The effect of the run-up in the stock market on labor supply

This article presents estimates of the effect of the run-up in the stock market on labor supply. The authors find that, in the absence of a run-up in the stock market, aggregate labor force participation rates would have been about 1 percent higher than they are today.Labor supply ; Stock market

Stacked Floating Gate EEPROM

The concept of SFGEEPROM involves the replacement of the standard EEPROM’s floating gate with a multi-layer stacked of Silicon (Si) and Silicon Dioxide (SiO2). This multi-layer stack of Si and SiO2 is either deposited via sputtering or CVD and followed by annealing (see Figure 1). Carriers will be injected from the n+ polysilicon layer into the multi-stacked layers, and those carriers will be confined to the silicon crystallites with the thin oxide barriers between silicon layers. The distribution of charge within the stack will alter the field-effect on the underlying silicon substrate. This type of structure may result in lower operating voltage, faster write/erase cycles, the elimination of “over-erase” problems, and the utilization of only a single transistor EEPROM cell. The purpose of this experiment was to determine the feasibility of this idea and the initial results conclude that this concept works. However, more experiments and characterizations need to be done, in order to further confirm the feasibility, and determine the reliability of this device

Factors affecting the prices paid for slaughter steers and heifers sold at Tennessee auction markets

The specific objectives of this study are: (1) to analyze the relationship of the major pricing factors affecting steers and heifers sold at the six sample livestock auction markets in Tennessee, and (2) to analyze some of the minor pricing factors with respect to marketing practices in an attempt to find out the most desirable practice, if any

The Hazards of Debt: Rollover Freezes, Incentives, and Bailouts

We investigate the trade-off between incentive provision and inefficient rollover freezes for a firm financed with short-term debt. First, debt maturity that is too short-term is inefficient, even with incentive provision. The optimal maturity is an interior solution that avoids excessive rollover risk while providing sufficient incentives for the manager to avoid risk-shifting when the firm is in good health. Second, allowing the manager to risk-shift during a freeze actually increases creditor confidence. Debt policy should not prevent the manager from holding what may appear to be otherwise low-mean strategies that have option value during a freeze. Third, a limited but not perfectly reliable form of emergency financing during a freeze—a “bailout”—may improve the terms of the trade-off and increase total ex ante value by instilling confidence in the creditor markets. Our conclusions highlight the endogenous interaction between risk from the asset and liability sides of the balance sheet

Why Do Hedgers Trade So Much?

Futures positions of commercial hedgers in wheat, corn, soybeans and cotton fluctuate much more than expected output. Hedgers\u27 short positions are positively correlated with price changes. Together, these observations raise doubt about the common practice of categorically classifying trading by hedgers as hedging while trading by speculators as speculation, as hedgers frequently change their futures positions over time for reasons unrelated to output fluctuations, arguably a form of speculation

Wall Street and the Housing Bubble

We analyze whether mid-level managers in securitized finance were aware of a large-scale housing bubble and a looming crisis in 2004-2006 using their personal home transaction data. We find that the average person in our sample neither timed the market nor were cautious in their home transactions, and did not exhibit awareness of problems in overall housing markets. Certain groups of securitization agents were particularly aggressive in increasing their exposure to housing during this period, suggesting the need to expand the incentives-based view of the crisis to incorporate a role for beliefs

The Mediating effects of Pre- and Post-Assignment Activities on the Quality of Work Life of Expatriates: Evidence for Managers in the P.R.C.

This study investigates how two managerial interventions, pre-assignment training and post-assignmnet support, mediate the relationship between a set of personal & job characteristics and a broad measure of foreign assignment success, quality of work life (QWL). To accomplish this, we studied 199 expatriates posted form the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People\u27s Republic of China (PRC), a host ocutnry with a similar language, race, and cultural background. Using this setting, we were better able to isolate the mediating effects of these human resource interventions on the assignee\u27s adjustment and success. In the end, it appears that some of the personal (locus of control) and job characteristics (work roles) are related to QWL. In addition, pre-assignment training and post-assignment supprot, which were observed to mediate the relationships between these factors and QWL, appear to ameliorate the adverse consequences attributable to expatriates muddled work roles and perceptions of powerlessness