F?rdern aktienkursbasierte Vergütungsinstrumente langfristig orientierte Unternehmensentscheidungen? Lehren aus der Kreditkrise

The question whether stock-based management incentives encourage long-term oriented management decisions is the topic of a controversial public debate. Also, the existing academic literature provides no clear picture, mainly due to endogeneity problems. In this paper, we reexamine the issue in the context of the recent credit crises, which allows us to solve the endogeneity problem. In the empirical analysis we find that firms, which have awarded stock-based incentives to their executives prior or during the financial crises, face substantially lower cuts in investment spending. These firms also show higher levels of R&D investments during the financial crises. Overall, our results suggest that stock based long-term incentives promote long-term oriented management decisions.     

Fertility Behavior and Interspousal Authority Relationships

Abstract

The most important issue which surrounds attitude theory today is the so called “consistency issue.” It is an issue which focuses on the failure of attitude theory and research to demonstrate the kind of causal relationship between attitudes and behavior which has been traditionally asserted in the logical underpinnings of that theory.

For some time, the critics of attitude theory and research have suggested that the inconsistency between attitudes and acts would not be reduced until attitudes were rooted in the social process within which human behavior occurs. This criticism has been responded to by contemporary attitude specialists who have made notable modifications in theory and research to take account of social variables which influence the assumed relationship between attitudes and behavior.

However, some of the criticisms of attitude theory have gone beyond pointing out the lack of a “socialized” conception of the problem to attack the logical underpinnings of the entire enterprise. While this paper is not a renewal of these criticisms of attitude theory, it is an attempt to identify and explicate a conception of attitudes which is a true sociological alternative to more traditional psychological conceptions.     

The Effect of a Variable Data Point on Hypothesis Tests for Means

The effect of a single variable data point, x, on the usual test statistics for traditional hypothesis tests for means is analyzed. It is shown that an outlier may have a profound and unexpected effect on the test statistic. Although it might appear that an outlier would tend to lend support to the alternate hypothesis, it may in fact detract from the significance of the test. In one-population tests and analysis of variance (ANOVA), the value of x that maximizes the significance of the test statistic is given. This value does not have to be unusually large or small. In fact, it often falls within the range of the other sample points. In the general one-population case, the limiting value for the test statistic is shown to be +1. In the case involving more than one population, it is shown that the limiting value of the test statistic is a function only of the number of members in the samples and not their relative values. Special cases are identified in which the test statistic is shown to have unique characteristics depending on the characteristics of the data.     

Books received

A Wider Perspective Needed Avraham Greenbaum (ed.), Minority Problems in Eastern Europe Between the World Wars, with Emphasis on the Jewish Minority, introduced by Edward Allworth, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Institute of Advanced Studies. Jerusalem, 1988. pp.viii, 163.

The Jokes of Oppression David A. Harris and Izrail Rabinovich, The Jokes of Oppression: The Humour of Soviet Jews. Northvale, NJ and London: Jason Aronson, 1988. 275pp. $22.50.

A Pleasant Surprise Franti?ek Mi?eje, Revolu?nou Cestou. Spomienky na roky 1938–1948 (On the Path of Revolution: Reminiscences of the Years 1938–1948.) Bratislava: Pravda publishers on behalf of the Institute of Marxism‐Leninism of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia, 1988. 232 pp. Illus. Bibl. Index. Kcs 19.00.     

The behavioural wedge

When nations fail to agree, can individual citizens make a difference? The third of our post-Copenhagen features is by Jonathan Gilligan, Thomas Dietz, Gerald T. Gardner, Paul C. Stern , and Michael P. Vandenbergh . They look at the effects that voluntary actions by individuals can have, and at the policies that can best encourage such actions.     

Locally optimal designs for the simple death process

We demonstrate the existence and uniqueness of optimal observation schedules for discrete observation of the simple death process. Optimality is framed in the sense of observing the process at times that maximise the Fisher information for the death rate. We examine the relationship of our designs with those obtained by other authors for the simple birth process. A number of interesting properties are uncovered. Practical considerations in the application of these designs in an experimental setting are investigated, and we examine the performance of some approximately optimal designs that are usually simpler to implement. We will show that our optimal designs are highly robust to mis-specification of the death rate.     

A frailty model for (interval) censored family survival data,applied to the age at onset of non-physical problems

Family survival data can be used to estimate the degree of genetic and environmental contributions to the age at onset of a disease or of a specific event in life. The data can be modeled with a correlated frailty model in which the frailty variable accounts for the degree of kinship within the family. The heritability (degree of heredity) of the age at a specific event in life (or the onset of a disease) is usually defined as the proportion of variance of the survival age that is associated with genetic effects. If the survival age is (interval) censored, heritability as usually defined cannot be estimated. Instead, it is defined as the proportion of variance of the frailty associated with genetic effects. In this paper we describe a correlated frailty model to estimate the heritability and the degree of environmental effects on the age at which individuals contact a social worker for the first time and to test whether there is a difference between the survival functions of this age for twins and non-twins.     

Bayesian discrete latent spatial modeling of crack initiation in orthopaedic hip replacement bone cement

In this paper, we propose a spatial model for the initiation of cracks in the bone cement of hip replacement specimens. The failure of hip replacements can be attributed mainly to damage accumulation, consisting of crack initiation and growth, occurring in the cement mantle that interlocks the hip prosthesis and the femur bone. Since crack initiation is an important factor in determining the lifetime of a replacement, the understanding of the reasons for crack initiation is vital in attempting to prolong the life of the hip replacement. The data consist of crack location coordinates from five laboratory experimental models, together with stress measurements. It is known that stress plays a major role in the initiation of cracks, and it is also known that other unmeasurable factors such as air bubbles (pores) in the cement mantle are also influential. We propose an identity-link spatial Poisson regression model for the counts of cracks in discrete regions of the cement, incorporating both the measured (stress), and through a latent process, any unmeasured factors (possibly pores) that may be influential. All analysis is carried out in a Bayesian framework, allowing for the inclusion of prior information obtained from engineers, and parameter estimation for the model is done via Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques.     

When the Learning Disabled Go to College

Abstract

During the last decade, federal laws have provided for remedial education in elementary and secondary schools for students with learning disabilities, preparing large numbers of them for college. Federal law also mandates helping learning-disabled students with their needs once they matriculate. Declining numbers of high school graduates in the aftermath of the baby boom have made more colleges open their doors to these students. The disabilities, and the accommodations they require, arrive in college with the rest of a student's baggage, demanding attention. Colleges and universities have chosen a variety of approaches, from specific remedial programs and individual accomodations according to need to more general programs. Some colleges pretend these disabilities do not exist and seem oblivious to their presence on campus. Learning disabilities can have an impact in every class and lecture hall and can contribute to unhappiness and the college's attrition rate. On the other hand, responsive and responsible programs provide students with the resources for the same education, honors, and opportunities as their nondisabled peers.