This paper explores the differential nature of labor-supply decisions regarding weeks of work per year and hours of work per week among female household heads. A model of labor supply that separates the weeks/hours decision is presented and estimated, allowing for simultaneity in the weeks/hours decision, as well as for the presence of either fixed costs or weeks and hours constraints. The results indicate that not only are weeks and hours decisions separate from the labormarket participation decision, but they are also quite different from each other, although they appear to be simultaneously determined.

This study examines budgetary control in automated production environments. It is argued that the relative insignificance of direct labor costs, together with the greater degree of integration of service and production departments in automated production environments, restrict the degree of freedom that normally exists in the design of an appropriate budgetary control system. The paper argues for a more integrated approach, and demonstrates that the reciprocal allocation method, linked with the dual allocation approach, has the properties necessary for an appropriate budgetary control system for automated production environments. The paper extends the current literature by demonstrating some properties of the reciprocal method hitherto unexplored. Résumé. L'auteur examine le contrôle budgétaire dans le contexte de la fabrication automatisée. Il soutient que le peu d'importance relative des coûts de main‐d' œuvre directe, associé au degré plus grand d'intégration des services auxiliaires et du service de fabrication dans le contexte de la fabrication automatisée, restreint la liberté qui existerait normalement dans la conception d'un système de contrôle budgétaire approprié. L'auteur favorise une méthode plus intégrée et démontre que la méthode de répartition réciproque, liée à la méthode de double répartition, présente les propriétés nécessaires pour que le système de contrôle budgétaire soit approprié au contexte de la fabrication automatisée. Dans le prolongement des publications courantes, l'auteur fait état de certaines propriétés de la méthode réciproque jusqu'ici inexplorées.

This paper develops a simple stochastic job matching model and uses it to derive a set of testable restrictions on the conditional probability with which a worker will be observed to change jobs over time. The restrictions describe the manner in which this probability varies with observable characteristics-i-current wage, labour market experience, tenure on current job, and past mobility. Econometric methods are also discussed, and some illustrative calculations provided. 1.

This paper explores the implications for the information content of acquisition offers in an economy with asymmetric information. It is shown that mergers can be socially beneficial due to risk reduction and information asymmetry even when there are no productive synergies and when positive premia are paid. The properties of equilibria with and without mergers are derived and contrasted in order to obtain a quantitative bound on potential merger premia. Theory is related to empirical evidence, where our results show that aggregate valuation gains can accrue on a purely informational basis. Moreover, the model developed here has important implications for the reported differences in tender offer and merger studies.

Livingston contends that short futures/long cash traders can eliminate the potential costs of the quality option through use of a dynamic trading strategy. It is proposed here that if this is possible then futures prices will never reach a stable equilibrium. Alternatively, if Livingston's argument is flawed, then no risk-free arbitrage opportunities are likely to be available to either short cash/long futures or long cash/short futures traders. Under such conditions, futures prices will reach an equilibrium when the expected return and risk of each type position are equally attractive.

In a world of asymmetric information in which only the insiders know the quality of the firm, it is claimed that debt, even if it is risky, is more advantageous than outside equity because issuance of debt is less attractive to inferior firms. The advantage to debt arises from the fact that it can keep unprofitable firms out of the market, thus improving the average quality of firms in the market. This advantage exists even if the firms cannot be perfectly sorted in the signaling equilibrium.

This paper empirically investigates the relation between investor wealth and the value of annual and quarterly earnings announcements as implied by (1) the behavior of mean stock trade transaction sizes at announcement dates, and (2) transaction size-stratified trading activity in postannouncement time periods. Announcement-period mean transaction sizes are found to exceed expected mean transactions sizes estimated from trading activity occurring in nonannouncement periods. This result is attributed to a greater relative trading response to earnings announcements by wealthier investors, consistent with Ohlson's [1975] proposition that information value increases with investor wealth in a security market setting. Further evidence of a positive relation between value and wealth is found when postearnings announcement stock transactions are stratified by share size into three strata, where the first stratum (small stratum) is transactions of 100 and 200 shares, the second stratum (large stratum) is transactions of 300 to 900 shares, and the third stratum (institutional

Conventional management accounting principles used to evaluate relevant costs have been developed under the assumption of deterministic manufacturing settings. Manufacturing operations, however, are complex and stochastic. In this paper we examine the impact of stochasticity in the production process on relevant costs based on a dynamic assessment of capacity constraints. We develop a model to analyze the behavior of relevant costs with respect to changes in the expected duration and variability in set-ups and processing. An implication of this analysis is that for profit maximization capacity will exceed expected demand if production rates or demand are stochastic.