François-Charles Wolff

The Firm's Management in Production: Management, Firm and Time Effects in an Indian Ocean Tuna Fishery

The firms management in production is a critical, but unobserved input. Within a panel data framework, the firms management and firm effects have to date been conflated. Exploiting variability in the managerial dimension, this paper identifies the firms management from firm and time effects in a production function using a three-way fixed effect model and a unique panel data set tracking multiple managers for each firm in each year for an industry over 27 years. We also allow for time-varying firm management through learning. The model is applied to the French purse-seine fleet harvesting tunas in the Indian Ocean. We find that fishing hours and number of sets on floating objects and on free-swimming schools explain more than 70% of variation in tuna catches over the period. The skipper and vessel fixed effects have a rather similar influence (around 5% each). Skipper learning-by-doing as measured by experience and job tenure plays no significant role, meaning that managerial ability is time-invariant in this industry.

Evaluating the Law of one Price Using Micro Panel Data: The Case of the French Fish Market

This paper investigates spatial variations in product prices using an exhaustive micro dataset on fish transactions. The data record all transactions between vessels and wholesalers that occur on local fish markets in France during the year 2007. Spatial disparities in fish prices are sizable, even after fish quality, time, seller and buyer unobserved heterogeneity have been taken into account. The price difference between local fish markets can be explained to some extent by distance, but mostly by a coast effect (analogous to a border effect in the literature on the law of one price) related to separate location on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. In particular, fish and crustacean prices are 34% higher on the Mediterranean coast. The law of one price is verified for almost all species when considering only local fish markets on the Atlantic coast.

Towards E-mail Prevalence in Media Repertoires: Evidence and Explanations for Knowledge Workers of a Public Organization

E-mail is and remains widely used by knowledge workers in organizations. The objective of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, it aims at verifying e-mail is the most used medium by knowledge workers within their communication media repertoires. On the other hand, we try to understand which factors influence e-mail use. A public organization was selected to realize an in-depth case study with both quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative analysis shows that e-mail is the preferred medium of knowledge workers to exchange documents and information. Moreover, individual characteristics poorly explain media use, and in particular e-mail use. Qualitative analysis of interviews with senior executives proposes organizational explanations of e-mail prevalence in this organization. Indeed in a moving, fuzzy and political organization, e-mail is preferred for several reasons that are advanced in this paper.

Dating as leisure

Surprisingly, the field of leisure economics is not, thus far, a particularly integrated or coherent one. In this Handbook a wide ranging body of international scholars get to grips with the core issues, taking in the traditional income/leisure choice model of textbook microeconomics and Becker’s allocation of time model along the way. They expertly apply economics to some usually neglected topics, such as boredom and sleeping, work–life balance, dating, tourism, health and fitness, sport, video games, social networking, music festivals and sex. Contributions from further afield by Veblen, Sctivosky and Bourdieu also feature prominently.