Lamb Poster

This movie poster was created as an accompaniment to the short film Another Sacrificed Lamb.https://digitalcommons.linfield.edu/aha_2015/1001/thumbnail.jp

Anomalous Price Behavior Following Earnings Surprises: Does Representativeness Cause Overreaction?

Behavioral Finance aims to explain empirical anomalies by introducing investor psychology as a determinant of asset pricing. This study provides strong evidence that anomalous stock price behavior following earnings announcements is due to a representativeness bias. It investigates current and past earnings surprises and subsequent market reaction for listed US companies over the period 1983-1999. The results suggest that investors overreact to past earnings surprises. As, on average, extreme past surprises are not confirmed by actual earnings figures, they are followed by stock market reactions of the opposite sign. Moreover, the longer the similar earnings surprise series, the higher the subsequent reversal.Behavioral finance, overreaction, representativeness bias, earnings announcements

Low-dimensional light-emitting transistor with tunable recombination zone

We present experimental and numerical studies of a light-emitting transistor comprising two quasi-lateral junctions between a two-dimensional electron and hole gas. These lithographically defined junctions are fabricated by etching of a modulation doped GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. In this device electrons and holes can be directed to the same area by drain and gate voltages, defining a recombination zone tunable in size and position. It could therefore provide an architecture for probing low-dimensional devices by analysing the emitted light of the recombination zone.Comment: 12 Pages, to be published in Journal of Modern Optic

Health Insurance and Ex Ante Moral Hazard: Evidence from Medicare

Basic economic theory suggests that health insurance coverage may cause a reduction in prevention activities, but empirical studies have yet to provide much evidence to support this prediction. However, in other insurance contexts that involve adverse health events, evidence of ex ante moral hazard is more consistent. In this paper, we extend the analysis of the effect of health insurance on health behaviors by allowing for the possibility that health insurance has a direct (ex ante moral hazard) and indirect effect on health behaviors. The indirect effect works through changes in health promotion information and the probability of illness that may be a byproduct of insurance-induced greater contact with medical professionals. We identify these two effects and in doing so identify the pure ex ante moral hazard effect. This study exploits the plausibly exogenous variation in health insurance as a result of obtaining Medicare coverage at age 65. We find evidence that obtaining health insurance reduces prevention and increases unhealthy behaviors among elderly men. We also find evidence that physician counseling is successful in changing health behaviors.

Changes in the Welfare Caseload and the Health of Low-educated Mothers

Declines in the welfare caseload in the late 1990s brought significant change to the lives of many low-educated, single mothers. Many single mothers left welfare and entered the labor market and others re-arranged their lives in order to avoid going on public assistance. These changes may have affected the health and health behaviors of these women. To date, there has been no study of this issue. In this paper, we obtained estimates of the association between the welfare caseload and welfare policies, and three health behaviors --smoking, drinking, and exercise and two self-reported measures of health --days in poor mental health, and overall health status. The results of our study reveal that changes in the caseload had little effect on measures of health status, but were significantly associated with two health behaviors: binge drinking and regular exercise. The fall in the welfare caseload was associated with a decrease in binge drinking and an increase in regular and sustained physical activity.

Alcohol Taxes and Labor Market Outcomes

In this paper, we present estimates of the effect of alcohol taxes on employment, hours of work per week, and wages. These are reduced form estimates derived from a structural model linking alcohol use to labor market outcomes. The reduced form estimates are meaningful in two ways: first, they provide estimates of the effect of an important public policy tool, alcohol taxes, on labor market outcomes, and second, they can be used to evaluate hypotheses about the structural effects of alcohol use on labor market outcomes. The results of the analysis suggest that alcohol taxes are unrelated to employment, hours of work, and wages. Estimates of the effect of alcohol taxes on labor market outcomes were large and imprecise, and characterized by significant variation in sign and magnitude across samples and types of alcohol taxes. This suggests that there is a weak and indeterminate relationship between alcohol taxes and labor market outcomes. This finding implies that alcohol use does not adversely affect labor market outcomes and is inconsistent with findings from previous studies.