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Drawing on sociolinguistics, this chapter proposes an encoding–decoding perspective on evaluation, conceptualizing codes as interpretive schemas that are encoded by firms and decoded by audiences. A key element in this process is code complexity, denoting combinations of interdependent elements. We demonstrate that the evaluation of code complexity depends on the type of audience (professionals and laypersons) and the type of complexity (technological and aesthetic). We analyze the attribution of awards by professionals and the public in luxury watchmaking, featuring three mechanisms: the social embeddedness of audiences, their motivation for evaluation and supply-and-demand matching. The results attest to significant differences in the evaluation of technological and aesthetic code complexity by professionals and laypersons. There is a premium attributed to aesthetic code complexity by professionals and a premium attributed to technological complexity by laypersons. Finding the right type and level of code complexity to pursue in their offerings is a key strategic challenge for producers.

The vehicle–track interaction and the resulting dynamic response of the vehicle involve a number of complex nonlinear problems. Large vertical loads act through a small contact patch leading to very high contact pressures. Transverse loads acting through this contact induce a relative velocity between wheel and rail expressed in non-dimensional form as a creepage. The wheel and rail profiles determine the contact patch shape and affect the ability of the vehicle to run stably. If the yaw stiffness of the axles is too low, the vehicle will become unstable at a relatively low speed; conversely, if the yaw stiffness is too high, the curving behaviour will be adversely affected. The vehicle suspension, especially the secondary suspension, also affects the ride comfort of passengers. Finally, it is shown how the speed profiles of accelerating and decelerating trains can be calculated from basic assumptions about the train power, adhesion and rolling resistance.

In this chapter the development of new sugarcane varieties in Florida and Louisiana is examined, along with the accompanying advancement in mechanization technology through the widespread adoption of sugarcane harvesters. An econometric analysis is carried out to determine the impact of the price of raw sugar on raw-sugar yields in Louisiana and Florida. This study found that in the case of Louisiana, the 3-year lagged US raw-sugar price had a positive and significant impact on sugar yields. The change in raw-sugar prices did not have a significant impact on sugar yields for the Florida industry. Sugar production has increased over time, in part, due to the development of new sugarcane varieties accompanied by modern sugarcane harvesters. Given the relationship between price and yield, particularly in Louisiana, policy makers and producers must be mindful of the potential impact of policy-induced research and development (R&D) on the competitiveness of their industry.

Virtually all parents want their children to succeed academically. How to achieve this goal, though, is far from clear. Specifically, the temporal spacing between adjacent births has been shown to affect educational outcomes. While many of these studies have produced substantial and statistically significant results, these results have been relatively narrow in their application due to data limitations. Using Colorado birth certificates matched to schooling outcomes, we investigate the relationship between birth spacing and educational attainment. We instrument birth spacing with a previous pregnancy that did not result in a live birth. We find no overall effect of spacing on either the first or second children’s grade 3–10 test scores. Stratifying by the sexes of the children, we find that when the first child is a boy and the second a girl, an extra year of spacing increases the first child’s math, reading, and writing test scores by 0.07–0.08 SD, while there is no impact on the second child. This is the first study to do such an analysis using matched large-scale birth and elementary to high school administrative data, and to leverage a very large dataset to stratify our results by the sexes of the children.

Purpose – This article examines the operating lease cost stickiness characteristics exhibited by retail firms.

Methodology/approach – Anderson, Banker, and Janakiraman (2003) laid important groundwork for the study of asymmetric cost behavior or cost stickiness. The authors found that a firm’s selling, general, and administrative costs (SG&A) costs increase more with a sales increase than those expenses decrease with an equivalent sales decline. Their findings provided avenues for many studies with differing focal variables; however, extant research has not explored the degree of cost stickiness associated with operating lease expenses. Recognizing the nature and magnitude of operating leases and the competitive and changing environment for retailers, this study adapts Anderson et al.’s (2003) model to provide insights into operating lease stickiness. The study uses archival financial data from 1997 through 2016 for specialty retail firms in testing the lease cost stickiness hypotheses.

Findings – The results of this study supported the hypotheses that operating lease expenses exhibit stickiness behavior and are relatively stickier than future lease commitments for retail firms.

Originality/value – By focusing on retail firms and related lease expenses, this study provides insights into the increasingly competitive retailer environment. This article’s findings will enhance understanding of how specialty retail firms’ managers react to reduced revenues. Finally, given recent authoritative pronouncements affecting accounting for leases and the significance of leasing transactions, research providing insights into cost behavior and managerial actions stands to make an important contribution to literature and practice.

This study provides new evidence on the effect of compulsory schooling laws on educational attainment and earnings. First, we re-examine the effect of compulsory schooling laws for cohorts born between 1900 and 1964 (“older cohorts”) using newly available data that match administrative earnings records with the survey data. Second, we provide among the first evidence on cohorts born between 1977 and 1996 (“younger cohorts”). Our findings suggest that compulsory schooling laws increased the educational attainment of older cohorts, but had no economically significant effect on the educational attainment of younger cohorts. We are unable to find consistent evidence that compulsory schooling laws increased the earnings of older cohorts – a finding which adds to growing evidence that compulsory schooling laws are less beneficial than earlier studies suggest.

In a largely exploratory study, the authors investigate: how do managers’ experiences with exogenous hazards (e.g., natural disaster risk) affect their identification of those hazards as salient to the firm? This analysis is based on an international survey of 575 managers across 18 disaster-prone countries. The authors examine whether and how locational hazard risk and managerial experience influence the identification of natural disaster risk as an important firm issue. The authors find that locational natural hazard risk, and direct and indirect experience with natural disasters, increases the likelihood that managers’ will identify firm-specific natural disaster risk as an important firm issue. In addition, the authors also find that managers are likely to identify natural hazards as a threat when natural hazard risk is high and when managers have experience in natural disasters that directly affected their businesses.