FACTOR DEMANDS OF LOUISIANA RICE PRODUCERS: AN ECONOMETRIC INVESTIGATION

A Diewert-flexible (dual) cost function was used to derive a system of conditional factor demand equations for Louisiana rice producers. Generalized Leontief cost and factor share equations were fitted for the 1955-87 period using Zellner's SURE system estimation procedure. The Aitken parameter estimates reveal that: (1) the optimal input mix of rice farmers varies with production scale, (2) the factor-augmenting technical change is labor and chemical saving but seed using, (3) pairwise input substitutions are limited, and (4) factor demands are own-price inelastic. An implication is that Louisiana rice farmers will not appreciably alter their factor utilizations when relative input prices change.Demand and Price Analysis,

FACTOR DEMANDS OF LOUISIANA RICE PRODUCERS: AN ECONOMETRIC INVESTIGATION: REPLY

Demand and Price Analysis,

Graduate school alumni donations to academic funds: Micro-data evidence

The giving profile of graduate degree alumni of a Carnegie-classified, U.S. Doctoral Universities I institution is investigated in this paper. For fund-raising purposes, the likely gift-giving alumni are males holding old vintage Doctoral, MBA or MS degrees; however, they neither received their second graduate degree nor earned their baccalaureate degrees at this institution. Graduate degree alumni have decreasing giving profiles for many years following completion of their first graduate degree but this decrease bottoms out later in life. It continues seven more years for alumni who earned a second graduate degree at the university. The wealth-accumulation effect of giving tends to dominate the earnings-effect. Doctoral degree alumni have the highest giving profile among graduate school alumni. Racial desegregation of the university is positively and strongly related to alumni giving. Inferences of the giving profile of undergraduate degree alumni reported in past work do not extend to graduate school alumni. © 1996 American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Inc

Logistic Regression and Probability of Business School Alumni Donations: Micro-data Evidence

This paper analyzes the propensity of business school alumni to give (or not give) cash donations to their alma mater. A utility maximization model is estimated using logistic regression and survey sample data of 1955–56 to 1990–91 graduates of a large US category I Carnegie Foundation research doctorate public university. Maximum likelihood estimates of the model parameters fitted the observed data well. The probability of alumni giving has positive and strong associations with: specific fields of major; time since alumni graduated; other family members graduating from this university; children who are 18 years or older not residing at home; number of other cash-giving alumni known; household income levels; occupations of alumni and spouses; giving of cash gifts to other educational institutions and a number of charitable organizations with global outreach; charitable volunteering of time; availability of matching gift programmes at work; and how alumni view their educational experiences at the business school and university. However, the probability of alumni giving is adversely impacted when child(ren) who are 13 years or older reside at home. Implications of these results for the efficient allocation of scarce alumni fund-raising resources are discussed. © 1993, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved

A note on benefit differentials of black and white female workers

Large national micro-data bases (such as Current Population Survey and Survey of Income and Programme Participation) lack information on employer outlays for the fringe benefits paid workers. Therefore, this paper motivates research on intra-firm black-white differences in non-wage fringe benefits using data on female office workers of a large public university. Empirical results indicate that racial differences exist among the fringes (pension, health and life insurance, sick leave, longevity pay, vacation) and also vary across department sizes. The differentials tend to disappear, however, when combined benefits or total compensation is used as a modelling framework. These results suggest potential sensitivity of regression model estimates of black-white benefit gaps to the degree of aggregation in the data being modelled. © 1995, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved

Production Cost Structure of U.S. Hospital Pharmacies: Time-Series, Cross-Sectional Bed Size Evidence.

There are current concerns about potential factor substitutions and their implications for factor employments and cost containment in U.S. hospital pharmacies. A translog production cost model is estimated for these pharmacies, using 1981-89 times-series data consisting of seven cross-sectional bed size classes per year. Zellner's joint GLS estimation of three-factor cost share equations and the parent translog cost function reveals that pairwise factor substitutions are severely limited; production is nonhomothetic, occurring in the range of scale diseconomies; biased and pure technical change effects dominate the scale-augmenting component. Implications of findings are rationalized in the context of the emerging biopharmaceutical technologies. Copyright 1993 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A note on benefit differentials of black and white female workers

Large national micro-data bases (such as Current Population Survey and Survey of Income and Programme Participation) lack information on employer outlays for the fringe benefits paid workers. Therefore, this paper motivates research on intra-firm black-white differences in non-wage fringe benefits using data on female office workers of a large public university. Empirical results indicate that racial differences exist among the fringes (pension, health and life insurance, sick leave, longevity pay, vacation) and also vary across department sizes. The differentials tend to disappear, however, when combined benefits or total compensation is used as a modelling framework. These results suggest potential sensitivity of regression model estimates, of black-white benefit gaps to the degree of aggregation in the data being modelled.

Countercyclical union wage premium? Evidence for the 1980s

Empirical results based on pooled male data from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics indicate an overall union wage premium of about 11.92 percent for the 1980s. In response to fluctuations in local labor market conditions, proxied by the local unemployment rate, a much more flexible wage-setting process is found in the nonunion sector relative to the union sector. The long-term effect of unemployment on nonunion real wages suggests an approximate 0.6 percent decline for every one percentage point increase in unemployment, a statistically significant reduction, but the long-term effect of unemployment on real wages of union members is negligible. The union wage premium ranges between 11.6 to 12.3 percent for the sample years. Even though union wages are insensitive to short-run fluctuations in local labor market conditions, and are somewhat countercyclical in nature, widespread union wage concessions which occurred during the 1980s may now be exerting a down-ward pressure on union wages

FUNCTIONAL FORMS AND FARM-LEVEL DEMAND FOR PECANS BY VARIETY

Recent developments in the U.S. pecan industry appear to limit the utility of past research. The importance of pecan variety has emerged as an issue which could alter past results. The linear and double-log models previously fitted to all pecans (averaged) data may be too restrictive and hence, are less useful for variety-specific analysis. Past research also analyzed price turning points using nominal data. This study investigated functional form and data-averaging problems by fitting separate flexible Box-Cox price-dependent models for all-pecans and each variety of pecans (1970/71 -1988/89 deflated data). Results indicate: other nuts substitute for different pecan varieties, estimated all-pecans price flexibility is biased and clouds variety-specific flexibilities, and restrictive functional forms are inappropriate