Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tax Strategies and Dividend Imputation: The Effect of Foreign and Domestic Ownership on Average Effective Tax Rates

This study examines how dividend imputation affects the incentive of New Zealand firms to minimise tax. By effectively eliminating double taxation on company income, imputation reduces firms' incentives to engage in costly tax minimisation strategies. Before September 1993, resident and non-resident shareholders were treated differently under New Zealand's imputation system. Because imputation credits cannot be passed to shareholders unless dividends are paid, we expect firms to pursue different tax paying strategies depending on their level of foreign ownership and their dividend payout ratios. After September 1993 when imputation credits were extended to non-resident portfolio shareholders, we expect that firms with high foreign ownership and high dividend payouts would have less incentive to minimise tax. Our results provide some support for these expectations.
Origins of Social Immobility and Inequality: Parenting and Early Child Development

There is growing evidence that differences in children's intellectual, emotional and behavioural development by parents' socio-economic status emerge at early ages and that these differences cast a long shadow over subsequent achievements. This article demonstrates with the Millennium Cohort Study that differences by parents‘ income group in cognitive and behavioural development emerge by the child's third birthday. It shows that an important part of these differences can be accounted for by ‘what parents do’ in terms of educational activities and parenting style.
New Particle Swarm Algorithm for the Weighted Circle Placement

This paper studies the packing optimization about how to place the circular and weighted objects in a circular container, while the system should be in good balance and the container should be as small as possible. The problem-solving strategy can be applied to place some devices or instruments in the satellite. We first provide an orderly positioning technique, which placing the circles one by one in a given order and can give out a compact layout. Because different packing orders can lead to layouts in different quality, we then develop a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to search for the optimal order and then the optimal layout. At last, some numerical experiments are carried and the PSO algorithm is compared with a existing novel genetic algorithm. The results show that the PSO algorithm can compete with the genetic algorithm.
Generic model for the prediction of remaining shelf life in support of cold chain management in pork and poultry supply chains

An overall concept for a generic model to predict the remaining shelf life of meat in different steps of the supply chain was developed. It consists of three models: a shelf life model, an inter-organisational cold chain model and a temperature mapping model that includes a heat transfer model. In this concept, shelf life is predicted based on the growth of Pseudomonas sp. , taking into account organisational structure, inspection scheme, technical circumstances and temperature conditions in different supply chains. Whereas the shelf life model is almost complete, further work is required to develop the two other models.
Regional Business Cycle Phases in Japan

This paper uses a Markov-switching model with structural breaks to characterize and compare regional business cycles in Japan for the period 1976-2005. An early-1990s structural break meant a reduction in national and regional growth rates in expansion and recession, usually resulting in an increase in the spread between the two phases. Although recessions tended to be experienced across a majority of regions throughout the sample period, the occurrence and lengths of reces sions at the regional level have increased over time. (JEL E32, R12)
From West to East: Estimating External Spillovers to Australia and New Zealand

This paper examines the size and source of external spillovers to Australia and New Zealand based on a structural vector autoregression (VAR) approach. It finds that during the last decade shocks from emerging Asia have become more important than those from the United States in affecting Australia’s business cycle. A 1 percent shock to emerging Asia’s growth is found to shift Australian growth by about 1/3 percent. Furthermore, there is evidence that commodity prices dominate the transmission of shocks from emerging Asia to Australia. The influence of emerging Asia on New Zealand is found to come indirectly through Australia, with Australian shocks transmitting almost "one-on-one" to New Zealand, largely through financial factors.
On the Heterogeneous Employment Effects of Offshoring: Identifying Productivity and Downsizing Channels

type="main" xml:id="ecin12124-abs-0001"> This article examines the channels through which offshoring affects employment in a representative sample of German establishments, using a difference-in-differences matching approach. Offshoring is measured by an increase in the share of foreign to total intermediate inputs at the plant-level. We identify a positive productivity effect and isolate a negative downsizing effect from offshoring on employment, by exploiting differences between offshoring plants that do and do not simultaneously restructure. Furthermore, we cannot find evidence of negative indirect employment effects on domestic suppliers or competitors. ( JEL F16, J23, F23, C21)
Visual Attention and Choice: A Behavioral Economics Perspective on Food Decisions

Abstract Food decisions receive a lot of attention from multiple disciplines. In this context, choice experiments are often used to determine consumers’ preferences and willingness to pay for food product attributes. The design of choice experiments and its influence on measurement of consumer choices has received great consideration. This study analyzes the influence of visual attention on the final choice by combining choice experiments with eye tracking. Furthermore, the role of attention on more or less complex choices is investigated by using two treatments with three-attribute and five-attribute designs. We find that visual attention affects decision making of the average individual but there is heterogeneity in behavior present as to how much attention influences choice. Furthermore, results show that visual attention predicts choice more in the choice experiment with the three-attribute design than in the choice experiment with the five-attribute design.
Governmental financial information reforms and changes in the political system: The Argentina, Chile and Paraguay experience

This article analyzes the effects of changes in the political system-from dictatorship to democracy-on financial information systems and on their reform. We chose to study Argentina, Chile and Paraguay as these three countires share a similar geographic and social-political context. They all had dictatorial governments during the second half of the 20th century and peformed a transition to democratic systems in the 1990s. We provide a brief overview of the political context and of government accounting regulations, both before and after the transition. We propose an adaptation of Luder's contingency model to be applied to the situation in these three countries. This model enables us to identify the principal agents and motives favouring or prejudicing the implementation of reforms to financial information systems. Ours is the first academic study of reforms to government financial information systems in three Latin American countries that have made the transition from dictatorship to democracy, identifying the contingent factors that have affected the adoption of reforms. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Meta-Analysis of Job Satisfaction Correlates in the Public Administration Literature

What can we learn by applying a meta-analysis to the public administration literature on job satisfaction? More generally, how can public management scholars use this method to capitalize on the decades of research on other topics within our field? This study reports the findings of the first quantitative review of the public administration literature on job satisfaction. We retrieved quantitative data from primary studies published in 42 public administration journals since 1969 and performed a meta-analysis of the relationships between job satisfaction and 43 correlates. The findings include meta-analytically derived effect sizes, measures of the heterogeneity in the effect size underlying all primary studies, and several indicators of publication bias. In presenting the results of our meta-analysis, we address the merits and limitations of this methodology and discuss how public administration scholars could take full advantage of this information to advance knowledge in other areas within the field.
Social Security on Auto-Pilot: International Experience with Automatic Stabilizer Mechanisms

As the baby-boom generation enters retirement, a long-forecast funding crisis of the U.S. Social Security system is about to become a reality. Many other high-income countries are faced with similar financial problems within their public pension systems. Some of those countries have adopted legislative measures to reduce their funding deficits, and a few have included automatic adjustment mechanisms by which staged adjustments would be made in either benefits or revenues without the need for new legislation. We examine the cases of automatic stabilizer mechanisms (ASMs) in Canada, Sweden, Germany and Italy, with the former two being relatively successful examples, while the latter two are cases of ASMs that were more problematic. Drawing on these international examples, we examine various ASMs that could be implemented in the United States. We suggest three reforms: an increase in the retirement age, adoption of a chained Consumer Price Index, and an adjustment of the indexation of the taxable wage ceiling to stabilize the ratio of taxable to covered wages at its 1983 value of 90 percent. Together, these three reforms would reduce the 75-year actuarial deficit to about 0.5 percent of taxable wages. We conclude, though, that until the current deficit is fully eliminated, an ASM aimed at maintaining financial balance would not make sense for the Social Security program. However, the international experience does offer a number of lessons for future reforms of the U. S. retirement system.
A time series analysis of Danish markets for pork, chicken, and beef

Abstract We offer a first-time empirical depiction of Danish dynamic meat price/quantity transmissions by formulating, estimating, and testing a VAR model of market-clearing quantities and prices of the Danish pork, chicken, and beef markets. The analysis illuminates how these markets dynamically handle shocks, and it is demonstrated that: (i) the three meats are close substitutes; (ii) chicken and pork market shocks have own-market and cross-market effects that occur rapidly and swiftly, while beef market shocks have more enduring impacts on pork and chicken markets; (iii) prices are in general more endogenous than quantities; and (iv) the price of chicken is much more endogenous than the prices of pork and beef.
“Modern” learning methods: rhetoric and reality

The application of technology in both its “hard” (for example through computing technology) and “soft” (for example through instructional design ) forms has enhanced the range of training methods available to practitioners. Much rhetoric has surrounded the use of techniques such as distance learning and computer‐based learning methods. The study aimed to explore the attitudes of managers to these “modern” approaches and other more “traditional” methods. A questionnaire survey of over 200 managers in organisations of all sizes and from a range of sectors was conducted. The data suggest that distance learning is not widely used as it is perceived as less effective, whereas at‐job learning, as well as being widely used is also perceived as being the most effective method. An analysis in terms of firm size revealed more similarities than differences between larger and smaller firms. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.
Charity Care in Nonprofit Urban Hospitals: Analysis of the Role of Size and Ownership Type in Washington State for 2011

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Nonprofit hospitals are expected to serve their communities as charitable organizations in exchange for the tax exemption benefits they receive. With the passage into law of the Affordable Care Act, additional guidelines were generated in 2010 to ensure nonprofit hospitals are compliant. Nonetheless, the debate continues on whether nonprofit hospitals provide adequate charity care to their patient population. In this study, charity care provided by 29 Washington State nonprofit urban hospitals was examined for 2011 using financial data from the Washington State Department of Health. Charity care levels were compared to both income tax savings and gross revenues to generate two financial ratios that were analyzed according to hospital bed size and nonprofit ownership type. For the first ratio, 97% of the hospitals (28 of 29) were providing charity care in greater amounts than the tax savings they accrued. The average ratio value using total charity care and total income tax savings of all the hospitals in the study was 6.10, and the median value was 3.46. The nonparametric Kruskal‐Wallis test results by bed size and nonprofit ownership type indicate that ownership type has a significant effect on charity care to gross revenue ratios (p = .020). Our analysis indicates that church‐owned hospitals had higher ratios of charity care to gross revenues than did the other two ownership types—government and voluntary—in this sample. Policy implications are offered and further studies are recommended to analyze appropriate levels of charity care in nonprofit hospitals given new requirements for maintaining a hospital's tax‐exempt status.
Capillary Tube Feeding System for Studying Tick–Pathogen Interactions of Dermacentor variabilis (Acari: Ixodidae) and Anaplasma marginale (Rickettsiales: Anaplasmataceae)

Abstract A capillary tube feeding (CTF) system was adapted for studying the interaction between Dermacentor variabilis (Say) and the rickettsial cattle pathogen Anaplasma marginale Theiler. A. marginale undergoes a complex developmental cycle in ticks that begins in midguts and ends by transmission from salivary glands. In this CTF system, male D. variabilis were fed A. marginale-infected blood or cultured tick cells. Ticks that fed on highly rickettsemic calves developed midgut and salivary gland infections as detected by PCR, whereas ticks that were fed from capillary tubes on the same blood developed only midgut infections. An unexpected result of capillary tube feeding was that antibodies against the A. marginale adhesin, major surface protein 1a, enhanced midgut infections and caused cell culture-derived A. marginale to infect midguts. Another unexpected result was the infection of the midguts of the nonvector tick Amblyomma americanum (L.), after capillary tube feeding on infected bovine blood. The gut cell response of ticks to A. marginale, as determined from SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis protein profiles, did not differ when ticks were fed infected or uninfected cells from capillary tubes. Selected protein bands, as identified by tryptic digestion-mass spectrometry, contained mostly proteins of bovine origin, including bovine albumin, undigested α- and β-chain hemoglobin and hemoglobin fragments. Although infection of ticks by A. marginale CTF system was not the same as infection by feeding on cattle, the results obtained demonstrated the potential use of this system for identifying aspects of pathogen–vector interactions that are not readily recognized in naturally feeding ticks.
Efficacy and safety of very-low-calorie ketogenic diet: a double blind randomized crossover study.

OBJECTIVE To verify safety respect to weight loss, cardiometabolic diseases of short-term Very low-calorie ketogenic diets (VLCKDs, <800 kcal day-1). PATIENTS AND METHODS Randomized cross-over trial with placebo. The study had no. 2 dietary treatment (DT), conducted in two arms: (1) VLCKD1 in which 50% of protein intake is replaced with synthetic amino acids; (2) VLCKD2 with placebo. The VLCKDs (<800 kcal day-1) were different in term of protein content and quality each arm lasted three weeks (wks). Between the two arms a 3-wks washout period was performed to avoid additive effects on DT to follow. At the baseline, at start and end of each arm, all the subjects were evaluated for their health and nutritional status, by anthropometric analysis, body composition (Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA), Bioimpedentiometry, biochemical evaluation, and Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor γ (PPAR) γ expression by transcriptomic analysis. RESULTS After VLCKD1 were reduced: Body Mass Index (BMI) (Δ%=-11.1%, p=0.00), Total Body Water (TBW) (p<0.05); Android Fat Percentage (AFP) (Δ%=-1.8%, p=0.02); Android Fat Mass (AFM) (Δ%=-12.7%, p=0.00); Gynoid Fat Mass (GFM) (Δ%=-6.3%, p=0.01); Intermuscular Adipose Tissue (IMAT) (Δ%= -11.1%, p=0.00); Homeostasis Model Assessment of Insulin Re-sistance (HOMA-IR) (Δ%=-62.1%, p=0.01). After VLCKD1 a significant increase of uricemia, cre-atinine and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) (respectively Δ%=35%, p=0.01; Δ%=5.9%, p=0.02; Δ%=25.5%, p=0.03). After VLCKD2 were reduced: BMI (Δ%=-11.2%, p=0.00); AFM (Δ%=-14.3%, p=0.00); GFM (Δ%=-6.3%, p=0.00); Appendicular Skeletal Muscle Mass Index (ASMMI) (Δ%=-17.5%, p=0.00); HOMA-IR (Δ%=-59,4%, p=0.02). After VLCKD2, uricemia (Δ%=63.1%, p=0.03), and Vitamin D levels (Δ%=25.7%, p=0.02) were increased. No significant changes of car-diovascular disease (CVD) indexes were observed after DTs. No significant changes of PPARγ lev-el in any DTs. CONCLUSIONS 21-days VLCKDs not impair nutritional state; not cause negative changes in global measurements of nutritional state including sarcopenia, bone mineral content, hepatic, renal and lipid profile.
The economics of retail firms

This paper identifies retail firms as an economic institution which delivers explicit products or services to consumer together with a variety of distribution services that determine the levels of distribution costs experienced by consumers in their purchase activities. The demand for the retailer's product is derived from a household production model in which the levels of distribution services provided by the retailer play the role of fixed inputs in the household's production functions. The supply of the retailer's product is derived from a joint cost function which is non-decreasing in the levels of distribution services provided. Profit-maximizing behavior in monopolistically competive markets shows that retail firms have special economic incentives to become complex organizations by integrating backwards, offering multiple explicit products and operating in more than one market. In addition, monopolistically competitive retail firms in long-run equilibrium will exhibit excess capacity, price dispersion and product choice in distribution services.
ZNF804A may be associated with executive control of attention

ZNF804A, encoding the transcription factor zinc‐finger protein 804A, is a genome‐wide supported psychosis gene associated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, only little information is available on the role of ZNF804A regarding the cognitive phenotype of psychosis. In this study, we investigated the relationship between the single‐nucleotide polymorphism rs1344706 (A/C, A = risk allele) in ZNF804A and attention in 200 healthy volunteers. We used the attention network test, which was designed to separate the three main components of attention (alerting, orienting and executive control). Results showed a significant association with the executive control network: the A/A genotype and the A‐allele were associated with increased reaction time when conflicting information was present. In contrast, rs1344706 was not related to alerting and orienting. These results suggest that the genome‐wide supported psychosis risk variant of ZNF804A is associated with altered executive control (larger conflict effect), which is a potential endophenotype of psychotic disorders.
Managers’ Ethical Evaluations of Earnings Management and its Consequences

Despite a recent focus on the ethics of earnings management, research has generally not examined the specific ethical dilemma that arises when a choice to engage in earnings management results in positive organizational consequences. This study focuses on the consequences of earnings management behavior in response to the question: Do the ends of positive organizational consequences justify the means of earnings management? We investigate manager evaluations of, and reactions to, a scenario in which a hypothetical employee makes a choice whether or not to engage in earnings management behavior, with consequences that are either favorable or unfavorable to the organization. Two hundred and sixty-four experienced managers provided responses to the scenario in a controlled experimental research design. The results indicate that managers may be motivated to discount the ethical impact of earnings management behavior when the consequence has a favorable impact on the organization—implying that the ends justify the means. This finding, in turn, suggests that incrementalism, or the ethical “slippery slope” of overlooking seemingly minor ethical breaches, can undermine efforts to establish a strong ethical tone throughout the organization. Implications of these findings for corporate governance and future research are discussed.
Minimum-Variance Portfolios Based on CovarianceMatrices Using Implied Volatilities: Evidence from the German Market

This article compares the performance of minimum-variance portfolios based on four different covariance matrix estimators, using daily return data from the German stock market. To assess whether investing in ex ante minimum-variance portfolios is a recommendable way to achieve efficient portfolios in accordance with Markowitz’s mean-variance optimization, the authors benchmark the four portfolios’ performance against the German stock index DAX, which also determines the investable universe. This is the first study that uses not only historical volatility and covariance data, but also implied volatilities from the stock options market to estimate the covariance matrix. The article also analyzes how results change when the shrinkage method, suggested by Ledoit and Wolf in a 2003 article published in this journal, is applied to both the historical and the implied volatility estimators. The authors demonstrate that all minimum-variance portfolios outperform the DAX index. The implied-volatility estimator, modified by the shrinkage method, offered the best results in terms of volatility, return, and efficiency ratio. In contrast to previous empirical results, applying the shrinkage method to the historical sample covariance matrix yields little benefit, if any. However, applying the shrinkage method to the implied-volatility estimator significantly improves the quality of the covariance estimation, resulting in improved performance from the minimum-variance portfolio.