Displaced Capital

This paper studies the efficiency with which physical capital can be reallocated across sectors. It presents a model of a firm selling specialized capital in a thin resale market. The model predicts that the selling price depends not only on the sectoral specificity of capital, but also on the thinness of the market and the discount factor of the firm. It then provides empirical evidence on the sectoral mobility of capital based on equipment-level data from aerospace industry auctions. These data track the flow of used capital across industries, as well as the discounts at which the capital sells. The results suggest substantial sectoral specificity of capital. Capital that flowed out of the sector sold for only one-third of its estimated replacement cost.

Why Do Computers Depreciate?

The value of installed computers falls rapidly and therefore computers have a very high user cost. The paper provides a complete account of the non-financial user cost of personal computers -- decomposing it into replacement cost change, obsolescence, instantaneous depreciation, and age-related depreciation. The paper uses data on the resale price of computers and a hedonic price index for new computers to achieve this decomposition. Once obsolescence is taken into account, age-related depreciation -- which is often identified as deterioration -- is estimated to be negligible. While the majority of the loss in value of used computers comes from declines in replacement cost, this paper shows the second most important source of decline in value is obsolescence. Obsolescence is accelerated by the decline in replacement cost of computers. Cheaper computing power drives developments in software and networks that make older computers less productive even though their original functionality remains intact.

Enhancing student leadership of volunteer organizations: A guide for new leaders

The importance of student participation in cocurricular activities during the college years has been drawing increasing support and empirical evidence has been presented that supports the critical, positive relationship between involvement and overall student development (Astin, 1993; Baxter Magolda, 1992; Cooper, Healy, & Simpson, 1994). Theorists within the field of college student development incorporate this assertion into the models they put forth for utilization by student affairs practitioners. Chickering and Reisser (1993) maintain that an individual student\u27s growth occurs upon mastering developmental tasks, and that it is the role of student affairs practitioners to create an environment which presents opportunities where students may encounter such tasks

The Choices, Challenges, and Lessons Learned from a Multi-Method Social-Emotional / Character Assessment in and Out of School Time Setting

Out-of-School-Time (OST) programs are increasingly recognized as a venue to actively engage children and youth in character development activities, but little guidance exists as to how to assess individual children and youth in OST environments for the sake of evaluating their character development. This research brief uses an illustrative case study to reflect upon the experience of selecting and completing a strength-based, multi-modal social-emotional / character assessment that used a direct assessment and a multiple informant behavior rating scale in an OST setting. Insights derived from the case study reveal opportunities and challenges associated with each assessment modality. This paper shares lessons learned with those conducting individual assessments in OST environments and with those seeking to improve our capacity to complete screening, formative, and summative assessments of social-emotional and character constructs in OST youth development programs to help children

Costly Capital Reallocation and the Effects of Government Spending

Changes in government spending often lead to significant shifts in demand across sectors. This paper analyzes the effects of sector-specific changes in government spending in a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model in which the reallocation of capital across sectors is costly. The two-sector model leads to a richer array of possible responses of aggregate variables than the one-sector model. The empirical part of the paper estimates the effects of military buildups on a variety of macroeconomic variables using a new measure of military shocks. The behavior of macroeconomic aggregates is consistent with the predictions of a multi-sector neoclassical model. In particular, consumption, real product wages and manufacturing productivity fall in response to exogenous military buildups in the post-World War II United States.

Predictors of rater bias in the assessment of social-emotional competence

The Devereux Student Strengths Assessment Mini (DESSA-Mini) (LeBuffe, Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2014) efficiently monitors the growth of Social-Emotional Competence (SEC) in the routine implementation of Social Emotional Learning programs. The DESSAMini is used to assess approximately half a million children around the world. Since behavior rating scales can have ‘rater bias’, this paper examines rater characteristics that contribute to DESSA-Mini ratings. Rater characteristics and DESSA-Mini ratings were collected from elementary school classroom teachers (n=72) implementing TOOLBOX in a racially/ethnically diverse California school district. Teachers rated 1,676 students, who scored similarly to a national reference group. Multilevel modeling analysis showed that only 16% of variance in DESSA-mini ratings was attributable to raters. Relationships between teacher characteristics and ratings were estimated to examine rater variance. Collectively, four characteristics of teachers (perceived barriers to student learning, sense of their ‘typical’ student’s level of SEC, anticipation of SEL program implementation challenges, and intentions to fully implement a newly adopted SEL program) accounted for bias in teacher-generated DESSA scores, leaving only 10% of the variance unexplained. Identified sources of ‘rater bias’ can be controlled for in research and addressed through thoughtful program selection, training, and implementation.peer-reviewe