In this article, we provide a critique of previous estimates of war-related deaths from Bosnia and Herzegovina and propose an analytical framework and a new estimate of such deaths. Our assessment is ...concentrated on civilian victims, whose death (or disappearance) can in a straightforward manner be linked with war operation. The estimate is based on carefully selected sources analysed jointly at the level of individual records, allowing for identity verification of victims, elimination of duplicates within the sources and exclusion of records overlapping between the sources. Although we can argue that our estimate is much better founded than any other estimate ever obtained, it is still incomplete and should be seen as work in progress. /// Cet article présente une analyse critique des estimations existantes sur les décès dus à la guerre en Bosnie-Hérzégovine et propose un cadre d'analyse et une nouvelle estimation de ces décès. Cette estimation porte sur les victimes civiles, dont la mort (ou la dispartition) peut être reliée d'une façon directe aux opérations de guerre. Elle repose sur une sélection rigoureuse de sources, traitées conjointement au niveau des données individuelles, ce qui permet la vérification de l'identité des victimes, l'élimination des doublons au sein de chaque source et l'identification des cas présents dans plusieurs sources. Même si cette estimation est sans aucun doute meilleure que toutes celles déjà publiées, elle reste incomplète et doit être considérée comme une étape provisoire dans un travail encore en cours.
The fall of the United Nations 'safe area' of Srebrenica in July 1995 to Bosnian Serb and Serbian forces stands out as the international community's most egregious failure to intervene during the ...Bosnian war. It led to genocide, forced displacement and a legacy of loss. But wartime inaction has since spurred numerous postwar attempts to address the atrocities' effects on Bosnian society and its diaspora. Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide reveals how interactions between local, national and international interventions - from refugee return and resettlement to commemorations, war crimes trials, immigration proceedings and election reform - have led to subtle, positive effects of social repair, despite persistent attempts at denial. Using an interdisciplinary approach, diverse research methods, and more than a decade of fieldwork in five countries, Lara J. Nettelfield and Sarah E. Wagner trace the genocide's reverberations in Bosnia and abroad. The findings of this study have implications for research on post-conflict societies around the world.
We investigate a pervasive voluntary disclosure practice—managers including balance sheets with quarterly earnings announcements. Consistent with expectations, we find that managers voluntarily ...disclose balance sheets when current earnings are relatively less informative, or when future earnings are relatively more uncertain. Specifically, balance sheet disclosures are more likely among firms: (1) in high technology industries; (2) reporting losses; (3) with larger forecast errors; (4) engaging in mergers or acquisitions; (5) that are younger; and (6) with more volatile stock returns. This is consistent with managers disclosing balance sheets in response to investor demand for value relevant information to supplement earnings.
We investigate investment managers' use of derivatives by comparing return distributions for equity mutual funds that use and do not use derivatives. In contrast to public perception, derivative ...users have risk exposure and return performance that are similar to nonusers. We also analyze changes in fund risk in response to prior fund performance. Changes in risk are substantially less severe for funds using derivatives, consistent with the explanation that managers use derivatives to reduce the impact of performance on risk. We provide new evidence regarding the implications of cash flows and managerial gaming for the relation between performance and risk.
Previous work has claimed that monopoly power facilitates the provision of credit, because monopolists are better able to enforce payment. Here, we argue that if relationship-specific investments are ...required by borrowers to establish creditworthiness, monopoly power may reduce credit provision because holdup problems ex post will deter borrowers from investing in establishing creditworthiness. Empirically, we examine the relationship between monopoly power and credit provision, using data on the supply relationships of firms in five African countries. Consistent with the up-front investment story, we find that monopoly power is negatively associated with credit provision, and that this correlation is stronger in older supplier relationships. Because the data include several observations per firm, we are able to utilize firm fixed effects, thus netting out unobserved firm characteristics that may have been driving results in earlier studies.
This paper proposes a framework for inequality decomposition in which inequality of the target variable, e.g., income, can be decomposed into components associated with any number of determinants or ...proxy variables in a regression equation. The proposed framework is general enough to be applied to any inequality measure and it imposes few restrictions on the specification of the regression model. This generality is illustrated by quantifying root sources of regional income inequality in rural China using a combined Box–Cox and Box–Tidwell income-generating function. Journal of Comparative Economics32 (2) (2004) 348–363.
Drawing on the hostage model of Williamson (1983. "Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange." The American Economic Review 73: 519—540) and recent studies identifying equity ...affiliation as a robust hostage in the Japanese automotive industry, we examine the relationship between automobile assemblers and their suppliers under different demand conditions. Specifically, we explore the extent to which assemblers buffer their equity-affiliated suppliers from demand fluctuations to a greater extent than is the case for unaffiliated suppliers. Our empirical analysis suggests that assemblers buffered their affiliated suppliers from the effects of a negative demand shock in 1992—95, apparently favoring affiliates over unaffiliated suppliers during this period, as predicted by the hostage model. However, affiliates in our sample also more frequently adjust production to accommodate short-run demand fluctuations faced by the auto assemblers. We discuss how our findings relate to alternative theoretical explanations, such as those featuring differential supplier capabilities, risk aversion, or supply assurance in the face of sticky price adjustments.
L'article traite des techniques miliciennes et militaires du nettoyage ethnique, pratiques masquées par le terme de « guerre » ou de « guerre civile », en prenant le cas spécifique d'une bourgade ...frontalière de la Bosnie-Herzégovine et de la Serbie : Višegrad. Les sources employées pour cette description sont des sources judiciaires. Elles proviennent des dépositions données dans le cadre des interrogatoires et des contre-interrogatoires de témoins qui se sont exprimés devant le Tribunal pénal international pour l'ex-Yougoslavie. Les pratiques de violence analysées ici appartiennent sous certains rapports à un ensemble plus large, malgré, bien sûr, la différence des configurations contextuelles. Les enquêtes des tribunaux pénaux internationaux révèlent ainsi le détail de ces entreprises, qualifiées du terme générique de « guerres asymétriques », mettant en lumière, sans les dépolitiser, les techniques d'arraisonnement massif de « populations civiles » par des groupes en armes, à telles ou telles fins; ici pour assurer l'homogénéité ethnique d'un territoire. This study of the techniques that, used by militia and the military for ethnic cleansing, were masked under the terms « warfare » or « civil war » focuses on a small town near the border between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia : Visegrad. Judiciary sources are used, namely the testimonies collected during the cross-examination of witnesses before the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. The acts of violence analyzed herein belong, in certain regards, to a larger set despite differences in the contexts. The inquiries conducted by international courts reveal in detail these actions, qualified under the generic phrase « asymmetrical warfare ». They shed light on the techniques (without depoliticizing them) that armed groups use to control civilian masses, in this case for the purpose of making a territory ethnically homogeneous.
Using data from the 1992-95 Multi-City Study of Urban Inequality, an employer survey, the authors document a new empirical finding that workers are less likely to receive promotions in nonprofit ...organizations than in for-profit firms. The study also uncovers evidence that wage increases associated with promotion were of comparable magnitudes in the two sectors, as was the potential for within-job wage growth; nonprofits were less likely than for-profits to base promotions on job performance or merit; nonprofits were less likely to use output-contingent incentive contracts to motivate workers; and the observed difference in promotion rates between the nonprofit and for-profit sectors was more pronounced for high-skilled than for low-skilled workers. The authors also propose a theory that potentially explains the broad pattern of evidence they uncover, based on the idea that nonprofit workers are more intrinsically motivated (attracted to their work for reasons transcending material compensation) than are for-profit workers.
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