Essays in organizational economics

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-101).The first chapter examines the interaction of heterogeneous firms in a competitive market in which firms motivate their workers using relational incentive contracts. In the steady-state rational-expectations equilibrium, aggregate TFP is fully characterized by a weighted average of firm-specific sustainable effort levels. Relational contracts amplify exogenous productivity heterogeneity and lead to dispersion in the net marginal revenue product of labor. Improvements in formal contracting disproportionately benefits low-productivity firms, leading to a greater dispersion of the net marginal revenue product of labor in weaker contracting environments. Thus, cross-country differences in contracting institutions can partially explain the observed pattern that misallocation is more pronounced in developing countries. The second chapter explores organizational responses to influence activities-costly activities aimed at persuading a decision maker. Rigid organizational practices that might otherwise seem inefficient can optimally arise. If more complex decisions are more susceptible to influence activities, optimal selection may partially account for the observed correlation between the quality of management practices and firm performance reported in Bloom and Van Reenen (2007). Further, the boundaries of the firm can be shaped by the potential for influence activities, providing a theory of the firm based on ex-post inefficiencies. Finally, boundaries and bureaucratic institutions interact: more concentrated decision-making and bureaucratic institutions are complements. The third chapter (co-authored with Robert Gibbons and Richard Holden) analyzes a rational-expectations model of price formation in an intermediate-good market under uncertainty. There is a continuum of firms, each consisting of a party who can reduce production cost and a party who can discover information about demand. Both parties can make specific investments at private cost, and there is a machine that either party can control. As in incomplete-contracting models, different control structures create different incentives for the parties' investments. As in rational-expectations models, some parties may invest in acquiring information, which is then incorporated into the market-clearing price of the intermediate good by these parties' production decisions. The informativeness of the price mechanism affects the returns to specific investments and hence the optimal control structure for individual firms; meanwhile, the control structure choices by individual firms affect the informativeness of the price mechanism. In equilibrium the informativeness of the price mechanism can induce ex ante homogeneous firms to choose heterogeneous control structures.by Michael Leslie Powell.Ph.D

Masculinities Matter: The Role of Masculinities in Depression, Suicide, and Substance Abuse Among African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Alaska Native/American Indian Boys and Men

The authors focus on African American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American boys and men of color who face some of the most compelling health disparities and inequities in our nation. Given the significant amount of male mortality attributable to substance abuse, suicide, or depression, the authors address these three behavioral health outcomes. This focus is further supported by evidence documenting the notable amount of comorbidity between these behavioral health outcomes and other chronic diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer) linked to the disproportionate health disadvantage shouldered by BMOC

Quest religious orientation among church leaders in Australia : a function of psychological predisposition or openness to mystical experience?

Quest-religious orientation among church leaders signifies a style of leadership committed to religious explorations more than to religious certainties. For this study, we set out to explore the extent to which quest orientation among a sample of 1,265 religious church leaders who participated in the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey was a function of psychological predisposition, conceptualized in terms of psychological type theory, or a function of distinctive forms of religious experience, conceptualized in terms of Happold’s (1963) model of mysticism. The data demonstrated that higher levels of mystical orientation were associated with psychological predisposition, involving extraversion, intuition, feeling, and perceiving. After controlling for sex, age, education, denominational groups, and psychological type, higher levels of mystical orientation were also associated with higher levels of quest-religious orientation. Mystical orientation partly mediated the effect of intuition on question orientation, but psychological preferences (for intuition and perceiving) and mystical orientation seemed independently to promote quest orientation. Thus, church leaders committed to religious explorations rather than to religious certainties seemed to have been shaped both by psychological predisposition and by distinctive forms of religious experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved

Quest religious orientation among church leaders in Australia: A function of psychological predisposition or openness to mystical experience?

Quest religious orientation among church leaders signifies a style of leadership committed to religious explorations more than to religious certainties. This study sets out to explore the extent to which quest religious orientation among religious leaders is a function of psychological predisposition (conceptualized in terms of psychological type theory) or a function of distinctive forms of religious experience (conceptualized in terms of Happold’s model of mysticism) among a sample of 1,265 church leaders who participated in the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey. The data demonstrated that higher levels of mystical orientation were associated with psychological predisposition, involving extraversion, intuition, feeling and perceiving. After controlling for sex, age, education, denominational groups and psychological type, higher levels of mystical orientation were also associated with higher levels of quest religious orientation. Mystical orientation partly mediated the effect of intuition on question orientation, but psychological preferences (for intuition and for perceiving) and mystical orientation seemed independently to promote quest religious orientation. Thus, church leaders committed to religious explorations rather than to religious certainties seemed to have been shaped both by psychological predisposition and by distinctive forms of religious experience

Assessing peer and parental influence on the religious attitudes and attendance of young churchgoers : exploring the Australian National Church Life Survey

Drawing on data from the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey, this study was designed to assess peer and parental influence on frequency of church attendance, attitude toward church, and attitude toward Christianity among a sample of 6,256 young churchgoers between the ages of 8 and 14 years, attending a range of denominations, including Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Pentecostal, and other Protestant Churches. The data indicated the power of parental example on frequency of church attendance. Frequent attendance among young churchgoers occurred when both parents attend as well. Parental influence worked differently on shaping attitude toward church. The most positive attitude was found among young churchgoers who had the opportunity to talk about God with their parents and who did not feel that their parents made them go to church. Young churchgoers responded to parental encouragement better than to parental pressure. Although peer influence within the church did not make much contribution to frequency of attendance, it made a contribution to shaping positive attitude toward church

Suicide Risk in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities: 2003–2011

Objectives We investigated the epidemiology of suicide among adults aged 50 years and older in nursing homes and assisted living facilities and whether anticipating transitioning into long-term care (LTC) is a risk factor for suicide. Methods Data come from the Virginia Violent Death Reporting System (2003–2011). We matched locations of suicides (n = 3453) against publicly available resource registries of nursing homes (n = 285) and assisted living facilities (n = 548). We examined individual and organizational correlates of suicide by logistic regression. We identified decedents anticipating entry into LTC through qualitative text analysis. Results Incidence of suicide was 14.16 per 100 000 in nursing homes and 15.66 in the community. Better performance on Nursing Home Compare quality metrics was associated with higher odds of suicide in nursing homes (odds ratio [OR] = 1.95; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.21, 3.14). Larger facility size was associated with higher suicide risk in assisted living facilities (OR = 1.01; 95% CI = 1.00, 1.01). Text narratives identified 38 decedents anticipating transitioning into LTC and 16 whose loved one recently transitioned or resided in LTC. Conclusions LTC may be an important point of engagement in suicide prevention

Blending Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 20082015

In 2008, iNACOL produced a series of papers documenting promising practices identified throughout the field of K–12 online learning. Since then, we have witnessed a tremendous acceleration of transformative policy and practice driving personalized learning in the K–12 education space. State, district, school, and classroom leaders recognize that the ultimate potential for blended and online learning lies in the opportunity to transform the education system and enable higher levels of learning through competency-based approaches.iNACOL's core work adds significant value to the field by providing a powerful practitioner voice in policy advocacy, communications, and in the creation of resources and best practices to enable transformational change in K–12 education.We worked with leaders throughout the field to update these resources for a new generation of pioneers working towards the creation of student-centered learning environments.This refreshed series, Promising Practices in Blended and Online Learning, explores some of the approaches developed by practitioners and policymakers in response to key issues in K–12 education, including:Blended Learning: The Evolution of Online and Face-to-Face Education from 2008-2015;Using Blended and Online Learning for Credit Recovery and At-Risk Students;Oversight and Management of Blended and Online Programs: Ensuring Quality and Accountability; andFunding and Legislation for Blended and Online Education.Personalized learning environments provide the very best educational opportunities and personalized pathways for all students, with highly qualified teachers delivering world-class instruction using innovative digital resources and content. Through this series of white papers, we are pleased to share the promising practices in K–12 blended, online, and competency education transforming teaching and learning today

Guest Artist Series:Tubalate

Center for the Performing Arts Wednesday Evening October 15, 2003 8:00p.m

Automation, algorithms, and politics| bots and political influence: a sociotechnical investigation of social network capital

This study explains how bots interact with human users and influence conversational networks on Twitter. We analyze a high-stakes political environment, the UK general election of May 2015, asking human volunteers to tweet from purpose-made Twitter accounts—half of which had bots attached—during three events: the last Prime Minister’s Question Time before Parliament was dissolved (#PMQs), the first leadership interviews of the campaign (#BattleForNumber10), and the BBC Question Time broadcast of the same evening (#BBCQT). Based on previous work, our expectation was that our intervention would make a significant difference to the evolving network, but we found that the bots we used had very little effect on the conversation network at all. There are economic, social, and temporal factors that impact how a user of bots can influence political conversations. Future research needs to account for these forms of capital when assessing the impact of bots on political discussions