Group Earnings Research Articles

Community leaders and the preservation of cultural traits

We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group's earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or less assimilated and poorer. With a leader cultural integration remains incomplete. The leader chooses more distinctive cultural traits in high productivity environments and if the community is more connected. Lump sum transfers to immigrants can hinder cultural integration. These findings are in line with integration patterns of various ethnic and religious groups.

EVERY SILVER LINING HAS A CLOUD

EARNINGS AT 25 MAJOR CHEMICAL companies rose in t h e second quarter compared with the same period in 2002, but the increase was driven by just a few firms with big gains. T h e group's earnings from continuing operations, excluding significant nonrecurring items, rose 8.6% over the same period last year to $2.05 billion, as sales increased a greater 9.2% to $32.6 billion. The aggregate profit margin for the 25 firms remained unchanged at 6.3%. It is good to see an increase in earnings, but the underlying fundamentals are not so reassuring. For one thing, the increases in individual company results were not widespread. Of the 25,12 showed earnings improvements, 12 showed declines, and one—Praxair—was unchanged. The 12 firms with earnings growth in the second quarter include Hercules, which showed a loss in the same period last year but in this year's April to June period rose to seventh among the 25 ...

Entitlement and Justice Evaluations: Who Should Get More, and Why

Most workers believe that they are entitled to receive higher wages than they are presently receiving. Analysis shows that subjective wage entitlement is affected by the perceived difference between the comparison others' and the individual's wages, and by the relative deprivation it may create. The findings reveal that men and women who work in female and in male-type occupations base their claims for higher wages on different and somewhat unexpected principles of justice: women in female-type occupations use equity considerations; women in male-type occupations turn to structural factors; men in female-type occupations want equality of outcomes; men in male-type occupations invoke needs. Furthermore, women do not report high levels of entitlement, and their expressed entitlement is not only lower than men's but also lower than their comparison group's earnings. These findings are explained in terms of status value theory.

Chemical Earnings Fall For Fourth Consecutive Quarter

Bludgeoned by imports, hobbled by prices, and undermined by weak sectors of the economy, the chemical industry staggered through a third quarter that resulted in most cases in lower earnings from operations than in last year's third quarter. For several companies, extensive restructuring charges reduced the bottom line even further. Taking into consideration operations alone, net income in the chemical industry declined an average of 19% in third-quarter 1985 from the year-earlier period, based on the results of 29 of the 30 largest chemical producers. (The other firm, Chesebrough-Pond's, is excluded from this and other composite calculations because its acquisition of Stauffer Chemical in March renders year-to-year comparisons meaningless at this time.) The group's aggregate sales were about the same as a year earlier. It was the fourth consecutive quarter in which the group's earnings total fell compared to the year before. ...