corporate social responsibility of the most highly reputed european and north american firms the objective of this article is double first to analyze using a descriptive analysis the main differences in the level and components of social behaviour between european and north american firms and second to contrast empirically using a multiple linear regression model whether the motives behind corporate social behaviour are different depending on the region or country of the firm with this aim an indicator of social behaviour termed effort in sustainability has been constructed by aggregating the firm s social effort with customers employees community and environment for a sample of the 40 european and north american companies most highly reputed in the years 2003 and 2004 the results obtained indicate that the region or country of the firm influences the level components and motivation of its social behaviour

an economic analysis of acting white this paper formalizes a widely discussed peer eect entitled acting white acting white is modeled as a two audience signaling quandary signals that induce high wages can be signals that induce peer group rejection without peer eects equilibria involve all ability types choosing dierent levels of education acting white alters the equilibrium dramatically the possibly empty set of lowest ability individuals and the set of highest ability individuals continue to reveal their type through investments in education ability types in the middle interval pool on a common education level only those in the lower intervals are accepted by the group the model s predictions t many stylized facts in the anthropology and sociology literatures regarding social interactions among minority group members

sex and science how professor gender perpetuates the gender gap nber working paper seriessex and science how professor gender perpetuates the gender gapscott e carrellmarianne e pagejames e westworking paper 14959http www nber org papers w14959national bureau of economic research1050 massachusetts avenuecambridge ma 02138may 2009thanks go to usafa personnel j putnam d stockburger r schreiner k carson and p eglestonfor assistance in obtaining the data and to deb west for data entry thanks also go to charlie brown charles clotfelter caroline hoxby deborah niemeier kim shauman catherine weinberger andseminar participants at nber higher education working group ppic sdsu uc davis uc irvine and uc santa cruz for their helpful comments and suggestions the views expressed in this articleare those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the usaf dod the u s government or the national bureau of economic research 2009 by scott e carrell marianne e page and james e west all rights reserved short sectionsof text not to exceed two paragraphs may be quoted without explicit permission provided that fullcredit including notice is given to the source

labor flows across firm size age and economic sector in colombia vs the united states this paper compares labor market flows between a developing economy colombia and a developed one the united states us in a comparative framework we explore measures of labor market flows across dimensions such as firm size age and economic sector this comparison allows us testing for both countries a series of interesting hypothesis suggested in the literature namely the negative systematic relationship between firm size age and employment growth rate we find that labor market fluidity in the us labor market is substantially higher than in colombia and that the churning rate is twice as high for the us market as it is for the colombian one we argue that this fluidity gap between the two economies can be explained by among other factors the rigid nature of colombian labour market institutions

job creation process in a transition economy in many european countries sme policy is close to being a synonym for job creation most empirical research on the job generation potential of small firms over the last decade has been done in the stable and favorable economic conditions of market economies the paper investigates the role of small firms in more difficult circumstances on an empirical data set for slovenia the paper tries to show that small firms have been the most important employer during the transition period a finding that very likely can be extrapolated for other european transition economies over the last decade slovenia has transformed from a labor managed economic system to a market oriented economy if we compare the firm size structure in a socialist like economy to the firm size structure in a mature market economy close to equilibrium we notice a typical absence of small and medium sized firms with the exception of craft shops that was how slovenia appeared in the early nineties charac terized by the removal of administrative barriers transition encouraged a spontaneous entrepreneurial wave through an expanding small business sector the ensuing changes in employment distribution changed the firm size structure

the effects of firm size and industry on corporate giving recent downward trends in corporate giving have renewed interest in the factors that shape corporate philanthropy this paper examines the relationships between charitable contributions firm size and industry improvements over previous studies include an irs data base that covers a much broader range of firm sizes and industries as compared to previous studies and estimation using an instrumental variable technique that explicitly addresses potential simultaneity between charitable contributions and profitability important findings provide evidence of a cubic relationship between charitable giving and firm size and evidence of strong industry effects the plus minus plus regression coefficient sign pattern for the cubic firm size model suggests that small and large firms give more relative to total receipts with lower giving ratios among medium size firms one interpretation for this finding is that small firms are close to the communities they serve while high visibility creates a need for large firm philanthropy strong industry effects provide evidence of inter industry differences in giving culture and or different public relations requirements across industries

firm size wage differentials in the netherlands an unsolved problem in modern labor economics is the positive relation between the size of the firm in which a worker is employed and his wage one line of research that has been developed quite recently in this field is the application of endogenous switching regression models in this paper we utilize such a model to investigate firm size wage differentials in the netherlands the principal findings are that larger firms pay higher returns on schooling whereas smaller firms tend to reward iq combined with the finding that high iq workers are sorted into the largest firms the results are consistent with a model of job screening furthermore we find that employed sons of self employed fathers are more likely to work in small firms and that wage prospects for all types of workers are indeed most favorable in larger firms

corporate social performance and innovation with high social benefits a quantitative analysis this article analyses the link between innovation with high social benefits and corporate social performance csp and the role that family firms play in this this theme is particularly relevant given the large number of firms that are family owned also the implicit potential of innovation to reconcile corporate sustainability aspects with profitability justifies an extended analysis of this link governments often support socially beneficial innovation with various policy instruments with the intention of increasing international competitiveness and simultaneously supporting sustainable development in parallel firms pursue corporate social responsibility csr and environmental management activities partly in the hope that this will foster such innovation in their organisation alongside their main aim of improving csp hence the main research question of this article is about the association of csp with innovation with high social benefits and the determinants of the potential moderation of this association based on panel data the article analyses the link between csp and innovation and the effect of being a family firm using panel estimation techniques the results point to a moderating role of family firms on the link between innovation with high social benefits and csp the article concludes by assessing the policy implications of this insight

accounting for endogeneity and the dynamics of corporate social corporate financial performance relationship abstract this paper examines the endogeneity problem in studies dealing with corporate social performance and financial performance relationship since randomized controlled experiments in the business research field are often unfeasible researchers rely mostly on observational data to make claims about doing good doing well arguments in response to several strong calls for additional well crafted empirical research that address endogeneity we revisit the csp cfp relationship in the airline industry to understand how endogeneity arises and how to control for it in studies based on observational panel data we exploit various approaches such as ols fixed effects fixed effects iv 2sls dynamic system gmm and gls estimators we show the appropriateness behind the use of the dynamic system gmm estimator and its benefits over the fixed effects estimator in addition we demonstrate that results in models that do not account for endogeneity lead to inflated estimations misleading interpretations and wrong theoretical propositions about the dynamic nature of csp cfp relationship

exploring the curvature of the relationship between hrm csr and corporate financial performance this article contributes to the general literature on the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance as well as to the emerging hrm csr literature by exploring the curvature of the relationship between hrm csp and cfp we advance conceptual arguments in favor of an inverted u shaped relationship our results demonstrate a significant quadratic relationship between hrm csp and cfp we provide evidence that this relationship is not linear or s shaped but rather inverted u shaped

a study of the link between a corporation s financial performance and its commitment to ethics a number of studies have tested the relationship between a corporation s social and ethical performance and its financial performance in contrast this is the first study to demonstrate a link between overall financial performance and an emphasis on ethics as an aspect of corporate governance it identifies the 26 8 percent of the 500 largest u s public corporations that in their annual report to shareholders commit to ethical behavior toward their stakeholders or emphasize compliance with their code of conduct the financial performance of these corporations ranks higher than that of those who do not at a significance level of p 0 005 using the 1997 business week ranking which averages eight publicly reported measures of historical financial performance these findings should motivate more corporations to utilize the principles of social and ethical accounting auditing and reporting seaar

corporate social and financial performance an investigation in the u k supermarket industry the comparison of corporate social performance with corporate financial performance has been a popular field of study over the past 25 years the results while broadly conclusive of a positive relationship are not entirely consistent in addition most of the previous studies have concentrated on large scale cross industry studies and often with a single variable for corporate social performance in order to produce statistically significant results this weakens the richness of understanding that might be obtained from a single industry study with multiple social variables which would also allow investigation of inter relationships between individual and sub sets of social performance measures and between individual and sub sets of social performance and financial performance measures there have also been criticisms that the results lack a rigorous theoretical basis and the paper demonstrates clearly how stakeholder theory must form the basis for this area of research following a review of the literature this paper presents the initial findings from a study of the u k supermarket industry which suggest that contemporaneous social and financial performance are negatively related while prior period financial performance is positively related with subsequent social performance positive relationships between both age and size of the company with social performance are also found

the corporate social performance financial performance link strategic managers are consistently faced with the decision of how to allocate scarce corporate resources in an environment that is placing more and more pressures on them recent scholarship in strategic management suggests that many of these pressures come directly from sources associated with social issues in management rather than traditional arenas of strategic management using a greatly improved source of data on corporate social performance this paper reports the results of a rigorous study of the empirical linkages between financial and social performance corporate social performance csp is found to be positively associated with prior financial performance supporting the theory that slack resource availability and csp are positively related csp is also found to be positively associated with future financial performance supporting the theory that good management and csp are positively related 1997 by john wiley sons ltd

productivity growth and the structure of the business cycle abstract over the recent years opportunity cost oc models of growth have argued that recessions are times when firms engage in productivity improving activities because of intertemporal substitu tion this paper tests whether this approach is correct the technique used to disentangle the trend from the cycle is semi structural vector autoregression the results are mildly supportive of the oc theory there tends to be a negative impact of demand shocks on productivity both in the short run and in the long run and the short run impact is stronger in those countries where fluctuations are more transitory however there is no significant response of r d to demand shocks

a community college instructor like me race and ethnicity interactions in the classroom administrative data from a large and diverse community college are used to examine if underrepresented minority students benefit from taking courses with underrepresented minority instructors to identify racial interactions we estimate models that include both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on students with limited choice in courses we find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout rates and grade performance between white and underrepresented minority students falls by 20 to 50 percent when taught by an underrepresented minority instructor we also find these interactions affect longer term outcomes such as subsequent course selection retention and degree completion jel i23 j15 j44

on the timing and efficiency of creative destruction we analyze the timing pace and efficiency of ongoing job reallocation that results from product and process innovation there are strong reasons why an efficient economy ought to concentrate both job creation and destruction during recessions when the opportunity cost of reallocation is lowest incomplete contracting between labor and capital can disrupt this synchronized pattern and decouple creation and destruction transactional difficulties also lead to technological sclerosis characterized by excessively slow renovation government incentives to production may alleviate high unemployment but exacerbate sclerosis in contrast creation incentives increase the pace of reallocation an optimal combination of both policies restores economic efficiency

fostering corporate social responsibility through public initiative from the eu to the spanish case should csr be approached only on a voluntary basis or should it be complemented with a compulsory regulatory framework what type of government intervention is more effective in fostering csr among companies this paper is an attempt to answer these questions reviewing the debate between proponents of the voluntary case and the obligatory case for csr and critically analysing current international government led initiatives to foster csr among companies and national government led initiatives in the eu area finally the paper focuses on the spanish case as an example of the failure of an exclusively voluntary approach despite the rapid uprise of csr spain is still far behind late in csr promotion strategies most action has been undertaken by companies themselves with no common guidelines governmental support or independent verification the lack of a regulatory framework for csr or ethical investment issues and the virtual absence of other indirect incentives explains the misbalance between private public and third sector initiatives based on the spanish context which is quite similar to other non oecd countries the authors call for a more proactive government position in csr related issues the conclusions of the paper detail the features of this regulatory framework and other policies to promote csr in spain as well as in other oecd countries

implementing supplier codes of conduct in global supply chains process explanations from theoretic and empirical perspectives western buying companies impose supplier codes of conduct scc on their suppliers in developing countries however many suppliers cannot fully comply with scc and some of them even cheat in scc in this research we link contract characteristics price pressure production complexity contract duration to the likelihood of supplier s commitment to scc through a mediating process how the buying companies govern their suppliers our structural equation model analysis shows that the hierarchy relational norms governance is a perfect mediator of contract characteristics effects on the likelihood of supplier s commitment the market governance an insignificant one the managerial implications are provided for successfully implementing scc in global supply chains

permanent income and the black white test score gap analysts often examine the black white test score gap conditional on family income typically only a current income measure is available we argue that the gap conditional on permanent income is of greater interest and we describe a method for identifying this gap using an auxiliary data set to estimate the relationship between current and permanent income current income explains only about half as much of the black white test score gap as does permanent income and the remaining gap in math achievement among families with the same permanent income is only 0 2 to 0 3 standard deviations in the cnlsy and ecls samples when we add permanent income to the controls used by fryer and levitt 2006 the unexplained gap in 3 rd grade shrinks below 0 15 sds less

do faculty serve as role models the impact of instructor gender on female students although women have matched or surpassed men in many educational outcomes such as college access and persistence female students remain much less likely to major in quantitative technical and science related fields while women have made progress in recent years only 20 percent of engineering students are female and the proportion of women receiving degrees in the sciences and engineering in the united states lags that of other industrialized countries national center for education statistics 1995 this underrepresentation of women may have serious implications for women s returns to education and may relate to occupational segregation and earnings inequality by gender linda loury 1997 as the economy shifts to favor these more male dominated fields there is concern that women will not be prepared to succeed moreover the health of the economy depends on the production of certain kinds of degrees and the underrepresentation of women in certain areas may contribute to shortages in critical fields there have been many widely publicized efforts by the government companies and schools to increase female representation in male dominated fields one focus has been to increase mentoring opportunities for female students by hiring more women faculty members theory and evidence suggest that female instructors may be instrumental in encouraging women to enroll and excel in subjects in which they are underrepresented female students may avoid male dominated fields due to biases against women sandra hanson 1996 and the presence of female faculty may mitigate these effects david neumark and rosella gardecki 1998 found that female doctoral students with female mentors were more likely to succeed however similar to student trends women are underrepresented on university faculties particularly in the sciences and quantitative fields and many worry about the lack of potential role models for female undergraduates for example in 2003 princeton university created a 10 million fund to hire and promote women faculty in science and engineering departments while duke s president pledged 1 million per year for the same purpose robin wilson 2003 in addition the national science foundation s advance program continues to push for increased representation and advancement of women in academic careers and engineering careers national science foundation 2004 does the presence of faculty members of the same gender impact student interest in a subject this paper answers this question by estimating how having a female faculty member in an initial course affects the likelihood that a female student will take additional credit hours or major in a particular subject if students choose their courses and major based on their experiences during their initial exposure to a subject then the instructors they face early in a discipline could influence these decisions such an analysis is difficult because few data sets allow researchers to link student outcomes to faculty characteristics however using a comprehensive longitudinal data set of nearly 54 000 students this paper is among the first large scale studies to estimate the impact of faculty on the outcomes of students moreover discussants ronald ehrenberg cornell university brian jacob harvard university richard murnane harvard university

job creation and job destruction by small firms an empirical investigation for the dutch manufacturing sector this paper studies the differences in behaviour of small and large firms concerning job creation and job destruction in the dutch manufacturing sector over the period 1978 1991 we find that both job creation and job destruction rates are higher in small firms than in large ones in addition we found that the persistence of jobs created in slumps are much higher for small firms than for large firms persistence rates of job destruction are however less connected to the state of the business cycle and increase with firm size more importantly small firms seem to reallocate their jobs in a continuous way as job turnover moves independent of the business cycle large firms on the other hand reallocate counter cyclically an obvious explanation for this phenomenon is that small firms are better equipped to adjust to shifts in economic circumstances large firms adjust only slowly and for them reallocating jobs in a recession is more advantageous than in a boom

worker turnover and job reallocation in taiwanese manufacturing the paper examines time series patterns of job and worker flows in a newly industrializing economy nie using plant level data from the taiwan manufacturing sector the cyclical behaviour of job reallocation and its relation with worker turnover is analysed it is found that job reallocation and labour turnover are procyclical at both the aggregate and two digit industry levels the share of worker turnover caused by gross job reallocation is 17 suggesting the majority of observed worker turnover reflects rotations of positions that are neither created or destroyed there is substantial heterogeneity in plant specific job and worker turnover patterns job creation and job destruction rates are higher among small plants and private sector plants the private plants are more dynamic than public plants in terms of worker turnover controlling for year and industry effects it is found that job creation and worker turnover are both higher in export oriented industries

racial segregation and the black white test score gap abstract racial segregation is often blamed for some of the achievement gap between blacks and whites we study the effects of school and neighborhood segregation on the relative sat scores of black students across different metropolitan areas using large microdata samples for the 1998 2001 test cohorts our models include detailed controls for the family background of individual test takers school level controls for selective participation in the test and city level controls for racial composition income and region we find robust evidence that the black white test score gap is higher in more segregated cities holding constant family background and other factors a shift from a highly segregated city to a nearly integrated city closes about one quarter of the raw black white gap in sat scores specifications that distinguish between school and neighborhood segregation suggest that neighborhood segregation has a consistently negative impact while school segregation has no independent effect though we cannot reject equality of the two effects additional tests indicate that much of the effect of neighborhood segregation operates through neighbors incomes not through race per se data on enrollment in honors courses suggest that within school segregation increases when schools are more highly integrated potentially offsetting the benefits of school desegregation and accounting for our findings

corporate social responsibility in europe and the u s insights from businesses self presentations the paper compares the extent and content of businesses communications about corporate social responsibility csr in france the netherlands the u k and the u s in particular the study investigates the nature of csr principles processes and stakeholder issues discussed in web pages the results show that businesses in the four countries do not display the same eagerness to appear as socially responsible and employ diverse means to convey social responsibility images

why do corporations give to charity this paper explores whether corporate contributions should be tax dedu ctible within the more general context of an examination of the profi t and utility maximization motives driving contributions the theoret ical section develops a formal structural model of the contributions process illustrates comparative statics and derives a set of empiri cally testable hypotheses using a new source of firm data the empir ical results indicate that profit maximization is an important motive driving contributions this finding supports the current tax deducti ble status of contributions up to a seldom encoun tered ceiling and favors a reform that allows firms to treat contributions as ordinary business expenses copyright 1988 by the university of chicago

the cleansing effect of recessions the authors investigate industry response to cyclical variations in demand production units that embody the newest process and product innovations are continuously being created and outdated units are being destroyed although outdated units are the most likely to turn unprofitable and be scrapped in a recession they can be insulated from the fall in demand by a reduction in creation the structure of adjustment costs plays a determinant role in the responsiveness of those two margins the calibrated model matches the relative volatilities of the observed manufacturing job creation and destruction series and their asymmetries over the cycle copyright 1994 by american economic association

training wages and sample selection estimating sharp bounds on treatment effects this paper empirically assesses the wage effects of the job corps program one of the largest federally funded job training programs in the u s even with the aid of a randomized experiment the impact of a training program on wages is difficult to study because of sample selection a pervasive problem in applied microeconometric research wage rates are only observed for those who are employed and employment status itself may be affected by the training program this paper develops an intuitive trimming procedure for bounding average treatment effects in the presence of sample selection in contrast to existing methods the procedure requires neither exclusion restrictions nor a bounded support for the outcome of interest identification results estimators and their asymptotic distribution are presented the bounds suggest that the program raised wages consistent with the notion that the job corps raises earnings by increasing human capital rather than solely through encouraging work the estimator is generally applicable to typical treatment evaluation problems in which there is nonrandom sample selection attrition copyright wiley blackwell