We use data on the largest U.S.-based franchised chains, measured by worldwide sales, from 1998 to 2007, to explore scale and scope (or spillovers) effects. Because franchised chains are fundamentally single-product or single-concept entities that usually continue to be developed separately when they belong to multi-chain firms, we can distinguish scale from scope effects much better than in mo...

It is shown that the critical (or deconfinement) temperature for the Nambu-Goto string connecting the point-like masses (quarks) does not depend on the value of these masses. This temperature turns out to be the same as that in the case of string with fixed ends (infinitely heavy immobile quarks).

This paper examines the ability of Board Members of the most important multilateral donor to developing countries, the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, to influence IDA allocations toward their home countries. I show that a system of Bank staff ratings of individual countries' policies, which has become more important in IDA lending over time, has systematically re...

The idea that wages are determined by firm and individual characteristics leads to gather that there is a firms’ effect that influences wage differentials. This paper presents the results of an empirical analysis of gender wage differentials based on INPS data firms for people between the ages of 20 and 25 employed in the private sector in 1996 which takes into account the characteristics of wo...

The macroeconomy and social policies can have substantial influences on poverty in the United States. In this paper, I investigate whether these influences differ across metro and nonmetro areas. To do so, using a 16-year panel of state-level data, I estimate state and year fixed effects models separately for metro and nonmetro areas to see if the effects of the macroeconomy and social policies...

Temperature effects in the sputtering of an organic molecule were investigated by subjecting a well defined film of coronene to Au1 and C60 primary ions at 100 and 300 K. Strong field photoionization of the sputtered neutral flux was employed to monitor the change in flight time and kinetic energy distributions of intact and fragmented species.

Using nine years of personnel records from a regional grocery store chain in the United States, this study examines the effect of manager ethnicity on the ethnic composition of employment at the firm’s 73 stores. We estimate separate models with store fixed effects for several departments and job titles at each store. We first compare the rates at which Hispanic and white non-Hispanic managers ...

The model y = ∑w j=1 Xjβj + e is generalized orthogonal if the orthogonal projection matrices on the range spaces of matrices Xj , j = 1, ..., w, commute. Unbiased estimators are obtained for the variance components of such models with cross-nesting.

New railway legislation in Sweden has increased the need for transparent access charges on the Swedish railway network. We estimate cost functions for infrastructure operation, maintenance and renewal in the Swedish national railway network, using unobserved effects models and calculate marginal costs for railway infrastructure wear and tear. We find evidence of unobserved fixed effects at a tr...

In this study, the author uses 25 years of data taken from the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth to examine the relationship between family life course statuses and transitions and work-related health limitations. The author uses a detailed set of statuses and transitions that include marriage, divorce, cohabitation, and parenthood. The measures of health used tap health limitations in ...