Human Resource Practices and Organizational Commitment: A Deeper Examination

This paper examines newer conceptualizations of HRM practices in the HR-Performance Relationship as well as newer conceptualizations of commitment. Juxtaposing these categories of HR practices and types of commitment provides a clearer theoretical rational for at least some ways that HR practices can influence organizational performance, be that positive or negative. Implications for research are then discussed

The influence of bovine serum albumin on β-lactoglobulin denaturation, aggregation and gelation

peer-reviewedThe effect of bovine serum albumin (BSA) on the heat-induced denaturation, aggregation and subsequent acid-induced gelation of β-lactoglobulin (β-lg) was investigated in this work. Changes in the denaturation kinetics of β-lg during heating at 78 °C were determined by monitoring the disappearance of the native protein by reverse-phase chromatography. Replacing β-lg with increasing amounts of BSA, while keeping the total protein concentration constant at 5% (w/w), significantly increased the denaturation rate of β-lg from 2.57±0.30×10−3(g L−1)(1−n)s−1 to 5.07±0.72×10−3(g L−1)(1−n)s−1 (β-lg: BSA ratio of 3:1 w/w). The reaction order for β-lg was 1.40±0.09. Partial replacement of β-lg with BSA (β-lg: BSA ratio of 3:1 w/w) significantly increased the reaction order to 1.67±0.13. Heat-induced aggregates between β-lg and BSA were studied by dynamic light scattering, two-dimensional electrophoresis and size exclusion chromatography. The partial replacement of β-lg with BSA significantly changed the gelling properties of the acid-induced gels. A rapid rate of acidification resulted in a significant decrease, while a slow acidification rate resulted in a significant increase in gel strength. Size exclusion chromatography demonstrated that intermolecular disulphide bond formation occurred during both heat-induced denaturation/aggregation and subsequent acid-induced gelation. Results clearly indicate that BSA contributed to the formation of these disulphide bonds.This work was funded under the Food Institutional Research Measure (FIRM) of the National Development Plan 2000-2006. J. Kehoe is funded by the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship schem

Sudden Stops and Output Drops

In recent financial crises and in recent theoretical studies of them, abrupt declines in capital inflows, or sudden stops, have been linked with large drops in output. Do sudden stops cause output drops? No, according to a standard equilibrium model in which sudden stops are generated by an abrupt tightening of a country's collateral constraint on foreign borrowing. In this model, in fact, sudden stops lead to output increases, not decreases. An examination of the quantitative effects of a well-known sudden stop, in Mexico in the mid-1990s, confirms that a drop in output accompanying a sudden stop cannot be accounted for by the sudden stop alone. To generate an output drop during a financial crisis, as other studies have done, the model must include other economic frictions which have negative effects on output large enough to overwhelm the positive effect of the sudden stop.

Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Real Exchange Rates?

The central puzzle in international business cycles is that real exchange rates are volatile and persistent. The most popular story for real exchange rate fluctuations is that they are generated by monetary shocks interacting with sticky goods prices. We quantify this story and find that it can account for some of the observed properties of real exchange rates. When prices are held fixed for at least one year, risk aversion is high and preferences are separable in leisure, the model generates real exchange rates that are as volatile as in the data. The model also generates real exchange rates that are persistent, but less so than in the data. If monetary shocks are correlated across countries, then the comovements in aggregates across countries are broadly consistent with those in the data. Making asset markets incomplete or introducing sticky wages does not measurably change the results.

Can sticky price models generate volatile and persistent real exchange rates?

The central puzzle in international business cycles is that fluctuations in real exchange rates are volatile and persistent. We quantity the popular story for real exchange rate fluctuations: they are generated by monetary shocks interacting with sticky goods prices. If prices are held fixed for at least one year, risk aversion is high, and preferences are separable in leisure, then real exchanage rates generated by the model are as volatile as in the data and quite persistent, but less so than in the data. The main discrepancy between the model and the data, the consumption—real exchange rate anomaly, is that the model generates a high correlation between real exchange rates and the ratio of consumption across countries, while the data show no clear pattern between these variables.Prices ; Econometric models ; Foreign exchange rates

Can sticky price models generate volatile and persistent real exchange rates?

The conventional wisdom is that monetary shocks interact with sticky goods prices to generate the observed volatility and persistence in real exchange rates. We investigate this conventional wisdom in a quantitative model with sticky prices. We find that with preferences as in the real business cycle literature, irrespective of the length of price stickiness, the model necessarily produces only a fraction of the volatility in exchange rates seen in the data. With preferences which are separable in leisure, the model can produce the observed volatility in exchange rates. We also show that long stickiness is necessary to generate the observed persistence. In addition, we show that making asset markets incomplete does not measurably increase either the volatility or persistence of real exchange rates. ; Replaced by Staff Report 277Prices ; Econometric models ; Foreign exchange rates

Accounting for the Great Depression

Economists have offered many theories for the U.S. Great Depression, but no consensus has formed on the main forces behind it. Here we describe and demonstrate a simple methodology for determining which theories are the most promising. We show that a large class of models, including models with various frictions, are equivalent to a prototype growth model with time-varying efficiency, labor, and investment wedges that, at least on face value, look like time-varying productivity, labor taxes, and investment taxes. We use U.S. data to measure these wedges, feed them back into the prototype growth model, and assess the fraction of the fluctuations in 1929?39 that they account for. We find that the efficiency and labor wedges account for essentially all of the decline and subsequent recovery. Investment wedges play, at best, a minor role. This article originally appeared in the American Economic Review. (c) American Economic Association. ; RELATED PAPER: Staff Report 328 Business Cycle AccountingDepressions

Are structural VARs with long-run restrictions useful in developing business cycle theory?

The central finding of the recent structural vector autoregression (SVAR) literature with a differenced specification of hours is that technology shocks lead to a fall in hours. Researchers have used this finding to argue that real business cycle models are unpromising. We subject this SVAR specification to a natural economic test and show that when applied to data from a multiple-shock business cycle model, the procedure incorrectly concludes that the model could not have generated the data as long as demand shocks play a nontrivial role. We also test another popular specification, which uses the level of hours, and show that with nontrivial demand shocks, it cannot distinguish between real business cycle models and sticky price models. The crux of the problem for both SVAR specifications is that available data require a VAR with a small number of lags and such a VAR is a poor approximation to the model’s VAR. ; Formerly titled: A critique of structural VARs using business cycle theory ; Originally Working paper no. 631

A critique of structural VARs using real business cycle theory

The main substantive finding of the recent structural vector autoregression literature with a differenced specification of hours (DSVAR) is that technology shocks lead to a fall in hours. Researchers have used these results to argue that business cycle models in which technology shocks lead to a rise in hours should be discarded. We evaluate the DSVAR approach by asking, is the specification derived from this approach misspecified when the data are generated by the very model the literature is trying to discard? We find that it is misspecified. Moreover, this misspecification is so great that it leads to mistaken inferences that are quantitatively large. We show that the other popular specification that uses the level of hours (LSVAR) is also misspecified. We argue that alternative state space approaches, including the business cycle accounting approach, are more fruitful techniques for guiding the development of business cycle theory.> > Replaced by Staff Report No. 364Vector autoregression ; Business cycles