bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
FOREIGN MANPOWER IN THE U.S. SCIENCES
Authors: Grunel Herbert G. 
Published: April 2005

Because of the recent public concern over the brain drain, this study attempts to measure the U.S. gain of highly skilled manpower. The paper discusses the serious short‐comings of the data on gross immigration of scientists and engineers provided by the U.S. immigration authorities as a measure of true U.S. gains. In a case study of Swedish scientists and engineers it was found, for example, that whereas the U.S. data showed a gain of 106 Swedish scientists and engineers over a number of years, the net figure was only 26 after adjustment for remigration and the application of the proper OECD education criteria.The paper then reports the findings of a statistical study which uses the stock data on U.S. scientists in the National Register of Scientific and Technical Personnel to estimate the number of foreign born in this stock and analyse their characteristics with respect to age, educational attainment, and employment preferences.It was found that nearly 7 percent of all U.S. scientists are of foreign origin (foreign born and foreign secondary education), whereas 11.5 percent of all scientists with a Ph.D. are of foreign origin. The percentage among Ph.D. holders is highest in meteorology (22.3), followed by linguistics (18.7), physics (17.1) and statistics (14.6).The greatest percentage of scientists comes from Canada (10.4 per thousand), followed by Germany (8.3 per thousand) and the United Kingdom (6.7 per thousand). However, after adjustment of these data for the different sizes of the total foreign born population from each country in the U.S., it turns out that by this measure the greatest shares of scientists are supplied by the Japanese, followed by the Austrian‐Swiss, Benelux and Canadians.The analysis of the age composition of all foreign born reveals that in the age groups that were 20–29, 45–54, and 65 and over in 1964 foreigners represent a smaller than average share, probably reflecting war casualties and education completed at a later age. Germans and Austrians are heavily concentrated in the group 55–64 years old in 1964, suggesting that a great share of scientists from these countries may have been victims of a brain push.
REAL INCOME LEVELS IN LATIN AMERICA
Authors: Braithwaite Stanley N. 
Published: April 2005

The measurement and inter‐spatial comparison of Latin American real income levels calls for techniques which depart substantially from the conventional procedure of applying such official or free market exchange rates as happen to prevail in any given period. The reasons are varied, the main ones being that in an area such as Latin America prices are notoriously volatile, their structure differs radically from that encountered in other parts of the world, and the exchange rate system is characterized by frequent and usually irregular revisions, while in certain countries a multiple exchange rate system applies and no single factor is available for conversion purposes. In addition, there exists the problem common to all developing countries that the rates to a large extent reflect the exchange value of a limited number of export commodities vis‐à‐vis a wide range of imported goods and in no way typify the internal‐external price relationship for the bulk of production which by its nature fails to enter into international trading transactions.The author has endeavoured to circumvent these difficulties by adopting the often‐discussed “purchasing power parity” approach whereby national accounts data are converted into a common monetary denominator (in this case, the U.S. dollar) expressed in “real” or quantitative terms which as far as possible eliminate inter‐spatial price differences. Results are presented and analyzed, first for the base year 1960, and then for the period 1955–1964 at the level of main expenditure sectors as well as for the total gross domestic product.To the extent that available statistics permitted, results for Latin American countries are also related to the United States and certain countries in Western Europe, a main objective being to determine the approximate dimension of the incomes “gap” and to ascertain whether this is increasing, decreasing or remaining very much unchanged in size.
REFLECTIONS ON NATIONAL ACCOUNTING
Authors: Geary R. C. 
Published: April 2005

This article consists of a description and critical analysis of two important works on national accounting which have appeared fairly recently—see footnotes 1 and 2. There are fundamental differences between the systems of accounts proposed in these two works, the author tending to prefer the Ruggles system. While full of admiration for the thoroughness and other qualities of the new SNA, the author finds the system it proposes over‐elaborate as a programme for national statistical offices. In his view decision as to which is the “best” system is still wide open, despite the acceptance of the new SNA by the UN Statistical Commission. In the article there is bare mention of a new (1972) book Economic Accounts and Their Uses by J. W. Kendrick which the author has since read. All three works help in determining the best practical system of accounts. It is hoped that this article (in its small way) will also make a contributionThe subject of national accounts at constant prices is not dealt with at all in any of the three works despite the fact that it has received considerable attention at various meetings of IARIW. Accounts at constant prices and their concomitant price indexes are more important in these days of the curse of inflation than are accounts at current prices. Of course the new SNA deals with items at constant prices but the author finds the treatment rather inadequate.It is satisfactory that the new SNA provides for input‐output but the author agrees with the Ruggles view that the textual treatment in SNA is somewhat incomplete.The article gives the author's views on many other topics relevent to national accounting (which encompass all economic statistics!) including price index number making, inaccuracies in data, delays in availability of so‐called “current” statistics, and treatment of financial intermediaries.
DATA REVISIONS AND FORECASTING ACCURACY: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS BASED ON PRELIMINARY AND REVISED NATIONAL ACCOUNTING ESTIMATES*
Authors: Denton Frank T. , Oksanen Ernest H. 
Published: April 2005

This paper entails an investigation of the effects of data revisions on forecasting accuracy, through use of preliminary and revised national accounting data compiled by the United Nations. A small model was estimated for each of fourteen countries and ex post“forecasts” generated for each country and each year of the period 1957–1964, using first preliminary and then revised data.A prior analysis of the data revisions indicated a strong and widespread tendency for the preliminary estimates to understate both levels and year‐to‐year changes. This is consistent with the findings of other studies.Two sets of forecasts obtained from the reduced form of the model were considered in relation to “actual” levels and changes, obtained from the revised data, and also in relation to each other. A strong downward bias was observed in the forecasts of levels based on preliminary data, and a weaker one in the forecasts of changes. The forecast discrepancies for different variables were found to be significantly correlated.The results suggest that a tendency toward understatement in preliminary data may account in part for the general tendency toward understatement in forecasts noted in other studies.
THE CONCENTRATION OF PERSONAL WEALTH IN AMERICA, 1969
Authors: Smith James D. 
Published: April 2005

This essay focuses on the problems of estimating the share of America's personal wealth in the hands of affluent individuals by a technique known as the estate multiplier method. Rather than exploring these problems in an empirical vacuum, we first present some results from the most recent estimates of the distribution of U.S. personal wealth.1 The estimates—for the year 1969—are then used as a basis for gauging the sensitivity of estate multiplier estimates to variations in approach.Section I presents new empirical findings dealing with the asset holdings of top wealth‐holders and the super rich, and with the shares of specific assets owned by them. Also presented is information about the sex and marital status of the super rich.Section II discusses various technical aspects of the estate multiplier as applied to federal estate tax returns. The main concern is with the weighting process, but attention is paid to the fact that estate tax returns filed in a given year are not for decedents who died in that year or any single year, and to the problems of adjusting the face value of life insurance to cash surrender value.
ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT: A STATISTICAL INVESTIGATION*
Authors: King Mervyn A. 
Published: April 2005

Some writers have emphasised the adverse environmental and social effects of economic growth, while others have claimed that countries with higher levels of social well‐being also tend to enjoy higher levels of per capita output. The aim of this study is to see what statistical light can be thrown on these issues by collating and comparing seventeen different social indicators for twenty countries in two bench‐mark years, 1951 and 1969.Two methods of analysing data are employed. First, all the countries are ranked for each indicator in turn for a particular year. Each country is then given a score ranging from 1 to 20 for each indicator, and the scores aggregated over the indicators to obtain an overall ranking score for every country. Secondly, the data are subjected to a principal components analysis to examine the correlation between the indicators. The first principal component is a potential candidate for use as a social index number. Changes in these social variables are then related to the rate of economic growth, and no evidence is found of a negative correlation between economic growth and social development. On the contrary, the results suggest a positive correlation between the two, although the strength of this relationship may be diminishing. It is not claimed that the results are in any sense the most preferred test of the form of the relationship between economic growth and social welfare, which must be a matter for subjective evaluation; rather they are seen as a contribution to the body of empirical evidence on this subject.
THE ACCOUNTING TREATMENT OF HUMAN INVESTMENT AND CAPITAL
Authors: Kendrick John W. 
Published: April 2005

Defining investment as outlays that increase income‐ and output‐producing capacity, the author presents estimates of human investment in the United States 1929–69, comprising rearing costs, education, training, health, safety and mobility outlays. He develops an economic accounting framework to accommodate human investments and research and development in national and sector capital accounts, with appropriate adjustments to the current accounts to provide consistency. The associated balance sheets and wealth statements are also developed.The wealth and corresponding income estimates are used to compute rates of return on human, non‐human, and total capital. In the business economy the average net rate of return on total capital was 10.6 percent in 1969, compared with 10.0 percent in 1929. The average and marginal rates of return on human capital were generally somewhat higher than on non‐human capital throughout the period.
POSTSCHOOL LEARNING AND HUMAN RESOURCE ACCOUNTING
Authors: Bowman Mary Jean 
Published: April 2005

The central concern of this paper is with the treatment of human resources in dynamic applications of capital and growth accounting. Despite many advances, national accounting conventions still give biased profiles of the economy, but the time is ripe for experimentation with measures that can correct those biases and provide a more adequate base for assessment of long‐term economic performance and prospects.In the first section, the logic and feasibility of forward and backward measures of formation of human capital in the simplest case (of full‐time schooling) is examined in parallel with physical capital. In a dynamic economy, which is rarely if ever in equilibrium, these approaches complement each other; they are poor substitutes. In section two a number of conceptual and measurement issues are considered with particular reference to human‐capital investment periods and the treatment of appreciation, depreciation and obsolescence of human versus physical capital. Here special attention is given to the extended periods of investments in human resources, which overlap with realization of returns, and to the processes and agencies through which postschool investments are made. The last section presents a brief statement concerning asymmetries in disequilibrium biases with respect to the formation of human relative to physical capital. Drawing upon section 1 with regard to forward and backward measures and section 2 with regard to the critical importance of postschool learning, new possibilities in contributions of national accounting to a dynamic analysis of economic development are suggested.
RETHINKING RISK MANAGEMENT
Authors: Stulz René M. 
Published: April 2005

This paper presents a theory of corporate risk management that attempts to go beyond the “variance‐minimization” model that dominates most academic discussions of the subject. It argues that the primary goal of risk management is not to dampen swings in corporate cash flows or value, but rather to provide protection against the possibility of costly lower‐tail outcomes–situations that would cause financial distress or make a company unable to carry out its investment strategy. (In the jargon of finance specialists, risk management can be viewed as the purchase of well‐out‐of‐the‐money put options designed to limit downside risk.)By eliminating downside risk and reducing the expected costs of financial trouble, risk management can also help a company to achieve both its optimal capital structure and its optimal ownership structure. For, besides increasing corporate debt capacity, the reduction of downside risk also encourages larger equity stakes for managers by shielding their investments from “uncontrollables.”The paper also departs from standard finance theory in suggesting that some companies may have a comparative advantage in bearing certain financial market risks–an advantage that derives from information acquired through their normal business activities. Although such specialized information may lead some companies to take speculative positions in commodities or currencies, it is more likely to encourage “selective” hedging, a practice in which the risk manager's “view” of future price movements influences the percentage of the exposure that is hedged.But, to the extent that such view‐taking becomes an accepted part of a company's risk management program, it is important to evaluate managers' bets on a risk‐adjusted basis and relative to the market. If risk managers want to behave like money managers, they should be evaluated like money managers.
A PRACTICAL APPROACH TO CALCULATING COSTS OF EQUITY FOR INVESTMENTS IN EMERGING MARKETS
Authors: Godfrey Stephen , Espinosa Ramon 
Published: April 2005

While most financial economists argue that multinational corporations (MNCs) should use discount rates that reflect only “systematic” or “covariance” risks when evaluating offshore projects, the managers of most MNCs do not appear to follow this prescription of the CAPM. Instead they favor use of discount rates that reflect the “total risk” of emerging‐market investments (as evidenced, for example, by the comments of the executives in the Roundtable discussion that immediately precedes this article).The authors defend this practice by noting that emerging countries are generally in the midst of profound economic and political transformations; and, although an MNC's shareholders may be willing to accept considerably lower rates of return on emerging‐markets projects because of the expected portfolio diversification benefits, the managements of MNCs are likely to find that using higher discount rates for emerging‐markets investments does a better job of accomplishing what a capital budgeting system is supposed to do—namely, to send strategic planners clear signals of the full extent of project risks and to set high standards of profitability for overseas operating managers.After describing the “total‐risk” focus of corporate planners, the authors present a “practical model” for calculating discount rates for emerging countries that incorporates two dimensions of risk: (1) credit quality, which is intended to capture political or “sovereign” risks; and (2) business volatility, which reflects primarily the commercial risks of operating in a given country. Credit‐quality risk is measured by the credit spread (over U.S. Treasuries) of a country's sovereign debt denominated in dollars or other reserve currency. Business volatility is captured by an additional risk premium that reflects the volatility of the local stock market relative to the volatility of the domestic (U.S.) market. And, because these two sources of risk are not completely independent, the authors propose a downward adjustment to compensate for any “double counting” inherent in the method.
SOME NEW EVIDENCE ON WHY COMPANIES USE CONVERTIBLE BONDS
Authors: Jen Frank C. , Choi Dosoung , Lee Seong‐Hyo 
Published: April 2005

The popular argument for convertibles holds that they provide issuers with “cheap” debt and allow them to sell equity at a premium over current value. Objecting to the “free lunch” implied by such an argument, financial economists have offered other explanations that show how the combination of debt and equity built into convertibles can serve to reduce information and agency costs faced by companies and their investors.In this article, the authors use the results of their recent study to reconcile the two positions. Following Jeremy Stein's view of convertibles as “backdoor equity,” the authors argue that convertible bond financing is an attractive alternative for companies that have large growth potential but find both conventional debt and equity financing very costly. Such companies are often deterred from funding their capital investments with straight public bonds by their high risk, relatively short track records, and high expected costs of financial distress. At the same time, the information “asymmetry” between management and outside investors can make equity very expensive in such cases. In layman's terms, management may feel that the company's share price does not accurately reflect its growth prospects, or be concerned that the mere announcement of a new equity offering will cause the share price to fall sharply.To the extent the stock market is persuaded that management's choice of convertibles is based on this combination of promising growth prospects with limited financing options, it is likely to respond more favorably to the announcement of a new convertible offering. The authors furnish evidence in support of this argument by reporting that the market reacts less negatively to those convertible issuers with higher post‐issue capital expenditures and higher market‐to‐book ratios, but with lower credit ratings and higher (post‐offering) debt‐equity ratios.
PERCS, DECS, AND OTHER MANDATORY CONVERTIBLES
Authors: Arzac Enrique R. 
Published: April 2005

From their beginnings in 1988, mandatory convertibles such as PERCS and DECS have grown to account for as much as 25% of a convertible market that experienced new issuance of $20 billion in 1996. Mandatory convertibles usually pay a higher dividend than the company's common stock (generally for a three‐year period) and then require the holders to convert into common stock under terms that provide limited appreciation until conversion.This article examines the rationale for mandatory convertibles from the point of view of issuers as well as investors. Like conventional convertibles securities, mandatory convertibles reduce the costs of the information asymmetry problem that confronts equity issuers. But, to a greater degree than ordinary convertibles, mandatory convertibles provide a solution to the financial restructuring problem faced by highly leveraged (and, in some cases, troubled) companies. They also enable growth companies to signal confidence about their future, particularly by including features such as guaranteed appreciation.The last section of the article discusses the valuation of three varieties of mandatory convertibles: PERCS, DECS, and mandatory convertibles with a value guarantee. The valuation method builds on the insight that each of these securities can be decomposed into three basic components: (1) the underlying common stock; (2) the fixed‐income cash flow promised investors; and (3) the option on the company's stock embedded in the security.
SECURITIZATION: A LOW‐COST SWEETENER FOR LEMONS
Authors: Hill Claire A. 
Published: April 2005

Since the launching of the mortgage backed market in the early 1970s, securitization has experienced extraordinary growth and spread to a remarkable variety of receivables. But financial economists in the tradition of Miller and Modigliani have been hard pressed to explain such growth. When viewed within the context of an M & M world of “perfect markets,” securitization appears to be simply another way—and a highly complex and costly one, at that—for a company to carve up its operating cash flows and repackage them for investors.This article seeks to explain the growth of securitization by identifying reductions in costs that M & M assume out of existence. For some types of companies, the largest sources of the cost savings are fairly obvious. Most mortgage securitizations are effectively subsidized by the U.S. government, which contributed greatly to the launching of the securitization movement. And commercial banks forced to meet regulatory capital requirements have found securitization of loans to be a low‐cost compliance strategy.But securitization appears to offer more than regulatory benefits. For example, higher rated companies with a variety of financing options appear to use securitization to diversify their funding sources and arbitrage small price differences in financial markets. But if such arbitrage profits can be significant, the non‐regulatory benefits appear to be largest for companies with few financing alternatives—those firms that face what economists refer to as a “lemons problem.” Available information about such companies is often limited (as in the case of smaller companies), unfavorable (companies in financial distress), or particularly difficult to appraise (companies in volatile industries, or facing unstable political environments or potentially large liabilities). Especially in the case of such “lemons” companies, securitization may reduce overall financing costs by carving up the evaluation of a company's securities into tasks amenable to greater specialization. In so doing, it may reduce aggregate information costs for all its securities and thus increase total value.