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U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Candid Litho Printing, LTD dba Candid Worldwide, fka Blue Ocean Worldwide
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Revisiting the Economics of Privacy: Population Statistics and Confidentiality Protection as Public Goods
Get PDFWe consider the problem of determining the optimal accuracy of public statistics when increased accuracy requires a loss of privacy. To formalize this allocation problem, we use tools from statistics and computer science to model the publication technology used by a public statistical agency. We derive the demand for accurate statistics from first principles to generate interdependent preferences that account for the public-good nature of both data accuracy and privacy loss. We first show data accuracy is inefficiently under-supplied by a private provider. Solving the appropriate social planner’s problem produces an implementable publication strategy. We implement the socially optimal publication plan for statistics on income and health status using data from the American Community Survey, National Health Interview Survey, Federal Statistical System Public Opinion Survey and Cornell National Social Survey. Our analysis indicates that welfare losses from providing too much privacy protection and, therefore, too little accuracy can be substantial
The Civil Service Reform Act: Due Process and Misconduct-Related Adverse Actions
Get PDF[Excerpt] Federal employees receive statutory protections that differ from those of the private sector, including more robust limits on when they can be removed or demoted. Although a number of laws apply to various aspects of the federal civil service system, the primary governing framework is the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), as amended. The CSRA created a comprehensive system for reviewing actions taken by most federal agencies against their employees, and the act provides a variety of legal protections and remedies for federal employees. It also funnels review of agency decisions to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), subject to review by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit).
In addition to these statutory protections, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires the federal government to observe certain procedures when depriving individuals of life, liberty, or property. The CSRA’s requirement that covered employees may not be removed from federal service, except for cause or unacceptable performance, creates a constitutional property interest in continued employment. The government cannot deprive covered employees of this property interest without adhering to due process requirements
Corporate Pension Plans and Investment Choices: Bargaining or Conforming
Get PDFThis paper investigates the impacts of defined-benefit (DB) pension plans on the corporate investment choices between diversifying and non-diversifying investments. We find a firm’s DB plan coverage is negatively associated with its propensity of making a major investment. Subject to a major investment decision, however, the firm with higher DB plan coverage is more likely to diversify, i.e., acquire firms abroad or in other industries, rather than invest in fixed assets or make non-diversifying (i.e., domestic horizontal) acquisitions. Moreover, in diversifying acquisitions, they are more likely to invest in countries or industries with a strongly unionized workforce. Further analysis on post-investment performance shows that firms with higher DB plan coverage experience a greater improvement in operating profitability after a diversifying acquisition, and the improvement mainly comes from a higher asset turnover rather than cost reduction. On the other hand, DB plan sponsoring firms experience a decline in profitability after a large capital expenditure or a non-diversifying acquisition. We propose that both the bargaining motive and the conforming motive can explain these results
Impacts of Rural Dual Economic Transformation on the Inverted-U Curve of Rural Income Inequality: An Empirical Study of Tianjin and Shandong Provinces in the People’s Republic of China
Get PDFUsing a case study about rural Tianjin and Shandong provinces, we try to explain what mechanism affects income inequality in rural areas, especially how rural dual structural transformation leads to the income inequality “inverted-U” Curve in some developed areas in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). We choose Tianjin to represent developed provinces, which depend on nonagricultural and urban agricultural development modes, and take Shandong Province to represent areas dominated by traditional agriculture.
We can clearly observe that the changes in rural income inequality are roughly consistent with the changes in dual economic transformation in different regions. A marginal decomposition analysis on the Gini coefficient changes of income inequality shows that the distribution effect always accounts for the dominant position and determines the inequality change direction, both in Tianjin and Shandong. By comparison, we find that the dual transformation is sure to affect and change the sectoral labor participation rate directly, and then affect and change the within-sector income inequality, and further to make total income inequality go up or down. Through this empirical and comparative study, we suggest some e income inequality in rural PRC, which means accelerating growth in order to go beyond the “inverted-U curve” turning point
Income Inequalities and Employment Patterns in Europe Before and After the Great Recession
Get PDF[Excerpt] Across the globe, there is increasing concern about income inequality. Empirical evidence suggests that over the last three decades, income inequality has grown in many developed economies (the extent and time frame of this trend varying considerably). The Great Recession starting in 2008–2009 intensified this concern due to the impact of the ongoing economic crisis on inequality levels, and the general perception that the increase in inequality may have been one of the factors triggering and protracting the crisis.
Although there is a large body of research on trends in income inequality in EU Member States, surprisingly few studies adopt an EU-wide perspective. In this context, this report has two main goals: to provide a comparative analysis of inequality trends in Member States over the course of the Great Recession (updating the picture given by previous international studies); and to discuss relevant trends and developments in inequality for the overall EU distribution of income – including the implications of economic convergence and divergence before and after the crisis. Most of the analysis in this report is drawn from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for the period 2005–2014, with income data relating to the period 2004–2013