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College Working Papers and Publications  College members and their colleagues in other Universities around the world have prepared a number of working papers. Selected working papers are available for download in PDF format. College Reward for Quality Publications Scheme:  Guidelines  /  List of Approved Journals College Contribution to Editing of Publications Scheme:  Guidelines / Application form DEST Research Publications - Data Collection Procedures The College of Business and Economics also runs a scholarly journal, Agenda: A journal of policy analysis and reform.   Selected Recent Publications The College of Business & Economics members publish with leading international journals and many academic presses. This list contains a selection of recent publications by College staff members. Explaining US Immigration 1971-1988 Ximena Clark, Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G Williamson Review of Economics and Statistics   In this paper we develop and estimate a model to explain variations in immigration to the United States by source country since the early 1970's. The model incorporates ratios to the US of source country income and education as well as relative inequality as suggested by the Roy model applied to migrant selection. In addition we incorporate "the friends and relatives effect" as reflected in the stock of previous immigrants and a variety of variables representing different dimensions of the immigration quotas set by policy. We estimate our immigration model on a panel of 81 soucre countries for the years 1971 - 1998. The results strongly support the influence of economic and policy variables. We use the results to shed light on the effects of policy by stimulating the effects of the key changes in immigration policy since the late 1970's. We also examine the factors that influenced the composition of US Immigration by source region over the entire period.   Preparing performance information in the public sector: an Australian perspective Janet Lee Financial Accountability & Management This paper examines performance information and reporting issues through a survey of the views of public sector managers in Australia regarding the importance of selected performance information in achieving the objectives of an organization, the extent of information development, usefulness for reporting in annual reports, and actual reporting.  The results reveal the existence of a gap between information considered important, the extent of development, and information considered useful for annual reporting. Most non-financial performance information is still being developed and less frequently reported, particularly output quality information.    Forecasting the volatility of Australian stock returns: do common factors help? Anderson, Heather, Vahid, Farshid Journal of Business & Economic Statistics This paper develops multivariate factor models for forecasting volatility in Australian stocks. We suggest estimation procedures for approximate factor models that are robust to jumps when the cross-sectional dimension is not very large, and we also work with volatility measures that have been constructed so that they contain no jump components. Out of sample forecast analysis shows that multivariate factor models of volatility outperform univariate models, but that there is little difference between simple and sophisticated factor models. Financial liberalization, financial sector development and growth: Evidence from Malaysia. Ang, James B., McKibbin, Warwick J. Journal of Development Economics The objective of this paper is to examine whether financial development leads to economic growth or vice versa in the small open economy of Malaysia. Using time series data from 1960 to 2001, we conduct cointegration and causality tests to assess the finance-growth link by taking the real interest rate and financial repression into account. The empirical evidence suggests that financial liberalization, through removing the repressionist policies, has a favorable effect in stimulating financial sector development. Financial depth and economic development are positively related; but contrary to the conventional findings, our results support Robinson’s view that output growth leads to higher financial depth in the long-run. On the distribution tail of an integrated risk model: A numerical approach. Brokate, M, Seydel, R, Kostdinova, R, Kluppelbert, C and Maller, RA. Insurance: Mathematics Economics We consider an insurance risk process with the possibility to invest the capital reserve into a portfolio consisting of risky assets anda riskless asset. The stock price is modeled by an exponential Levy process and the riskless interest rate is assumed to be constant. Risk assessment of the integrated risk process is made in terms of a high quantile. We indicate an application to an optimal investment strategy of an insurer. Reactions to psychological contract breach: A dual perspective. Chen, George Journal of Organisational Behaviour This study examined reactions to psychological contract breach from two separate perspectives, i.e., employee’s reactions to perceptions of employer breach and supervisor’s reactions to perceptions of employee breach of the psychological contract.  We proposed and tested four hypotheses with a sample from China. The results showed that employer breach correlated negatively with organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and work performance, but this negative relationship was weaker for employees with traditional values. The results also demonstrated that employee breach correlated negatively with responses from the supervisor, in terms of the mentoring and leader-member exchange quality. However, more benevolent supervisors reacted less negatively in terms of the mentoring than did the less benevolent supervisors. Delegation and employee work outcomes: an examination of the cultural context of mediating processes in China. Chen, Zhen Xiong and Aryee, Samuel Academy of Management Journal We used cultural self-representation theory to develop a model of the processes linking delegation to work outcomes. We tested this model with data from a sample of 171 subordinate-supervisor dyads from the People’s Republic of China. Regression results revealed that organization-based self-esteem and perceived insider status fully mediated the influence of delegation on affective organizational commitment, task performance, and innovative behavior and partially mediated delegation’s influence on job satisfaction. Furthermore, traditionality moderated the relationships between delegation and the mediators in such a way that the relationships were stronger for individuals lower rather than higher in traditionality Anatomy of a Design Theory. Gregor, Shirley and Jones, David Journal of Association of Information Systems Design work and design knowledge in Information Systems (IS) is important for both research and practice. Yet there has been comparatively little critical attention paid to the problem of specifying design theory so that it can be communicated, justified and developed cumulatively. In this essay we focus on the structural components or anatomy of design theories in IS as a special class of theory. In doing so we aim to extend the work of Walls, Widemeyer and El Sawy (1992) on the specification of information systems design theories (ISDT), drawing on other streams of thought on design research and theory to provide a basis for a more systematic and useable formulation of these theories. Eight separate components of design theories are identified: (1) purpose and scope; (2) constructs; (3) principles of form and function; (4) artifact mutability; (5) testable propositions; (6) justificatory knowledge (kernel theories); (7) principles of implementation; and (8) an expository instantiation. This specification includes components missing in the Walls et al. adaptation of Dubin (1978) and Simon (1969) and also addresses explicitly problems associated with the role of instantiations and the specification of design theories for methodologies and interventions as well as for products and applications. The essay is significant as the unambiguous establishment of design knowledge as theory gives a sounder base for arguments for the rigor and legitimacy of IS as an applied discipline and for its continuing progress. A craft can proceed with the copying of one example of a design artifact by one artisan after another. A discipline cannot. Bootstrap hypothesis testing for some common statistical problems: a critical evaluation of size and power properties. Martin, M. Computational Statistics and Data Analysis The construction of bootstrap hypothesis tests can differ from that of bootstrap confidence intervals because of the need to generate the bootstrap distribution of test statistics under a specific null hypothesis. Similarly, bootstrap power calculations rely on resampling being carried out under specific alternatives. We describe and develop null and alternative resampling schemes for common scenarios, constructing bootstrap tests for the correlation coefficient, variance, and regression/ANOVA models. Bootstrap power calculations for these scenarios are described. In some cases, null-resampling bootstrap tests are equivalent to tests based on appropriately constructed bootstrap confidence intervals. In other cases, particularly those for which simple percentile-method bootstrap intervals are in routine use such as the correlation coefficient, null-resampling tests differ from interval-based tests. We critically assess the performance of bootstrap tests, examining size and power properties of the tests numerically using both real and simulated data. Where they differ from tests based on bootstrap confidence intervals, null-resampling tests have reasonable size properties, outperforming tests based on bootstrapping without regard to the null hypothesis. The bootstrap tests also have reasonable power properties. The persistent presidential dummy. Powell, John G., Shi, Jing, Smith, Tom, Whaley, Robert. Journal of Portfolio Management Despite the general presumption that dichotomous explanatory variables are well-behaved in time-series regression analysis, dummy variables can be highly persistent, and, if they are, spurious regression results can arise. This paper uses a simulation procedure to deal with persistent dichotomous explanatory variables and assesses the extent to which the spurious regression problem combined with data mining can affect inference in a dummy variable regression model. The simulations indicate that the coefficient estimates obtained in a recent study of presidential regime stock market return differences are less than would be expected by chance. The conclusion that presidential regime differences are insignificant is further reinforced by extending the data back in time to include all Republican/Democratic administrations. The effect of household characteristics on living standards in South Africa 1993-1998: a quantile regression analysis with sample attrition. Pushkar Maitra, Farshid Vahid Journal of Applied Econometrics This paper examines whether the dismantling of apartheid has resulted in the improvement in the standard of living for the vast majority of South Africans. The study is based on a panel data set from the Kwazulu-Natal province. We use weighted quantile regressions to examine the distribution of standards of living, which corrects for the potential bias arising from non-random sample attrition. Our results show that there has been a significant increase in the spread of the distribution of household expenditure of the Non-White households residing in Kwazulu-Natal province. The use of supervised principal components in assessing multiple pollutant effects. Roberts, S and Martin, M. Environmental Health Perspectives. 114: 1877-82, 2006 The question of non-linearity in the dose-response relationship between particulate matter air pollution and mortality: Can AIC be trusted to take the right turn? Roberts, S and Martin, M. American Journal of Epidemiology 164: 1242-50, 2006 A distributed lag approach to fitting non-linear dose-response models in particulate matter air pollution time series investigations. Roberts, S and Martin, M. Environmental Research Methods of bias reduction in time series studies of particulate matter air pollution and mortality. Roberts, S and Martin, M. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health Costly Enforcement of Property Rights and the Coase Theorem. Robson, Alex, Skaperdas, Stergios. Economic Theory We examine a setting in which property rights are initially ambiguously defined. Whether the parties go to court to remove the ambiguity or bargain and settle before or after trial, they incur enforcement costs. When the parties bargain, a version of the Coase theorem holds. However, despite the additional costs of going to court, other ex-post inefficiencies, and the absence of incomplete information, going to court may ex-ante Pareto dominate settling out of court. This is especially true in dynamic settings, where obtaining a court decision today saves on future enforcement costs. When the parties do not negotiate and go to court, a simple rule for the initial ambiguous assignment of property rights maximizes net surplus. Beyond Brigden: Australia’s Inter-War Manufacturing Tariffs, Real Wages and Economic Size. Tyers, Rod, Coleman, William. The Economic Record Pre-depression Australia maintained a protectionist regime directed at expanding the economy and accommodating immigration.  The 1929 Brigden Report recognised that industrial protection would benefit workers and that it might also foster expansion.  While Brigden’s wage thesis mirrors the subsequent Heckscher-Ohlin-Samuelson (HOS) and specific factors models it has more advanced elements than either.  We demonstrate the comparative failings of the latter models and show that the Brigden thesis requires a model with mobile capital, differentiated products, a non-traded sector and a specific factor.  This model suggests that protection might indeed have promoted immigration, capital inflow and overall economic expansion in Australia.