Cullen F. Goenner
Each year, since 1998, Fortune magazine has published a list
of firms deemed the “100 Best Companies to Work for in America” based
on their superior employer-employee relations. This
relationship represents an intangible asset that may significantly
influence future firm performance. We investigate whether
investment strategies that invest in the 100 Best are able to
outperform the market. The results indicate that portfolios,
consisting of firms on the list, offer higher risk adjusted returns
than the S&P 500 over the period 1998-2005.
(G11)
David M. Mitchell
This paper examines and extends the important pedagogical
issue of whether using classroom based experiments to illustrate
concepts such as supply and demand increases students’ knowledge and
understanding of economics. Previous literature has only
considered this in a single course whereas this work broadens the focus
to both the principles of microeconomics and macroeconomics
course. Student understanding and knowledge was measured via
the standardized Test of Understanding College Economics exam in
conjunction with the individual courses’ final exam. Results
indicate that there is not an improvement in either TUCE scores or the
final exam score by students who were exposed to classroom
experiments. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the
experiments might actually lower an instructor’s student evaluations.
(A22)
Lee C. Adkins and Ronald L. Moomaw
The parameters of a stochastic production frontier and the
determinants of X inefficiency are estimated simultaneously using a
maximum likelihood estimator proposed by Battese and Coelli (1995). Our
results indicate that additional instructional and noninstruction
expenditures improve student performance, but only by a small amount.
In addition, we find that school district size, teacher education and
experience, and teacher salary affect the technical efficiency of
schools (F33, F41).
M.H. Tuttle and Donald L. Bumpass
This paper updates and extends an earlier study by Abraham,
Johnson and Uyar (1994) by examining the determinants of governors’
salaries for the forty-eight contiguous states. State per capita
personal income, population, unemployment rate and per capita
government revenues are the primary determinants of governors’
compensation. Further, state per capita revenues and expenditures have
a negative impact on governors’ pay. Our findings support the view that
a governor’s pay is based primarily on the responsibility and
productivity measures given the size of a state’s economy and
government (H70, J30).
Hounsou Remy and Michael J Applegate
The countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union
(WAEMU) like the other Sub-Saharan African countries face the challenge
of generating sustained economic growth. Among factors that
contribute to this problem are the low degree of openness to trade and
the lack of foreign capital. To encourage trade and
investment in Sub-Saharan Africa, the United States passed the African
Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). This paper develops and
uses a Computable General Equilibrium model to determine the impacts of
this act on WAEMU as a group. The results from the simulation
of free-trade and an increase in foreign capital inflow show that the
sectoral effects of these policies are considerable. At the
macro level we see increases in the growth rate of real GDP, real
investment, government revenues, total saving, and total consumption.
(C68, F47, F42, O55)
Hilde Patron and Kenneth Roskelley
In this paper we study the production decisions of a firm facing
uncertain demand and the threat of entry from a rival. The incumbent,
who has the ability to generate information about demand by
appropriately choosing quantity, can use information to make better
informed choices and to manipulate the decisions of the rival firm. We
find that, although the monopolist may increase or even decrease
quantity to discourage entry, it always manipulates information in a
way that lowers the ex ante probability of entry. (L1, D83)