WHAT DO UNIONS DO TO PENSION PERFORMANCE?

Unions can have either positive or negative effects on risk‐adjusted returns in pension plans. On the positive side, a union can improve monitoring of pension advisors and asset managers. On the negative side, the union may sacrifice returns by making investments that promote union goals. This paper discusses how the structure of the pension plan affects the union's ability and willingness to sacrifice returns to promote union goals. Using panel data on over 38,000 pension plans drawn from IRS Form 5500 filings between 1988 and 2008, we find the lowest performing plans are unionized multi‐employer plans. Among defined contribution plans, the underperformance of multi‐employer union plans disappears when the pension is controlled by individual participants. (JEL J32, J51)     

The global corporate elite after the financial crisis: evidence from the transnational network of interlocking directorates

What impact did the recent financial crisis have on the corporate elite's international network? Has corporate governance taken on an essentially national structure or have transnational networks remained robust? We investigate this issue by comparing the networks of interlocking directorates among the 176 largest corporations in the world economy in 1976, 1996, 2006 and 2013. We find that corporate elites have not retrenched into their national business communities: the transnational network increased in relative importance and remained largely intact during the crisis lasting from 2006 to 2013. However, this network does not depend – as it used to do – on a small number of big linkers but on a growing number of single linkers. The network has become less hierarchical. As a group, the corporate elite has become more transnational in character. We see this as indicative of a recomposition of the corporate elite from a national to a transnational orientation.     

THE IMPACT OF TAX POLICY ON INVESTMENT BEHAVIOR IN THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY, 1951-65

The purpose of this study was to estimate the impact of changes in Federal tax policy on investment behavior in the chemicals and allied products industry and to examine the possibility of a differential impact of changes in tax policy on investment behavior in manufacturing industries. The impact of changes in tax policy on investment behavior in the chemical and allied products industry was estimated and compared with the impact of tax policy on investment behavior in total manufacturing found in earlier studies. The model used to estimate the impact of changes in tax policy on investment behavior in the chemicals and allied products industry was the neo-classical model of capital accumulation as formulated initially by Dale Jorgenson. The conclusions reached were that changes in tax policy have had a measurable impact on investment behavior in the chemical and allied products industry which was greater as a percentage of gross investment than that found on total manufacturing in earlier studies.     

The promise and perils of using big data in the study of corporate networks: problems,diagnostics and fixes

Network data on connections between corporate actors and entities – for instance through co‐ownership ties or elite social networks – are increasingly available to researchers interested in probing the many important questions related to the study of modern capitalism. Given the analytical challenges associated with the nature of the subject matter, variable data quality and other problems associated with currently available data on this scale, we discuss the promise and perils of using big corporate network data (BCND). We propose a standard procedure for helping researchers deal with BCND problems. While acknowledging that different research questions require different approaches to data quality, we offer a schematic platform that researchers can follow to make informed and intelligent decisions about BCND issues and address these through a specific work‐flow procedure. For each step in this procedure, we provide a set of best practices for how to identify, resolve and minimize the BCND problems that arise.     

THE IMPACT OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND HUMAN CAPITAL ON WAGES

Historically, economists have taken the position that psychological capital is either unobservable or immeasurable; thus, heretofore, little evidence has been available on the contribution of psychological capital to wages. Using data drawn from two different waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we offer evidence that psychological capital has both a direct effect—via self-esteem—and an indirect effect—through locus of control—on an individual's real wage. We find a person s wage is more sensitive to changes in self-esteem than to comparable alterations in human capital. Both relative wages and human capital contribute to self-esteem.