Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Avoiding Takings “Accidents”: A Torts Perspective On Takings Law, Eric Kades

Eric A. Kades

Viewing the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment as a form of insurance appeals to our intuition. The government, like fire, does not often "take" property, but when faced with extraordinary risk property owners naturally desire compensation. Recent scholarship, however, has dissolved the attractiveness of this perspective. This literature, through economic analysis, claims that the Takings Clause should be repealed and replaced with private takings insurance. This is the "no-compensation" result. This article argues that the insurance-based understanding of the just compensation requirement can be preserved without reaching the surprising no-compensation result. The intuitive appeal of understanding the Takings Clause …

Perceptions Of Top Management About The Total Rewards Statement: A Case Study In The Retail Sector, Dale J. Albrecht, Babu P. George

Babu George

Effects Of The Affordable Care Act On Part-Time Employment: Early Evidence, Marcus Dillender, Carolyn Heinrich, Susan Houseman (Corresponding Author)

Susan N. Houseman

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires employers with at least 50 full-time-equivalent employees to offer “affordable” health insurance to employees working 30 or more hours per week. If employers do not comply with the mandate, they may face substantial financial penalties. Employers can potentially circumvent the mandate by reducing weekly hours below the 30-hour threshold or by using other nonstandard employment arrangements (direct-hire temporaries, agency temporaries, small contractors, and independent contractors). We examine the effects of the ACA on short-hours, part-time employment. Using monthly CPS data, we estimate that the ACA resulted in an increase in low-hours, involuntary part-time employment …

Closing The Door To Lost Earnings Under The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act Of 1986, Aaron M. Levin

Aaron M Levin

After a wave of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers hindered the profitability and production of life-saving vaccines, Congress enacted The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. The Act offers an incentive for individuals to get vaccinated in order to mitigate the population’s exposure to disease, while encouraging the continued production of these serums by pharmaceutical companies. Although imperfect, the Vaccine Act fosters promise in filtering out frivolous claims and provides a central route for due process to the individuals who suffer from a vaccine-related injury. By removing a potential state tort issue to the Federal Circuit, Congress created a reasonably …

The Potential Effects Of Federal Health Insurance Reforms On Employment Arrangements And Compensation, Marcus Dillender, Carolyn Heinrich, Susan Houseman

Susan N. Houseman

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) presents an opportunity to significantly improve compensation for American workers. A potential concern, though, is that employers will circumvent the employer mandate by increasing their use of workers in staffing arrangements that are not covered by the mandate: workers averaging less than 30 hours per week, working on a temporary basis, or working in organizations with fewer than 50 full-time employees. In this paper, we shed light on the likely effects that the ACA will have on employment arrangements. We first examine how part-time employment in Massachusetts changed after its health insurance reform, which is …

Agency And Compensation: Evidence From The Hotel Industry, Matthew Freedman, Renata Kosova

Matthew Freedman

Women's Pay In Australia, Great Britain And The United States: Commentary, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] My reaction to this paper is mixed. On the one hand, it represents one of the few serious efforts I know of to place discussions about comparable worth in a comparative perspective and to bring evidence from other countries' experiences into the debate about policy in the United States. For this the authors should be resoundingly applauded. On the other hand, I am left with the feeling that they have not pushed their empirical analyses as hard as they might have, and because of this, in places they may have drawn some inappropriate conclusions. My discussion will elaborate on …

Executive Compensation, Board Characteristics And Firm Performance In China: The Impact Of Compensation Committee, Yuqing Zhu, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma

Louise Zhu

The independent directors of a board can impact CEO payperformancemore effectively if a compensation committeeprovides information and assist them in designing relevantexecutive pay schemes. On the basis of this idea, we developed andtested the hypotheses that Chinese firms with a compensationcommittee have a closer CEO pay link with performance when alarger proportion of independent directors serves on the board. Wefocused primarily on the effect of a compensation committee onCEO pay-performance relation as a consequence of its help for theboard and found that board independence produces a strongerrelationship between executive compensation and firmperformance in Chinese listed firms. This association is more …

Merit Pay For School Superintendents?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy A. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Given the important role that school district administrators play in the educational process, one might expect their 'performance" to be of fundamental importance in determining both how much students learn and the cost of public education to taxpayers. Yet, while public debate has considered the issue of merit pay plans for teachers, virtually no attention has been directed to the methods by which school administrators are compensated. This paper provides evidence on whether school superintendents are explicitly or implicitly rewarded for their "performance" by higher compensation and/or greater opportunities for mobility. We analyze panel data from over 700 school districts …

Review Of The Book The Cost Of Talent: How Executives And Professionals Are Paid And How It Affects America, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] Why should the former President of Harvard University be concerned that during the 1970s and 1980s the earnings of doctors, lawyers in private practice, and top corporate executives grew substantially relative to the earnings of professors, teachers, and high level federal civil servants? Why should he care that physicians with specialized hospital-based practices, such as neurosurgeons, have seen their earnings rise substantially relative to physicians practicing family medicine during the same period? In each case, the answer is that Bok believes that occupational choices are determined, at least at the margin, by the pecuniary and nonpecuniary benefits that the …

Adverse Selection And Incentives In An Early Retirement Program, Kenneth T. Whelan, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Kevin F. Hallock, Ronald L. Seeber

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

We evaluate potential determinants of enrollment in an early retirement incentive program for non-tenure-track employees of a large university. Using administrative record on the eligible population of employees not covered by collective bargaining agreements, historical employee count and layoff data by budget units, and public information on unit budgets, we find dips in per-employee finance in a budget unit during the application year and higher recent per employee layoffs were associated with increased probabilities of eligible employee program enrollment. Our results also suggest, on average, that employees whose salaries are lower than we would predict given their personal characteristics and …

Faculty Turnover At American Colleges And Universities: Analyses Of Aaup Data, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Hirschel Kasper, Daniel Rees

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper uses institutional level data collected by the American Association of University Professors as part of their annual survey of faculty members' compensation to analyze faculty turnover. Analyses of aggregate data over almost a twenty-year period highlight how remarkably stable faculty retention rates have been nationwide and how little they vary across broad categories of institutions. Analyses of variations in faculty retention rates across individual institutions stress the role that faculty compensation levels play. Higher levels of compensation appear to increase retention rates for assistant and associate professors (but not for full professors) and the magnitude of this effect …

Paying Our Presidents: What Do Trustees Value?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, John J. Cheslock, Julia Epifantseva

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Our study makes use of data from a panel of over 400 private colleges and universities on their presidents’ salaries and benefits. These data, reported annually to the Internal Revenue Service on Form 990, have been collected by and reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education for academic years 1992–1993 through 1997–1998. We merge these data with those from other sources including the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education, Who’s Who in America, the National Association of College and University Business Officers, the Council on Aid to Education, and the National Science Foundation’s CASPAR system. This …

Estimating Wage-Fringe Trade-Offs: Some Data Problems, Robert Smith, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This paper represents an inquiry into some of the data related difficulties inherent in estimating wage-fringe trade-offs, and it explores the usefulness of a particular source of data in meeting these difficulties.

Are School Superintendents Rewarded For “Performance”?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ann Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This chapter presents analyses of the compensation and mobility of school superintendents in New York State during the 1978-79 to 1982-83 period. The focus is on school superintendents because they are the chief operating officers of school districts, their salaries are determined through individual "negotiations" with school boards, and their salary data were made available to us. In contrast, school principals' salary data were not available to us. Especially in large districts, principals tend to be members of a union and their salary increases negotiated collectively, which limits the likelihood of observing individual principals' salaries being related to measures …

Compensating Wage Differentials For Mandatory Overtime, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Paul L. Schumann

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Our paper estimates the extent to which employees are compensated for an unfavorable job characteristic, being required to accept mandatory assignment of overtime, by receiving higher straight—time wages. Our estimating equations are derived from a model in which wage rates and the existence of mandatory assignment of overtime are jointly determined in the market by the interaction of employee and employer preferences. While on average, we do not observe the existence of a compensating wage differential for mandatory overtime, we do observe the existence of such differentials for unionized workers and workers with only a few years experience at a …

Executive Compensation, Board Characteristics And Firm Performance In China: The Impact Of Compensation Committee, Yuqing Zhu, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma

Shiguang Ma

The independent directors of a board can impact CEO payperformancemore effectively if a compensation committeeprovides information and assist them in designing relevantexecutive pay schemes. On the basis of this idea, we developed andtested the hypotheses that Chinese firms with a compensationcommittee have a closer CEO pay link with performance when alarger proportion of independent directors serves on the board. Wefocused primarily on the effect of a compensation committee onCEO pay-performance relation as a consequence of its help for theboard and found that board independence produces a strongerrelationship between executive compensation and firmperformance in Chinese listed firms. This association is more …

Executive Compensation In Municipalities, Gerald S. Goldstein, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] In this paper we are concerned with the salaries of three important municipal officials; city-managers, police chiefs, and fire chiefs. We present a model that relates the salaries of these officials to a set of explanatory variables, the most important being measures associated with job performance. Two of these measures of performance are developed in the study. Further, the influence of the city-manager form of government on the incentive structure facing police chiefs and fire chiefs, and the interdependence betwen the salaries of police chiefs and fire chiefs is investigated. The model is tested using cross-section data for 1967.

Comparable Worth In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Robert Smith

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] At the theoretical level, we conclude that the case for comparable worth rests on the argument that the current distribution of female employees is based on discriminatory barriers which existing legislation have not broken down. If this argument is valid, the desirability of comparable worth depends upon one's perceptions of how the benefits it provides contrasts with the efficiency losses it induces. Given the trade-offs involved, ultimately one's position on comparable worth must depend on value judgments.

Officer Performance And Compensation In Local Building Trades Unions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] This paper presents estimates of the relationship between the performance and compensation of local building trades union leaders. A growing literature has revived the common-sense notion that organizations should structure the compensation of both their employees and their executives so as to encourage them to take actions consistent with the goals of the organizations. One way to minimize the probability that executives will take actions contrary to the organization's goals is to tie their compensation to measures of their organization's performance.

Retirement System Characteristics And Compensating Wage Differentials In The Public Sector, Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

This paper presents evidence that a trade-off exists between wages and certain characteristics of retirement systems in the public sector. Cross-section econometric estimates for uniformed municipal employees, based upon data from two national surveys of municipalities, suggest that, other things equal, an increase in the contribution made by uniformed employees to their retirement system leads to a compensating increase in their salaries, while retirement systems with more "generous" characteristics are associated to some extent with lower salaries. The estimates also indicate that the extent of retirement system underfunding is related to employers' and employees' perceptions of the probability that promised …

Introduction: Do Compensation Policies Matter?, Ronald Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

[Excerpt] The papers in this volume should give the reader a sense of the exciting empirical research that has recently taken place on compensation-related issues. As a set, these papers considerably expand our empirical evidence on the effects of compensation policies. Several papers show that executive compensation is structured in a way that at least implicitly ties executive compensation changes to measures of corporate performance, and —crucially—that doing so leads to improved corporate performance (Leonard, Murphy/Gibbons, Abowd). Others show that compensation systems that pay workers for performance, in the sense of providing explicit or implicit incentives for high levels of …

Determinants Of The Compensation And Mobility Of School Superintendents, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Richard P. Chaykowski, Randy Ehrenberg

Ronald G. Ehrenberg

Analyzing 197-83 panel data from more than 700 New York State school districts, the authors find evidence that school superintendents were rewarded, both by higher salary increases and by enhanced opportunities to move to belter-paying jobs, for having low school tax rates and high educational achievement within their districts, relative to the values of those variables in comparable school districts in the state. The rewards were, however, quite small. The analysis also suggests that the superintendents themselves did not significantly influence either school tax rates or educational test scores in their districts.

Managerial Compensation, Ownership Structure And Firm Performance In China's Listed Firms, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma, Aelee Jun, Qingliang Tang

Aelee Jun

This paper investigates managerial compensation and its relationship with firm performance in China's listed firms. In China, the largest shareholder dominates other shareholders, controls the firm and therefore exercises substantial impacts on manager compensation. After controlling for other firm and industry characteristics, we find that manager remuneration is greater and pay-performance relation is stronger for privately-controlled firms than for state-controlled firms. We also document that state-controlled firms exercise performance-based manager incentive schemes, which is contrary to evidence found in some earlier studies. Our results also indicate that top executives in firms with a foreign ownership are more highly compensated, relative …

Managerial Compensation, Ownership Structure And Firm Performance In China's Listed Firms, Xiaofei Pan, Gary G. Tian, Shiguang Ma, Aelee Jun, Qingliang Tang

Shiguang Ma

This paper investigates managerial compensation and its relationship with firm performance in China's listed firms. In China, the largest shareholder dominates other shareholders, controls the firm and therefore exercises substantial impacts on manager compensation. After controlling for other firm and industry characteristics, we find that manager remuneration is greater and pay-performance relation is stronger for privately-controlled firms than for state-controlled firms. We also document that state-controlled firms exercise performance-based manager incentive schemes, which is contrary to evidence found in some earlier studies. Our results also indicate that top executives in firms with a foreign ownership are more highly compensated, relative …

Work Motivation And Desirable And Undesirable Personality Traits According To Indian Students And Employees, Trishita Mathew, Richard Hicks, Mark Bahr

Richard Hicks

The last few years have seen a salient increase in trade relations between Australia and India (Hebbani, 2008). India is Australia’s fastest growing major export market and investments between Australia and India are also increasing (Rudd, 2008). India is a lucrative market as it has a growing middle class of 300 million people with a growing purchasing power of approximately 85 billion Australian dollars (Harcourt, 2007). As trade relations between Australia and India are on the rise, understanding what motivates Indians and what they consider desirable and undesirable personality characteristics will provide a competitive edge to organizations in Australia looking …

Adaptive Guidance: Effects On Self-Regulated Learning In Technology-Based Training, Bradford S. Bell, Adam Kanar, Xiangmin Liu, Jane Forman, Mila Singh

Bradford S Bell

Guidance provides trainees with the information necessary to make effective use of the learner control inherent in technology-based training, but also allows them to retain a sense of control over their learning (Bell & Kozlowski, 2002). One challenge, however, is determining how much learner control, or autonomy, to build into the guidance strategy. We examined the effects of alternative forms of guidance (autonomy supportive vs. controlling) on trainees’ learning and performance, and examined trainees’ cognitive ability and motivation to learn as potential moderators of these effects. Consistent with our hypotheses, trainees receiving adaptive guidance had higher levels of knowledge and …

Work Motivation And Desirable And Undesirable Personality Traits According To Indian Students And Employees, Trishita Mathew, Richard Hicks, Mark Bahr

Trishita Mathew

The last few years have seen a salient increase in trade relations between Australia and India (Hebbani, 2008). India is Australia’s fastest growing major export market and investments between Australia and India are also increasing (Rudd, 2008). India is a lucrative market as it has a growing middle class of 300 million people with a growing purchasing power of approximately 85 billion Australian dollars (Harcourt, 2007). As trade relations between Australia and India are on the rise, understanding what motivates Indians and what they consider desirable and undesirable personality characteristics will provide a competitive edge to organizations in Australia looking …

Bearing The Costs Of Human-Wildlife Conflict: The Challenges Of Compensation Schemes, Philip J. Nyhus, Steve A. Osofsky, Paul Ferraro, H Fischer, Francine Madden

Philip J. Nyhus

No abstract provided.

Taking The Bite Out Of Wildlife Damage: The Challenges Of Wildlife Compensation Schemes, Philip J. Nyhus, Hank Fisher, Steve Osofsky, Francine Madden

Philip J. Nyhus

No abstract provided.