Showing papers in "Social Science Research Network in 2007"

What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software

Abstract: This paper was the first initiative to try to define Web2.0 and understand its implications for the next generation of software, looking at both design patterns and business modes. Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.

Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach

Abstract: Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the US economy using seven macro-economic time series. The model incorporates many types of real and nominal frictions and seven types of structural shocks. We show that this model is able to compete with Bayesian Vector Autoregression models in out-of-sample prediction. We investigate the relative empirical importance of the various frictions. Finally, using the estimated model we address a number of key issues in business cycle analysis: What are the sources of business cycle fluctuations? Can the model explain the cross-correlation between output and inflation? What are the effects of productivity on hours worked? What are the sources of the "Great Moderation"?

A Paradigm of Entrepreneurship: Entrepreneurial Management *

Abstract: Corporate entrepreneurship seems to many entrepreneurship scholars a contradiction in terms. This paper represents an attempt to bridge that gap. This is done by, first, reviewing the literature on entrepreneurship, trying to summarize it in a few major themes. Second, a view of entrepreneurship is proposed that facilitates the application of the previous findings to the field of corporate entrepreneurship. Finally, a series of propositions are developed, as instances of the kind of research that can be pursued by following the proposed approach.

Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life

Abstract: Social network sites like MySpace and Facebook serve as "networked publics." As with unmediated publics like parks and malls, youth use networked publics to gather, socialize with their peers, and make sense of and help build the culture around them. This article examines American youth engagement in networked publics and considers how properties unique to such mediated environments (e.g., persistence, searchability, replicability, and invisible audiences) affect the ways in which youth interact with one another. Ethnographic data is used to analyze how youth recognize these structural properties and find innovative ways of making these systems serve their purposes. Issues like privacy and impression management are explored through the practices of teens and youth participation in social network sites is situated in a historical discussion of youth's freedom and mobility in the United States.

Real and Accrual-Based Earnings Management in the Pre- and Post-Sarbanes Oxley Periods

Abstract: We document that accrual-based earnings management increased steadily from 1987 until the passage of the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002, followed by a significant decline after the passage of SOX. Conversely, the level of real earnings management activities declined prior to SOX and increased significantly after the passage of SOX, suggesting that firms switched from accrual-based to real earnings management methods after the passage of SOX. We also find evidence that the accrual-based earnings management activities were particularly high in the period immediately preceding SOX. Consistent with these results, we find that firms that just achieved important earnings benchmarks used less accruals and more real earnings management after SOX when compared to similar firms before SOX. Finally, our analysis provides evidence that the increases in accrual-based earnings management in the period preceding SOX were concurrent with increases in the fraction of equity based compensation.

Participation in Illegitimate Activities: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation

Abstract: A theory of participation in illegitimate activities is developed and tested against data on variations in index crimes across states in the United States. Theorems and behavioral implications are derived using the state preference approach to behavior under uncertainty. The investigation deals directly with the interaction between offense and defense: crime and collective law enforcement. It indicates the existence of a deterrent effect of law-enforcement activity on all crimes and a strong positive correlation between income inequality and crimes against property. The empirical results also provide some tentative estimates of the effectiveness of law enforcement in reducing crime and the resulting social losses.

A Simple Approximation of Tobin's Q

Abstract: This paper develops a simple formula for approximating Tobin's q. The formula requires only basic financial and accounting information. Results of a series of regressions comparing our approximate q values with those obtained via Lindenberg and Ross' (1981) more theoretically correct model indicate that at least 96.6% of the variability of Tobin's q is explained by approximate q.

Financial Literacy and Stock Market Participation

Abstract: Individuals are increasingly put in charge of their financial security after retirement. Moreover, the supply of complex financial products has increased considerably over the years. However, we still have little or no information about whether individuals have the financial knowledge and skills to navigate this new financial environment. To better understand financial literacy and its relation to financial decision-making, we have devised two special modules for the DNB Household Survey. We have designed questions to measure numeracy and basic knowledge related to the working of inflation and interest rates, as well as questions to measure more advanced financial knowledge related to financial market instruments (stocks, bonds, and mutual funds). We evaluate the importance of financial literacy by studying its relation to the stock market: Are more financially knowledgeable individuals more likely to hold stocks? To assess the direction of causality, we make use of questions measuring financial knowledge before investing in the stock market. We find that, while the understanding of basic economic concepts related to inflation and interest rate compounding is far from perfect, it outperforms the limited knowledge of stocks and bonds, the concept of risk diversification, and the working of financial markets. We also find that the measurement of financial literacy is very sensitive to the wording of survey questions. This provides additional evidence for limited financial knowledge. Finally, we report evidence of an independent effect of financial literacy on stock market participation: Those who have low financial literacy are significantly less likely to invest in stocks.

Law's Empire

Abstract: Scholars of culture, humanities and social sciences have increasingly come to an appreciation of the importance of the legal domain in social life, while critically engaged socio-legal scholars around the world have taken up the task of understanding "Law's Empire" in all of its cultural, political, and economic dimensions. The questions arising from these intersections, and addressing imperialisms past and present forms the subject matter of a special symposium issue of Social Identities under the editorship of Griffith University's Rob McQueen, and UBC's Wes Pue and with contributions from McQueen, Ian Duncanson, Renisa Mawani, David Williams, Emma Cunliffe, Chidi Oguamanam, W. Wesley Pue, Fatou Camara, and Dianne Kirkby. This paper introduces the volume, forthcoming in late 2007. The central problematique of this issue has previously been explored through the 2005 Law's Empire conference, an informal but vibrant postcolonial legal studies network.

Firms in International Trade

Abstract: Despite the fact that importing and exporting are extremely rare firm activities, economists generally devote little attention to the role of firms when discussing international trade. This paper summarizes key differences between trading and non-trading firms, demonstrates how these differences present a challenge to standard trade models and shows how recent "heterogeneous-firm" models of international trade address these challenges. We then make use of transaction-level U.S. trade data to introduce a number of new stylized facts about firms and trade. These facts reveal that the extensive margins of trade -- that is, the number of products firms trade as well as the number of countries with which they trade -- are central to understanding the well-known role of distance in dampening aggregate trade flows.

On the Size Distribution of Business Firms

Abstract: The size distribution of business firms is explained using number and size of firms' constituent components. It is a lognormal distribution multiplied by a stretching factor which can lead to a Pareto upper tail. This result is confirmed empirically.

More than Words: Quantifying Language to Measure Firms' Fundamentals

Abstract: We examine whether a simple quantitative measure of language can be used to predict individual firms' accounting earnings and stock returns. Our three main findings are: (1) the fraction of negative words in firm-specific news stories forecasts low firm earnings; (2) firms' stock prices briefly underreact to the information embedded in negative words; and (3) the earnings and return predictability from negative words is largest for the stories that focus on fundamentals. Together these findings suggest that linguistic media content captures otherwise hard-to-quantify aspects of firms' fundamentals, which investors quickly incorporate in stock prices.

When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals May Not Recognize

Abstract: Researchers in moral psychology and social justice have agreed that morality is about matters of harm, rights, and justice. With this definition of morality, conservative opposition to social justice programs has appeared to be immoral, and has been explained as a product of various non-moral processes, such as system justification or social dominance orientation. In this article we argue that, from an anthropological perspective, the moral domain is usually much broader, encompassing many more aspects of social life and valuing institutions as much or more than individuals. We present theoretical and empirical reasons for believing that there are in fact five psychological systems that provide the foundations for the world's many moralities. The five foundations are psychological preparations for detecting and reacting emotionally to issues related to harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. Political liberals have moral intuitions primarily based upon the first two foundations, and therefore misunderstand the moral motivations of political conservatives, who generally rely upon all five foundations.

Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test

Abstract: Standard sufficient conditions for identification in the regression discontinuity design are continuity of the conditional expectation of counterfactual outcomes in the running variable. These continuity assumptions may not be plausible if agents are able to manipulate the running variable. This paper develops a test of manipulation related to continuity of the running variable density function. The methodology is applied to popular elections to the House of Representatives, where sorting is neither expected nor found, and to roll-call voting in the House, where sorting is both expected and found.

The Determinants of Board Structure

Abstract: Using a comprehensive sample of nearly 7,000 firms from 1990 to 2004, this paper examines corporate board structure, its trends, and its determinants We study how board structure has evolved over time and, more importantly, we compare board structure across small and large firms in ways suggested by recent theoretical work Overall, our evidence suggests that firms structure their boards in response to the costs and benefits of the board's monitoring and advising roles Our models explain as much as 45% of the observed variation in board structure Further, small and large firms have dramatically different board structures For example, board size was falling in the 1990s for large firms, a trend that reversed at the time of mandated reforms, while board size was relatively flat over the 1990s for small and medium-sized firms

The Trouble With Overconfidence

Abstract: This paper presents a reconciliation of the three distinct ways in which the research literature has defined overconfidence: (1) overestimation of one's actual performance, (2) overplacement of one's performance relative to others, and (3) excessive precision in one's beliefs. Experimental evidence shows that reversals of the first two (apparent underconfidence), when they occur, tend to be on different types of tasks. On difficult tasks, people overestimate their actual performances but also believe that they are worse than others; on easy tasks, people underestimate their actual performances but believe they are better than others. This paper offers a straightforward theory that can explain these inconsistencies. Overprecision appears to be more persistent than either of the other two types of overconfidence, but its presence reduces the magnitude of both overestimation and overplacement.

How Does Financing Impact Investment? The Role of Debt Covenants

Abstract: We identify a specific channel (debt covenants) and the corresponding mechanism (transfer of control rights) through which financing frictions impact corporate investment. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that capital investment declines sharply following a financial covenant violation, when creditors use the threat of accelerating the loan to intervene in management. Further, the reduction in investment is concentrated in situations where agency and information problems are relatively more severe, highlighting how the state contingent allocation of control rights can help mitigate investment distortions arising from financing frictions.

Market Insurance, Self-Insurance, and Self-Protection

Abstract: The article develops a theory of demand for insurance that emphasizes the interaction between market insurance, self-insurance, and self- rotection. The effects of changes in prices, income, and other variables on the demand for these alternative forms of insurance are analyzed using the state preference approach to behavior under uncertainty. Market insurance and self-insurance are shown to be substitutes, but market insurance and self-protection can be complements. The analysis challenges the notion that moral hazard is an inevitable consequence of market insurance, by showing that under certain conditions the latter may lead to a reduction in the probabilities of hazardous events.

Trusting the Stock Market

Abstract: We provide a new explanation to the limited stock market participation puzzle. In deciding whether to buy stocks, investors factor in the risk of being cheated. The perception of this risk is a function not only of the objective characteristics of the stock, but also of the subjective characteristics of the investor. Less trusting individuals are less likely to buy stock and, conditional on buying stock, they will buy less. The calibration of the model shows that this problem is sufficiently severe to account for the lack of participation of some of the richest investors in the United States as well as for differences in the rate of participation across countries. We also find evidence consistent with these propositions in Dutch and Italian micro data, as well as in cross country data.

Long-Run Corporate Tax Avoidance

Abstract: We develop and describe a new measure of long-run corporate tax avoidance that is based on the ability to pay a low amount of cash taxes per dollar of pre-tax earnings over long time periods. We label this measure the long-run cash effective tax rate. We use the long-run cash effective tax rate to examine 1) the extent to which some firms are able to avoid taxes over periods as long as ten years, and 2) how predictive one-year tax rates are for long-run tax avoidance. In our sample of 2,077 firms, we find there is considerable cross-sectional variation in tax avoidance. For example, approximately one-fourth of our sample firms are able to maintain long-run cash effective tax rates below 20 percent, compared to a sample mean tax rate of approximately 30 percent. We also find that annual cash effective tax rates are not very good predictors of long-run cash effective tax rates and thus, are not accurate proxies for long-run tax avoidance. While there is some evidence of persistence in annual cash effective tax rates, the persistence is asymmetric. Low annual cash effective tax rates are more persistent than are high annual cash effective tax rates. An initial examination of characteristics of firms successful at keeping their cash effective tax rates low over long periods shows that they are well spread across industries but with some clustering.

Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education Programs

Abstract: Economists are beginning to investigate the causes and consequences of financial illiteracy to better understand why retirement planning is lacking and why so many households arrive close to retirement with little or no wealth. Our review reveals that many households are unfamiliar with even the most basic economic concepts needed to make saving and investment decisions. Such financial illiteracy is widespread: the young and older people in the United States and other countries appear woefully under-informed about basic financial computations, with serious implications for saving, retirement planning, mortgages, and other decisions. In response, governments and several nonprofit organizations have undertaken initiatives to enhance financial literacy. The experience of other countries, including a saving campaign in Japan as well as the Swedish pension privatization program, offers insights into possible roles for financial literacy and saving programs.

Distributional Effects of Globalization in Developing Countries

Abstract: We discuss recent empirical research on how globalization has affected income inequality in developing countries. We begin with a discussion of conceptual issues regarding the measurement of globalization and inequality. Next, we present empirical evidence on the evolution of globalization and inequality in several developing countries during the 1980s and 1990s. We then examine the channels through which globalization may have affected inequality discussing theory and evidence in parellel. We conclude with directions for future research.

Political Connections and Preferential Access to Finance: Role of Campaign Contributions

Abstract: Using novel indicators of political connections constructed from campaign contribution data, we show that Brazilian firms that provided contributions to (elected) federal deputies experienced higher stock returns than firms that don't around the 1998 and 2002 elections. This suggests contributions help shape policy on a firm-specific basis. Using a firm fixed effects framework to mitigate the risk that unobserved firm characteristics distort the results, we find that contributing firms substantially increased their bank financing relative to a control group after each election, indicating that access to bank finance is an important channel through which political connections operate. We estimate the economic costs of this rent seeking over the two election cycles to be at least 0.2% of GDP per annum.

Corporate Governance, Accounting Outcomes, and Organizational Performance

Abstract: The empirical research examining the association between typical measures of corporate governance and various accounting and economic outcomes has not produced a consistent set of results. We believe that these mixed results are partially attributable to the difficulty in generating reliable and valid measures for the complex construct that is termed corporate governance. Using a sample of 2,106 firms and 39 structural measures of corporate governance (e.g., board characteristics, stock ownership, institutional ownership, activist stock ownership, existence of debt-holders, mix of executive compensation, and anti-takeover variables), our exploratory principal component analysis suggests that there are 14 dimensions to corporate governance. We find that these indices have a mixed association with abnormal accruals, little relation to accounting restatements, but some ability to explain future operating performance and future excess stock returns.

Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects

Abstract: This chapter contains sections titled: Understanding Motivations of F/OSS Developers, Study Design and Sample Characteristics, Payment Status and Effort in Projects, Creativity and Motivation in Projects, Determinants of Effort, Discussion, Notes

Income, Aging, Health and Wellbeing Around the World: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll

Abstract: During 2006, the Gallup Organization conducted a World Poll that used an identical questionnaire for national samples of adults from 132 countries. I analyze the data on life satisfaction (happiness) and on health satisfaction and look at their relationships with national income, age, and life-expectancy. Average happiness is strongly related to per capita national income; each doubling of income is associated with a near one point increase in life satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10. Unlike most previous findings, the effect holds across the range of international incomes; if anything, it is slightly stronger among rich countries. Conditional on national income, recent economic growth makes people unhappier, improvements in life-expectancy make them happier, but life-expectancy itself has little effect. Age has an internationally inconsistent relationship with happiness. National income moderates the effects of aging on self-reported health, and the decline in health satisfaction and rise in disability with age are much stronger in poor countries than in rich countries. In line with earlier findings, people in much of Eastern Europe and in the countries of the former Soviet Union are particularly unhappy and particularly dissatisfied with their health, and older people in those countries are much less satisfied with their lives and with their health than are younger people. HIV prevalence in Africa has little effect on Africans' life or health satisfaction; the fraction of Kenyans who are satisfied with their personal health is the same as the fraction of Britons and higher than the fraction of Americans. The US ranks 81st out of 115 countries in the fraction of people who have confidence in their healthcare system, and has a lower score than countries such as India, Iran, Malawi, or Sierra Leone. While the strong relationship between life-satisfaction and income gives some credence to the measures, as do the low levels of life and health satisfaction in Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, the lack of correlations between life and health satisfaction and health measures shows that happiness (or self-reported health) measures cannot be regarded as useful summary indicators of human welfare in international comparisons.

The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks

Abstract: Uncertainty appears to jump up after major shocks like the Cuban Missile crisis, the assassination of JFK, the OPEC I oil-price shock and the 9/11 terrorist attack. This paper offers a structural framework to analyze the impact of these uncertainty shocks. I build a model with a time varying second moment, which is numerically solved and estimated using firm level data. The parameterized model is then used to simulate a macro uncertainty shock, which produces a rapid drop and rebound in aggregate output and employment. This occurs because higher uncertainty causes firms to temporarily pause their investment and hiring. Productivity growth also falls because this pause in activity freezes reallocation across units. In the medium term the increased volatility from the shock induces an overshoot in output, employment and productivity. Thus, second moment shocks generate short sharp recessions and recoveries. This simulated impact of an uncertainty shock is compared to VAR estimations on actual data, showing a good match in both magnitude and timing. The paper also jointly estimates labor and capital convex and non-convex adjustment costs. Ignoring capital adjustment costs is shown to lead to substantial bias while ignoring labor adjustment costs does not.

What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns

Abstract: Many industries are geographically concentrated. Many mechanisms that could account for such agglomeration have been proposed. We note that these theories make different predictions about which pairs of industries should be coagglomerated. We discuss the measurement of coagglomeration and use data from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Research Database from 1972 to 1997 to compute pairwise coagglomeration measurements for U.S. manufacturing industries. Industry attributes are used to construct measures of the relevance of each of Marshall's three theories of industry agglomeration to each industry pair: (1) agglomeration saves transport costs by proximity to input suppliers or final consumers, (2) agglomeration allows for labor market pooling, and (3) agglomeration facilitates intellectual spillovers. We assess the importance of the theories via regressions of coagglomeration indices on these measures. Data on characteristics of corresponding industries in the United Kingdom are used as instruments. We find evidence to support each mechanism. Our results suggest that input-output dependencies are the most important factor, followed by labor pooling.

Who Blows the Whistle on Corporate Fraud

Abstract: What external control mechanisms are most effective in detecting corporate fraud? To address this question we study in depth all reported cases of corporate fraud in companies with more than 750 million dollars in assets between 1996 and 2004. We find that fraud detection does not rely on one single mechanism, but on a wide range of, often improbable, actors. Only 6% of the frauds are revealed by the SEC and 14% by the auditors. More important monitors are media (14%), industry regulators (16%), and employees (19%). Before SOX, only 35% of the cases were discovered by actors with an explicit mandate. After SOX, the performance of mandated actors improved, but still account for only slightly more than 50% of the cases. We find that monetary incentives for detection in frauds against the government influence detection without increasing frivolous suits, suggesting gains from extending such incentives to corporate fraud more generally.

Impetus for Action: A Cultural Analysis of Justice and Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Chinese Society

Abstract: To understand variations in citizenship behavior within a culture, we examine the relationship between citizenship behaviors and organizational justice in two studies in a Chinese context, using two cultural characteristics (traditionality and modernity) and one individual (gender) characteristic. In Study 1, we develop an indigenous measure of organizational citizenship behavior and explore the similarities and differences of this measure with its Western counterpart. In Study 2, we use this citizenship behavior measure to test its relationship to justice. Results demonstrate that organizational justice (distributive and procedural) is most strongly related to citizenship behavior for individuals who endorse less traditional, or high modernity, values. In addition, we found the relationship between justice and citizenship behavior to be stronger for men than for women. The studies are discussed in terms of the generality of citizenship behavior and its relation to organizational justiqe and cultural characteristics.