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This paper characterizes the dynamic effects of shocks in government spending and taxes on U. S. activity in the postwar period. It does so by using a mixed structural VAR/event study approach. Identification is achieved by using institutional information about the tax and transfer systems to identify the automatic response of taxes and spending to activity, and, by implication, to infer fiscal shocks. The results consistently show positive government spending shocks as having a positive effect on output, and positive tax shocks as having a negative effect. One result has a distinctly nonstandard flavor: both increases in taxes and increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on investment spending.

This study examines the relationship between use of Facebook, a popular online social network site, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. In addition to assessing bonding and bridging social capital, we explore a dimension of social capital that assesses one’s ability to stay connected with members of a previously inhabited community, which we call maintained social capital. Regression analyses conducted on results from a survey of undergraduate students (N = 286) suggest a strong association between use of Facebook and the three types of social capital, with the strongest rela-tionship being to bridging social capital. In addition, Facebook usage was found to interact with measures of psychological well-being, suggesting that it might provide greater benefits for users experiencing low self-esteem and low life satisfaction. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x

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This individual differences study examined the separability of three often postu-lated executive functions—mental set shifting (‘‘Shifting’’), information updating and monitoring (‘‘Updating’’), and inhibition of prepotent responses (‘‘Inhibi-tion’’)—and their roles in complex ‘‘frontal lobe’ ’ or ‘‘executive’ ’ tasks. One hun-dred thirty-seven college students performed a set of relatively simple experimental tasks that are considered to predominantly tap each target executive function as well as a set of frequently used executive tasks: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), Tower of Hanoi (TOH), random number generation (RNG), operation span, and dual tasking. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the three target executive functions are moderately correlated with one another, but are clearly sepa-rable. Moreover, structural equation modeling suggested that the three functions

This paper discusses the prevalence of Silicon Valley–style localiza-tions of individual manufacturing industries in the United States. A model in which localized industry-specific spillovers, natural ad-vantages, and pure random chance all contribute to geographic concentration is used to develop a test for whether observed levels of concentration are greater than would be expected to arise ran-domly and to motivate new indices of geographic concentration and of coagglomeration. The proposed indices control for differ-ences in the size distribution of plants and for differences in the size of the geographic areas for which data are available. As a conse-quence, comparisons of the degree of geographic concentration across industries can be made with more confidence. Our empiri-cal results provide a strong reaffirmation of the previous wisdom in that we find almost all industries to be somewhat localized. In many industries, however, the degree of localization is slight. We explore the nature of agglomerative forces in describing patterns of concentration, the geographic scope of localization, and the coagglomeration of related industries and of industries with strong upstream-downstream ties.

This paper summarizes the empirical and theoretical research on executive compensation and provides a comprehensive and up-to-date description of pay practices (and trends in pay practices) for chief executive officers (CEOs). Topics discussed include the level and structure of CEO pay (including detailed analyses of annual bonus plans, executive stock options, and option valuation), international pay differences, the pay-setting process, the relation between CEO pay and firm performance (“pay-performance sensitivities”), the relation between sensitivities and subsequent firm performance, relative performance evaluation, executive turnover, and the politics of CEO pay.

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