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Essays on Personnel Economics
No full text© 2025 Yunhe DongThis thesis consists of three essays, presented in the form of three chapters. Chapter 1 is my sole-authored work and is an applied microeconomic theory paper. Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 are joint works with Jingru Gao and are empirical studies. All three chapters examine topics in personnel economics, in particular career concerns, broadly defined.
In Chapter 1, entitled “Career Concerns, Wage Contracts, and Performance Measurement System Design”, I focus on early-career employees and investigate how firms can design their performance measurement systems (PMS) to maximise the joint incentive effects of career concerns and wage contracts for these employees. When performance evaluations of employees are used by the labour market to assess their ability, characteristics of the PMS influence the labour market's ability inference, which in turn affects the employees' expected payoffs from future employment opportunities. Analogous to wages, such payoffs serve two conflicting roles. Payoffs to employees with good and poor performance evaluations need to be sufficiently different to induce high effort (the incentive role) but not too different so as to guarantee a basic level of expected utility (the insurance role). By changing the characteristics of the PMS, the employer can adjust the trade-off between insurance and incentive towards the optimal level, which increases her expected profit. In a stylised model, I show that when wage contracts and the labour market's inference about employees' ability are based on different performance measures, a PMS that always gives good performance evaluations to employees with high output and sometimes also gives good performance evaluations to employees with low output (i.e., a lenient PMS) is optimal in all cases, whereas a PMS that has the reverse feature (i.e., a tough PMS) is never optimal. When wage contracts and inference about ability are based on the same performance measures, a tough PMS is again never optimal, while a lenient PMS may still be optimal in certain cases.
In Chapter 2, entitled “CEO Origin and Insider Purchase Behaviour”, we shift our focus to newly appointed CEOs and examine a different type of career concerns they face. We examine whether and how the origin of CEOs (i.e., whether they are recruited from outside the company or promoted from within) impacts their insider purchase decisions. We predict that external CEOs will be more motivated to make insider purchases to reduce stakeholders’ uncertainty regarding their ability during their early years of tenure, compared to internal CEOs. Supporting this prediction, we empirically show that newly appointed external CEOs are significantly more likely to buy shares of their company in the initial years following their appointment. We further document that this effect is more pronounced amongst external CEOs who are perceived to have lower general managerial skills and in companies that have weaker financial performance relative to their industry peers. In addition, this relationship is attenuated when there is plausibly a higher likelihood of incurring losses from insider purchases. Finally, we show that these insider purchases lead shareholders to be more patient and respond less negatively to unfavourable earnings news. Taken together, this study identifies insider purchases as a strategy for external CEOs to signal their ability in the initial years of their tenure.
In Chapter 3, entitled “Stepped Down but Not Gone: Inside Debt Holdings, Former-CEO Directors, and Firm Risk Taking”, we turn our attention to a special group of people, namely CEOs who have stepped down from their positions. Although they do not face career concerns in the traditional sense, they still have concerns about future payoffs from their inside debt holdings accrued during the time at their former companies, i.e., the accrued pension benefits and deferred compensation that will typically be paid out in instalments over an extended period of time after they leave their CEO positions. We investigate whether CEOs are more likely to continue serving on their firms’ boards as directors after they step down from their CEO roles (hereafter, former CEOs) if they hold more inside debt. CEOs’ inside debt is typically unsecured, unfunded claims against firms and paid out over a long period of time after they leave their roles. If firms become insolvent during this period, CEOs risk losing their pensions and deferred compensation, which may represent a significant portion of their wealth. This may create incentives for them to sway their firms towards less risk-taking even after they step down, and continuing to serve on the boards to become former-CEO directors could allow them to do so. We show empirically a positive association between former CEOs’ inside debt holdings and the likelihood of them serving on the boards afterwards. Further analyses reveal that this relationship is stronger when the company has a higher leverage ratio, spends more on research and development activities, and has lower free cash flow. Finally, we show that companies whose former-CEO directors hold more inside debt tend to exhibit lower investment intensity, have compensation structures that encourage less risk taking by the new CEOs, and experience a decrease in stock value
Digital health interventions to improve recovery for intensive care unit survivors: A systematic review
No full textOBJECTIVE: Recovery models of care for intensive care unit (ICU) survivors are limited by availability, accessibility, and efficacy. Digital health interventions represent an alternative mode of service delivery. The primary aim of this systematic review was to describe implementation factors (Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance) for digital health interventions for ICU survivors. The secondary aim was to describe any effect on patient-reported health outcomes. DATA SOURCES: A systematic search of Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), Excertpa Medica Database (EMBASE), Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), and Cochrane Central Register of Systematic Reviews (CENTRAL) databases was undertaken in March 2023. STUDY SELECTION: Two independent reviewers screened abstracts and full texts against eligibility criteria. Studies of adult survivors with any post-ICU discharge care, delivered via a digital mode, were included. Studies were excluded if published before 1990 or not in English. DATA EXTRACTION: Quantitative data were extracted using predefined data fields. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool 2.0. Implementation factors were reported according to the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance framework. DATA SYNTHESIS: A total of 6482 studies were screened. Ten studies, with 686 participants, were included. Implementation factors were reported in all studies. Acceptability (reported in six studies) was high, with high satisfaction and usability scores, defined a priori by investigators. Eight studies reported intervention adherence rates between 46% and 100%. Nine studies report final outcome measurement retention rates up to 12 months, between 52% and 100%. Five studies included the primary outcome as the difference in a patient-reported health outcome. Appraisal of efficacy and digital health literacy was limited due to substantial methodological variation and a lack of reporting in included studies. There was some risk of bias in 50% of studies. CONCLUSIONS: Digital health interventions can be successfully implemented for critical care survivors and have varying intervention adherence and retention rate success. To broaden reach, future research should include cultural diversity and investigate digital health access, literacy, and cost-effectiveness. INTERNATIONAL PROSPECTIVE REGISTER OF SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS REGISTRATION: CRD42022348252
Sharing and reuse of mental health research data: Introducing the HeSANDA mental health node
No full textIntroductionData sharing is the practice of making de-identified participant-level data available for use by other researchers. It increases the potential of a dataset to answer new questions, accelerates knowledge creation and increases research integrity by allowing conclusions to be replicated, verified or corrected. Data sharing helps fulfil the ethical obligation to make the most of research participants' contributions to science.Analysis and EvidenceThere is evidence that research participants and the general public are supportive of data sharing. However, those who conducted the original studies may be reluctant to share data, and datasets may be difficult to access, and there may be ethical and governance concerns.DiscussionThis paper describes the Mental Health Node, an Australian Government initiative that aims to increase mental health data sharing. The Mental Health Node works with primary researchers (those who conduct original studies), and secondary researchers (those who reuse data generated by others) to promote ethical data sharing that respects the role of primary researchers and the privacy concerns of research participants.ConclusionPrimary and secondary researchers can collaborate to maximise the value of data collected. This paper includes recommendations for good practice in data sharing and links to resources
Urban tree cover targets: The good, the bad and the SMART
No full textUrban tree cover (UTC) is a commonly used metric in policy and management activities, including urban forest resources assessment, equity and distribution, and ecosystem services modelling. Despite the well-established benefits associated with urban tree canopy, declining tree cover has catalysed many cities into setting UTC targets. In this short communication, we used an assessment of UTC targets set by 57 cities worldwide to discuss the merits and drawbacks of setting UTC targets and to inform recommendations for setting effective UTC targets. We found that UTC targets range in ambition, varying between 4 % and 50 %. To meet these targets, cities would have to increase their current UTC by between 0.47 and 23.3 percentage points within stated timelines of between 3 and 51 years. We found that cities with lower current UTC set ambitious targets, requiring relatively large annual increases in canopy cover. Moreover, cities in xeric or dry biomes set lower targets ( 25 %). We found that setting UTC targets can provide a range of benefits, but achieving a UTC target at the expense of other indicators of urban forest structure and quality poses risks. We reflect on pathways to set specific, measurable, achievable, resourced, and time-bound UTC targets, while acknowledging the associated issues. This exploration of UTC targets will help ensure that UTC remains a useful metric for urban forest management and planning
Ensuring accurate microclimate research: How to select representative meteorological data of local climate in microclimate studies
No full textMicroclimate research has seen significant growth in recent years, particularly in areas such as outdoor thermal comfort, urban ecology, and urban heat mitigation. However, the short-term nature of many studies in this field presents challenges in ensuring that the collected data accurately represents local climate conditions. This paper introduces a novel method to enhance the quality and applicability of microclimate research by quantifying the representativeness of short-term meteorological data. Our approach employs the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) statistic to compare daily meteorological data from nearby stations against long-term climate trends. Key findings demonstrate that this method effectively identifies representative data periods. This method allows researchers to evaluate the representativeness of each day's data according to their specific study objectives, whether focusing on typical or extreme weather conditions. By implementing this framework, researchers can: (a) Post-filter existing data to identify the most representative samples. (b) Quantify the climate representativeness of their findings, enhancing result interpretation and applicability. (c) More confidently generalize conclusions from short-term studies. The paper also provides simplified alternatives to the full method, making it accessible to a wider range of researchers. By adopting this approach, microclimate studies can achieve greater confidence in their data's representativeness, leading to more robust and generalizable conclusions. Our method addresses a key methodological challenge in microclimate research and provides a flexible data assessment framework. This framework enables researchers to systematically evaluate climate data representativeness, enhancing the reliability and applicability of their findings across various urban climate studies, from thermal comfort assessments to climate adaptation strategies
Trust in journalism in Ukraine: Challenges and prospects in wartime
No full textThis article investigates the dynamics of media trust in Ukraine amid the ongoing armed conflict initiated by Russia and explores avenues for enhancing journalism education. Based on a comprehensive analysis that includes a survey of 500 university students from major regions of Ukraine, the study demonstrates that trust in official media sources surged during the early stages of the full-scale invasion—as citizens demanded timely, transparent information—but later declined due to information fatigue and critical scrutiny of unilateral communication formats. Despite these shifts, interest in news has remained consistently high throughout the war, reflecting the vital role of journalism in society. The survey revealed that 94% of respondents primarily rely on digital platforms (notably Telegram) for updates. Moreover, only 20% of participants rated their media literacy as high, underscoring a critical need for improved fact-checking and analytical skills. Additionally, the article highlights the crucial role of artificial intelligence (AI) in enhancing media literacy by automating verification processes and supporting deeper critical analysis, a capability that can be effectively used as an instrument in the fight against disinformation. In light of these developments, the article highlights the urgent need to reform journalism education by integrating comprehensive media literacy and fact-checking modules, fostering
interdisciplinary approaches, and strengthening critical thinking skills. The sustained prestige of the journalism profession—despite its risks—underscores the necessity of these reforms, which will equip future journalists to counter disinformation and media manipulation while ensuring the resilience of democratic discourse in an increasingly volatile information environment
Conserving the Intangible: Investigating the conservator’s role in the maintenance and preservation of Tisna Sanjaya’s intertwined practice of performance and printmaking
No full text© 2025 Kira RichardsThis thesis investigates the conservator’s role in the conservation of contemporary artwork with both intangible and tangible elements, centred on a case study of Tisna Sanjaya’s work Kurban dan 9 Matahari (‘Sacrifice and 9 Suns’). The aim of the case study is to build a holistic understanding of Indonesian artist Tisna Sanjaya’s practice to inform future conservation pathways; and to provide guidelines for potential exhibition displays and current storage within the Project Eleven Collection in Ballarat. This is achieved through the use of interview, archival and fieldwork research to develop and understanding of the performance (intangible) element of Kurban dan 9 Matahari at Indonesian art festival Artjog in 2016 and the physical (tangible) work currently in the Project Eleven collection
Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and distance education in Australia: Positive experiences of migrant/refugee parents and future directions
No full textAbstract
This paper presents findings from a study investigating the engagement of migrant and refugee parents in supporting the distance education of their children amidst the Covid-19 lockdowns in Australia. While existing research has extensively addressed challenges within online education during the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a dearth of research examining the opportunities afforded to migrant and refugee parents. In pursuit of this, 20 migrant and refugee parents participated in individual interviews as part of the data collection process. The transcribed data underwent thematic analysis, drawing on the frameworks proposed by, to scrutinise how the imposed structure of lockdowns has informed parents’ educational and social opportunities. The findings suggest that parents’ opportunities encompass improving their English language skills, helping their children to develop their mother tongue skills, familiarising themselves with school subjects, understanding how the education system works in Australia and strengthening their knowledge about improving their relationships with their children. The paper also discusses how the education system can prepare parents to educate their children more effectively in the future, while their education can promise a more inclusive education system
Association of wearable device-measured physical activity with full-course diabetic retinopathy and retinal traits: insights from the middle-aged and older adult cohort
No full textPURPOSE: To assess accelerometer-measured physical activity (PA) in patients with all stages of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and investigate its association with specific retinal structural metrics. METHODS: This extensive cohort study included 13,600 participants with an average age of 56.39 years. These subjects were divided into four groups: non-diabetes mellitus, prediabetes mellitus (Pre-DM), diabetes mellitus (DM) without DR, and DR. We evaluated multivariate-adjusted associations of PA with DR progression using logistic regression and with retinal sublayer thickness using hierarchical linear model (HLM). The mediating role of body mass index (BMI) was tested to investigate the true association between PA and the full spectrum DR. RESULTS: As DR progressed, the durations of moderate-intensity PA (MPA) and moderate-vigorous PA (MVPA) decreased significantly by 29% (odds ratio (OR) = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.57-0.90) to 78% (OR = 0.22, 95% CI = 0.14-0.35) and 21% (OR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.71-0.89) to 55% (OR = 0.45, 95% CI = 0.30-0.67), respectively. Morning MPA and MVPA (6:00-12:00) were protective factors against DR, whereas late-night PA (0:00-5:59) heightened DR risk. The multivariate-adjusted linear interaction model revealed that the positive effect of MPA and MVPA on the thickness of ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer (GCIPL), macular thickness (MT), and inner nuclear layer-external limiting membrane was significantly associated with DR disease status (interaction P < 0.05). Higher MPA and MVPA were correlated with accelerated thickening rates of the GCIPL and MT sublayers, ranging from Pre-DM to those with established DR. 35.7% and 58.7% of the associations between MPA, MVPA, and the full spectrum DR were mediated by lower BMI, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The diminution of PA is associated with the progression of DR and the attenuation of retinal sublayer thickness, and our findings support current PA recommendations promoting interventions to decelerate DR progression and preserve retinal health
The role of the market in health systems responsiveness
No full textWe critically interrogate the current conceptualisation of health systems responsiveness in light of ongoing political, economic, and health system transitions occurring in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and call for a nuanced, contemporaneous, and expanded understanding of the concept. Drawing on key work on health economics and healthcare markets, we unpack the economic and health systems transitions that LMICs have experienced in the last two decades, specifically the shift towards neoliberalism. We discuss the impact of these transitions, particularly, the rapid growth in for-profit care and the covert or outright privatisation of public health services, on health care provision. We critically review the literature on health systems responsiveness to then demonstrate how current analytical frameworks do not yet sufficiently reflect the role of the market in responsive care provision. In light of this, we make a case for explicitly recognising the role of the market logic in both shaping peoples’ expectations of their health systems and the health system’s response to these expectations