Personal projects, affect, and need satisfaction : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in psychology, at Massey University

The present study investigated effects that patterns of purposeful human action, conceived as personal projects, have on positive and negative affect and need satisfaction. Replication was attempted of main effects reported in the literature for project attributes upon affective experience. More importantly, a more complex view of the effects of projects attributes was proposed whereby project attributes interact with each other and age and sex to influence affect. In addition, an investigation into the determinants of need satisfaction was conducted utilising both within- and between- subjects modes of analysis. Seventy respondents completed a questionnaire containing measures of positive and negative affect, a project elicitation list, and measures of the project attributes of need satisfaction, involvement, conflict, and time-frame. Regression analyses generally failed to replicate reported relationships between project attributes and positive or negative affect. In contrast, a number of significant interaction effects did emerge between project attributes and age and sex, although each of these related only to positive affect. These interactions were between involvement and age, conflict and sex, conflict and age. The determinants of need satisfaction were found to differ greatly in significance but not magnitude, according to the mode of analysis used. Need satisfaction was positively related to involvement, and engagement in long term projects, and negatively to interproject conflict. In addition to these main effects a hypothesized quadratic effect for project conflict was found and interaction between sex and conflict. The issues concerning which is the more appropriate level of analysis are discussed. It was concluded for the interaction analyses that, while project attributes may be considered as independent influences upon positive affect, they should not be considered independently of age and sex. It is concluded that projects did not adequately match expectations of relating to affect and need satisfaction and are limited in their seeming inability to account for negative affect

Bankruptcy Proceedings for Sovereign State Insolvency and their Effect on Capital Flows

The paper examines the main issues involved in translating domestic bankruptcy procedures to the sovereign context. It considers some of the principles by which domestic bankruptcy procedures operate, and the extent to which they apply to international lending. Two recent proposals are considered in more detail, that of Krueger (2001) and that of Pettifor (2002). The paper also considers the question of the ex ante effects of a procedure which makes default less costly, and concludes that despite a negative impact on the ability to borrow, the overall welfare e®ect need not be negative.Sovereign debt, bankruptcy, capital flows, Chapter 11

Fair Pay and a Wagebill Argument for Wage Rigidity and Excessive Employment Variability

This paper considers a two-period optimal contracting model in which firms make new hires in the second period subject to the constraint that they cannot pay discriminate either against or in favour of the new hires. Under an assumption on the information available to workers, it is shown that wages are less flexible than needed for efficient employment levels, with the result that too few hires are made in bad states of the world. Unemployment is involuntary. In an extension to the model, there may also be involuntary and excessive layoffs in some states of the world.Implicit contract theory, wage rigidity, involuntary unemployment

Equal treatment, worker replacement and wage rigidity

We adapt the model of Menzio and Moen (2010) to consider a labour marketwith directed search in which …rms can commit to wage contracts but cannotcommit not to replace incumbent workers. Workers are risk averse, so thatthere exists an incentive for …rms to smooth wages over time and in the face ofshocks to labour productivity. To avoid worker replacement (which saves onthe ex ante wage bill), they may choose a wage for new hires that is equallyunresponsive to shocks. This leads to a large degree of downward rigidityin the wages of new hires, and magni…es the response of unemployment andvacancies to negative shocks. Our version of the Menzio-Moen model allowsfor the analysis of positive probability shocks in a tractable way. Moreover, weargue that the model provides a useful framework for analysing other sourcesof wage rigidity; for example adding asymmetric information can substantiallyenhance the rigidity and the responsiveness of unemployment and vacanciesto productivity shocks

Dynamic relational contracts under complete information

This paper considers a long-term relationship between two agents who both undertake a costly action or investment that together produces a joint benefit. Agents have an opportunity to expropriate some of the joint benefit for their own use. Two cases are considered: (i) where agents are risk neutral and are subject to limited liability constraints and (ii) where agents are risk averse, have quasi-linear preferences in consumption and actions but where limited liability constraints do not bind. The question asked is how to structure the investments and division of the surplus over time so as to avoid expropriation. In the risk-neutral case, there may be an initial phase in which one agent overinvests and the other underinvests. However, both actions and surplus converge monotonically to a stationary state in which there is no overinvestment and surplus is at its maximum subject to the constraints. In the risk-averse case, there is no overinvestment. For this case, we establish that dynamics may or may not be monotonic depending on whether or not it is possible to sustain a first-best allocation. If the first-best allocation is not sustainable, then there is a trade-off between risk sharing and surplus maximization. In general, surplus will not be at its constrained maximum even in the long run

Fair pay and a Wagebill Argument for Wage Rigidity and Excessive Employment Variability

This paper considers a two-period optimal contracting model in which firms make new hires in the second period subject to the constraint that they cannot pay discriminate either against or in favour of the new hires. Under an assumption on the information available to workers, it is shown that wages are less flexible than needed for efficient employment levels, with the result that too few hires are made in bad states of the world. Unemployment is involuntary. In an extension to the model, there may also be involuntary and excessive layoffs in some states of the world.implicit contract theory, wage rigidity, involuntary unemployment

Bankruptcy Proceedings for Sovereign State Insolvency

sovereign debt, bankruptcy, capital flows, Chapter 11