and develop a consistent estimator of the asymptotic variance. We study the small sample properties via simulation results and provide an empirical illustration of estimation of nonlinear pricing curves for telecommunications services in the United States.     

A smallest tournament for which the Banks set and the Copeland set are disjoint

Given a tournament T, a Banks winner of T is the first vertex of any maximal (with respect to inclusion) transitive subtournament of T; a Copeland winner of T is a vertex with a maximum out-degree. In this paper, we show that 13 is the minimum number of vertices that a tournament must have so that none of its Copeland winners is a Banks winner: for any tournament with less than 13 vertices, there is always at least one vertex which is a Copeland winner and a Banks winner simultaneously. Received: 2 May 1997 / Accepted: 30 September 1997     

EXPERT OPINION AND PRODUCT QUALITY: EVIDENCE FROM NEW YORK CITY RESTAURANTS

We analyze whether consumers' quality perception and/or producer investment of New York City restaurants, measured by Zagat scores, responds to newly appearing expert opinion, measured by Michelin scores. Answering this question is of general economic interest as it applies to all markets with information asymmetries. Employing a difference‐in‐differences approach as well as a propensity score matching approach we find significant Michelin treatment effects on food and décor quality. Based on these changes, we find a Michelin‐induced price increase of approximately 30% per Michelin star. To examine whether the improved food and nonfood quality is based on restaurant investments or is merely imagined, we analyze nonfood investments by referring to Wine Spectator wine list awards. Our analysis suggests that Michelin‐reviewed restaurants are significantly more likely to invest in their wine list than others. As a result, Michelin reviewed restaurants are more likely to improve food and nonfood (esp. décor) quality leading to significant price increases. However, while restaurants that increase prices only due to décor and service improvements are more likely to go out of business, food improvements appear to secure a restaurant's survival. (JEL D11, L15, L66)