Entrenchment in publicly traded family firms: Evidence from the S&P 500

Family involvement in corporate governance through ownership, management, and board membership presents a unique dilemma for understanding the strategic impetus and costs of entrenchment decisions. The presence of shared family ties and the family-centered goals of firm principals call to question the applicability of extant agency arguments regarding the nature and antecedents of managerial entrenchment. Exploring this, we develop and test a model of family firm-specific determinants (i.e., family ownership and family's involvement in management and governance) of entrenchment in publicly traded firms by drawing upon principal-principal agency theory. Findings of the empirical analysis of family owned S&P 500 firms suggest family firms are motivated to entrench managers when doing so supports the pursuit of family-centric goals. However, the extent to which entrenchment supports such goals varies at different levels of family ownership.     

Best Practice in Temporary Labour Migration for Development: A Perspective from Asia and the Pacific

The dominant mode of international migration in Asia and the Pacific is temporary contract migration of low‐skilled workers. The potential for such migration to deliver significant development dividends to origin communities is substantial because of its large scale and the fact that most migrant workers return to their home community. However, there are a number of barriers that are intervening to dampen these potential positive effects, such as high transaction costs, high costs of sending remittances, and the fact that some areas of origin lack the infrastructure and potential for productive investment. Moreover, destination countries have been very welcoming of high skill temporary migrants but highly restrictive in their attitudes toward their low skill counterparts. This paper discusses the lessons of best practice in temporary labour migration programmes in the region, which can help to overcome these obstacles reducing the positive development impacts of migration. It assesses, in turn, best practice separately for each stage of the labour migration process ‐‐ recruitment and selection, and pre‐departure preparation ‐‐ at the destination and on return. In conclusion, a number of the barriers which impinge on Asian Pacific countries’ ability to introduce and sustain best practice are discussed. These include the need for capacity building, lack of cooperation between origin and destination countries, lack of data, poor governance of labour migration a failure among governments to recognise the significance of migration and the need for more “development friendly” migration policies in destinations.     

Psychometric properties of the “parent-child relationship inventory” (PCRI) in a portuguese forensic sample

In Portugal, there is a gap regarding psychological tests validated for forensic contexts, particularly those related to child custody issues. The Parent–Child Relationship Inventory (PCRI) is one of the most used instruments in child custody contexts. This study aimed to analyze the psychometric properties of PCRI in a Portuguese forensic sample. PCRI factorial structure and psychometric properties were analyzed in a sample of 144 parents involved in child custody assessments. The questionnaire showed good internal consistency, except for the parental support, autonomy, and role orientation scales. It also showed good discriminant capacity. The confirmatory factor analysis did not replicate the 7-factor model proposed by Gerard. The results were discussed based on the use of PCRI in the context of child custody assessment.     

Flexible Tweedie regression models for continuous data

Tweedie regression models (TRMs) provide a flexible family of distributions to deal with non-negative right-skewed data and can handle continuous data with probability mass at zero. Estimation and inference of TRMs based on the maximum likelihood (ML) method are challenged by the presence of an infinity sum in the probability function and non-trivial restrictions on the power parameter space. In this paper, we propose two approaches for fitting TRMs, namely quasi-likelihood (QML) and pseudo-likelihood (PML). We discuss their asymptotic properties and perform simulation studies to compare our methods with the ML method. We show that the QML method provides asymptotically efficient estimation for regression parameters. Simulation studies showed that the QML and PML approaches present estimates, standard errors and coverage rates similar to the ML method. Furthermore, the second-moment assumptions required by the QML and PML methods enable us to extend the TRMs to the class of quasi-TRMs in Wedderburn's style. It allows to eliminate the non-trivial restriction on the power parameter space, and thus provides a flexible regression model to deal with continuous data. We provide an R implementation and illustrate the application of TRMs using three data sets.     

A Multi Sited Approach to Analysis of Destination Immigration Data: An Asian Example

There has been a bias in standard international migration data collection and research toward immigration and destinations while emigration origins have been neglected. This has hampered our ability to provide a substantial empirical base for migration and development policy decision making in origin areas. While improvement of migration data collection in origin countries remains an important priority, this paper argues that much can be learned about emigration from low income countries from immigration data in high income destinations. Migration stock and flow data from Australia are used to provide information on the scale and nature of movement between Asia and Australia. It establishes that there are important but different flows in both directions which belie traditional conceptualisations of south‐north migration and this has significant implications for the effects of migration on economic development.     

Likelihood analysis for a class of beta mixed models

Beta regression is a suitable choice for modelling continuous response variables taking values on the unit interval. Data structures such as hierarchical, repeated measures and longitudinal typically induce extra variability and/or dependence and can be accounted for by the inclusion of random effects. In this sense, Statistical inference typically requires numerical methods, possibly combined with sampling algorithms. A class of Beta mixed models is adopted for the analysis of two real problems with grouped data structures. We focus on likelihood inference and describe the implemented algorithms. The first is a study on the life quality index of industry workers with data collected according to an hierarchical sampling scheme. The second is a study assessing the impact of hydroelectric power plants upon measures of water quality indexes up, downstream and at the reservoirs of the dammed rivers, with a nested and longitudinal data structure. Results from different algorithms are reported for comparison including from data-cloning, an alternative to numerical approximations which also allows assessing identifiability. Confidence intervals based on profiled likelihoods are compared with those obtained by asymptotic quadratic approximations, showing relevant differences for parameters related to the random effects. In both cases, the scientific hypothesis of interest was investigated by comparing alternative models, leading to relevant interpretations of the results within each context.     

Aging in the Third World

The relationships between the generations in Third World countries are changing as migration and industrialization erode traditional family responsibilities for supporting the elderly. It is no longer possible to assume that, as a matter of course, old people will be looked after by their families. Social change leads to an eroding of the support systems. The author finds growing evidence of this breakdown in Asia, particularly in Singapore, Hong Kong, and other highly industrialized centers. Singapore, for example, has reinstituted the compulsory study of filial piety in an attempt to push the younger generation into assuming its traditional responsibility toward the old. There has also been a significant decline in the status, prestige, and support given old people in Indonesia, although politicans insist that the family will always take care of its elderly. 2 reasons for this breakdown are 1) the impact of the mass media and 2) the increasing involvement of the younger generation in non-agricultural jobs which often involve a move to the city and away from dependence on a patriarch. Many Third World countries are in a twilight stage, between the traditionally strong structure of family support and government systems of social security.     

Cedar Point: A Park in Progress

This is a biography of an amusement park, Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, by its marketing director. This life history, using sources close to the park and in the popular press ouer many decades, traces the many shifts in circumstance, philosophy and mood in its development ouer a span from 1897 to its present status as “one of the great parks of the country.” This case study of a single park that has incorporated characteristics of many growth stages ofparks ingeneral serues as a capsule history: from its beginnings as a resort; expansion of rides and attractions during the flush years of the 1920s; the backsliding deterioration of the Depression years and the immediatepost- War period; the decline of the big-city parks and the moue to the suburbs in the 50s; and the Disney effect: the advent of the national super theme park, with its revolutionary impact on the traditional park concept. According to Hildebrandt, Cedar Point is “the only modern superpark that also has an ancient history…. the only old-time amusement park to successfully make the transition to the new amusement park culture.”     

Migration and climate change: examining thresholds of change to guide effective adaptation decision-making

The implications of environmental change for migration are little understood. Migration as a response to climate change could be seen as a failure of in situ adaptation methods, or migration could be alternatively perceived as a rational component of creative adaptation to environmental risk. This paper frames migration as part of an adaptation response to climate change impacts to natural resource condition and environmental hazards. Thresholds will be reached by communities after which migration will become a vital component of an effective adaptation response. Such changes to migration patterns have the potential to undermine migration policy unless appropriate preparations are undertaken. This paper describes an approach to assist researchers to frame how climate change will influence migration by critically analysing how thresholds of fundamental change to migration patterns could be identified, primarily in relation to two case studies in Nepal and Thailand. Future policy for internal and international migration could be guided by the analysis of such thresholds of non-linear migration and resourced effectively to ensure that socio-economic and humanitarian outcomes are maximised.