Food for education versus school quality: a comparison of policy options to reduce child labour

Abstract.  In a model in which credit markets play a crucial role, we examine two policy options for reducing child labour, 'food for education' and 'investment in education quality,' With an imperfectly elastic supply of credit, an increase in food subsidy is more effective in reducing child labour than an 'income‐equivalent' increase in expenditures in education quality. The effectiveness of the latter policy improves, and the optimal share of resources devoted to this policy increases, at the expense of food subsidies, as the supply of credit becomes more elastic. JEL classification: H52, O10     

A mark II survey and critique of future research teaching in North America

In 1970, an initial survey was carried out on teaching futurism at the undergraduate level based on forty courses that could be located in Canada and the United States (Technological Forecasting and Social Change, December 1970). During 1971 and 1972, information was collected, primarily by a replicated questionnaire, on approximately 200 courses in North America; this was reported on to the Third World Future Research Conference in Bucharest (September 1972) indicating major changes that had occured over the two-year period in the field. Six generalizations were made: (1) Futurism is becoming increasingly institutionalized as more and more courses are being “futurized” to a greater or lesser degree. (2) Learning/teaching interaction tends increasingly to employ innovative or “futuristic” techniques. (3) Much influential and seminal work in future research is not made by “futurists” per se, but enters the field from outside: technological forecasting and assessment, systems analysis, gaming, model building, etc. (4) Interdisciplinary future-oriented research on contemporary problems may be adding a new dimension to human capability. (5) There is still much froth and nonsense in “futuristics”, but can future research be truly innovative without such imaginative inputs? (6) Future research may turn out to be merely a subset in the policy sciences, i.e., delivery systems.     

Outside vs. Inside Entrepreneurs: When Institutions Bind and Favors Blind

In some societies, entrepreneurs coming from outside of a community (i.e., outside entrepreneurs) are more active than entrepreneurs from within the community (i.e., inside entrepreneurs). Institutions and relationships that entrepreneurs entertain may hamper insiders from starting or succeeding. Institutional economics and anthropology suggest that, rather than outside entrepreneurs having more resources, the case may be that inside entrepreneurs could be hampered by existing institutions that blind and social relations that bind. Outsiders, however, may be less inclined to generate societal value in a community.     

A note on the effect of rate-of-return regulation under uncertainty

This paper corrects the errors of Peles and Stein's capital-setting (i.e., capital is ex-ante) model and Das' quantity-setting (i.e., all inputs are ex-ante) model. It also shows that rate-of-return regulated firms always overcapitalize in the quantity-setting case, but may overcapitalize, undercapitalize or produce efficiently in the capital-setting case.     

The three Is of public schools: irrelevant inputs,insufficient resources and inefficiency

We examine the educational production function and efficiency of public school districts in Illinois. Using non-parametric kernel methods, we find that most traditional schooling inputs are irrelevant in determining test scores (even in a very general setting). Property tax caps are the only relevant factor that is related to districts’ financial constraints and have predominantly negative associations with test scores. Therefore, insufficient resources may be partially responsible for the lack of growth in test scores. For most other relevant inputs, we find substantial heterogeneity in the returns, which helps reconcile some of the puzzling results in the literature. We further find that there exist inefficiencies in school districts. Moreover, the level of test scores, commonly used as a measure of school effectiveness, (while related) differs substantially from our efficiency scores, and standard parametric approaches drastically underestimate school efficiency. We discuss the policy implications of our results.     

The effects of environmental policies on the abatement investment decisions of a green firm

This paper focuses on environmental policies aimed at rising investment in pollution abatement capital. We assume that ecological uncertainty, i.e., uncertainty over the dynamics of pollution, affects firm investment decisions. Capital irreversibility is not postulated but endogenized using a quadratic adjustment cost function. Using this framework, we study the effects of environmental policies considering taxes on polluting inputs and subsidies to reduce the cost of abatement capital. Environmental policies promoted to enforce abatement capital may generate the unexpected result of reducing the abatement investment rate.     

Optimal Monetary Policy, Taxes, and Public Debt in an Intertemporal Equilibrium

This article is devoted to a study of the optimal monetary and fiscal policies within the framework of an overlapping generations model with cash-in-advance constraints. We first characterize the intertemporal equilibrium. Then we show how to decentralize the optimal growth path using available policy instruments (i.e., labor income and capital taxes, public debt, money supply). Between the four instruments: wages and capital taxes, debt and monetary policy, one is redundant among the three last which implies that the Friedman Rule is only a special case.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIRM BOUNDARY AND FINANCING CONSTRAINTS ON UTILITY COSTS: THE CASE OF MUNICIPALLY OWNED ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION UTILITIES

ABSTRACT: A number of studies have examined costs and potential for scale and scope economies in electricity distribution; however, few if any, have examined this area in terms of the unique constraints associated with municipal ownership or historical and regulatory constraints associated with former municipal ownership. This paper focuses on 19 distribution‐only municipally owned utilities for a ten‐year period (1988–97). Distortions from variable outputs but largely fixed inputs are minimized. The data used were collected specifically to assess productivity, cost, and efficiency performance and include value‐based capital inputs and service prices. Outputs include energy conveyed and number of connections; inputs include capital, system losses, labour, and materials. We examine the effect of using third‐party financing (e.g., connection charges), with its inherent principal‐agent problems, on utility costs, as well as the effect of shared services and multi‐utility output (e.g., electricity and water). A translog total cost function is estimated. Our findings suggest significant returns to scope but also significant increases in costs associated with the use of third‐party financing. The results also suggest scale diseconomies. Shared outputs, which have been greatly restricted or eliminated under restructuring, may have provided larger, and now lost, economies than the scale returns blindly pursued by some through restructuring or incented/forced mergers or divestitures. Finally, it is clear that third‐party financing can raise costs; such financing is widely used among utilities providing electricity, gas, water, and telecommunications, and should be closely scrutinized.     

Effect of public programs on family size,child education and health

"A bulk of public resources in developing countries is devoted to the subvention of population control and health investments. The effects of these programs have been evaluated in this study with household and community data from Bangladesh. The results suggest that subsidy on family planning and secondary school would be most effective in the achievement of harmonious goals of reducing fertility and mortality and fostering investments in child education."     

ROBERT J. GORDON'S CONCEPT OF CAPITAL

Estimates of capital stock normally equate different models of capital goods by their production costs at a base date (a concept known as method 1 or K ), not by their current marginal products (method 3, or J ). Some economists advocate that, instead, different models be equated by the base-date costs of providing characteristics of the goods, not of the goods themselves. The characteristics selected have, however, excluded the amounts of other inputs used in the production to which the good is devoted. Hence the method does not equate capital goods by their marginal products but instead by the gross products of the capital goods together with various amounts of associated inputs. Gordon recognizes this defect and believes he has remedied it empirically, but the steps he takes are too slight to support this view. It remains impractical to construct estimates that equate goods by their marginal products.     

Complex,dynamic environmental policies

The environment provides two different kinds of services: consumptive (input for conventional goods' production, pollution) and non-consumptive (amenity). The environment, which is treated as a renewable resource, might be harvested to obtain the first service, pollution (e.g., emissions, waste). However, reducing current pollution is costly and takes time; this adjustment process provides the second state. We show in this paper that the associated optimal environmental policies may be complex. More precisely, dampened oscillations and limit cycles (pollution following abatement and so on) may describe an optimal strategy even for strictly concave technologies and preferences. However, complex strategies—limit cycles and instabilities—are restricted to weakly green social preferences.     

DETERMINANTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL NONCOMPLIANCE BY PUBLIC WATER SYSTEMS

Whereas a large number of empirical studies have been devoted to analyzing determinants of environmental compliance (EC) by firms, less attention has been paid to EC by public water systems (PWS). To address this gap in the literature, this article uses data on compliance with maximum contaminant levels (MCL) under the Safe Drinking Water Act for 971 PWS in Arizona and identifies the characteristics of PWS that are associated with violation of MCL standards. Three main findings emerge from the analysis. First, larger PWS are more likely to violate MCL standards than smaller PWS. Second, publicly owned PWS have slightly higher probability of violating MCL standards than privately owned systems. Finally, PWS serving residential areas are more likely to violate MCL standards, as opposed to PWS serving school districts or office buildings. The results suggest that for ensuring safe water for people, effectiveness of monitoring policy, and an efficient utilization of resources, the environmental agencies may focus their monitoring and enforcement efforts on these water systems.(JEL K32, Q53)     

Increasing cooperation among plants,symbionts, and farmers is key to past and future progress in agriculture

The collective welfare of crop plants, their microbial symbionts, farmers, and society can be undermined by tragedies of the commons. A crop could increase resource allocation to grain if each plant invested less in sending roots into soil already explored by neighbors and less in stem growth. But evolutionary fitness depends on which plants capture the most soil resources and light (e.g., by growing taller than their neighbors), not just on the efficiency with which those resources are used. As for symbionts, with several strains infecting each plant, only host-imposed sanctions limit the fitness of strains that divert more resources to their own reproduction, at the expense of activities that benefit their host plant. Similarly, individual farmers do not necessarily benefit from pest- and resource-management practices that benefit farmers collectively or society as a whole. Plant breeders have increased crop yields by reversing past selection for individual fitness and they could breed for crops that would favor more-cooperative microbial symbionts. Better aligning interests among farmers and society may be more difficult.     

CSR and financial performance: complementarity between environmental,social and business behaviours

This article analyses the interactions between various dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) that mediate the relationship between CSR and financial performance. We hypothesize that the absence of consensus in the empirical literature on the CSR–financial performance relationship may be explained by the existence of synergies (complementarity) and trade-offs (substitutability) between the different CSR components. We investigate such relationship using a final unbalanced panel sample of 1094 observations (around 300 firms per year) from 15 countries over the 2002–2007 period. Our results show that responsible behaviours towards employees (human resources dimension) and towards customers and suppliers (business behaviour dimension) appear as complementary inputs of financial performance, indicating mutual benefits and less conflict between those stakeholders. Conversely, responsible behaviours towards customers and suppliers and towards the environment appear as substitutable inputs of financial performance, suggesting more conflict between or over-investment towards those stakeholders.     

The effects of health aid on child health promotion in developing countries: cross-country evidence

Although epidemiological knowledge in relation to child health has improved in the last few decades, around 3 million children die each year in developing countries from preventable diseases. The international development community views increased immunization coverage for children as an important step in eliminating or reducing these deaths. Many developing countries have very limited resources to tackle major health problems and have to rely on external finance. This article examines the impact of foreign aid devoted to the health sector on child health promotion in developing countries. Two proxies for child health promotion are used: (a) immunization against measles and (b) immunization against Diphtheria–Pertussis–Tetanus (DPT). A range of model specifications and panel data econometric techniques are applied to data covering the period 1990 to 2005. This article finds a positive and statistically significant link between health aid and the measures of child health promotion.     

Returns to skills,incentives to study and optimal educational standards

In imperfectly competitive labor markets returns to skills are lower than their productivity and educational standards may play an important role in stimulating students to provide efforts. We propose a principal-agent model to analyze the determinants of student effort and the setting of standards by a policy-maker maximizing alternative social welfare functions. We show that if the policy-maker takes into account individuals' future earnings, he finds it optimal to set lower standards in more distorted labor markets, whereas higher standards would be preferable for efficiency reasons. Moreover, we show that labor market distortions may also influence the amount of resources devoted to schools. Finally, it is shown that standard setting may be useful in preventing the opportunism of school principals in the use of resources.      

浅析高职体育院校创业教育的必要性及开展途径

高职体育院校是以培养应用型体育人才为目标。毕业生在综合素质方面的竞争力,与其他非体育院校的学生相比,存在一定的差距,使得学生就业面临更为严峻的挑战,因此在高职体育院校开展自主创业教育显得尤为重要。为了有效实施创业教育,应从以下几个方面着手进行：加强师资队伍建设;培养学生的创业意识;构建创业教育课程体系;开发并利用学校、社会资源进行创业指导;营造创业环境。     

Decomposing growth in revenues and costs into price,quantity and total factor productivity contributions

This article employs the superlative Fisher and Törnqvist indexes for exact decomposition of growth in nominal revenues and costs. The findings confirm the well-known result that these indexes very closely approximate each other, implying that the mathematically simpler and computationally easier Törnqvist is the more practicable index. Moreover, this article's nominal growth decomposition yields all the results from the more common real growth decomposition and is also more informative for policy purposes. Application to the US agricultural sector during 1948–2001 shows that of the 3.31% average annual growth in revenues, TFP growth contributed 1.90 percentage points (pct. pts.); growth in output prices added 1.43 pct. pts.; while growth in input quantities contributed?–?0.02 pct. pts. (i.e. fewer inputs). Therefore, real output growth (or revenue growth less output price growth) was 1.88 pct. pts., revealing that TFP's 1.90 pct. pts. growth contribution was fully responsible for real output growth with fewer inputs. Since revenues measure incomes, these results suggest that policy should focus more on measures to foster TFP growth than on specific price or quantity instruments to enhance income growth.     

ASSESSING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR

ABSTRACT ** :  One is used to hearing harsh statements about inefficient public services. It is not surprising to see public sector performance questioned. What is surprising is that what is meant by performance, and how it is measured, does not seem to matter much to either the critics or the advocates of the public sector.
The purpose of this paper is to suggest a definition, and a way to measure the performance of the public sector or rather of its main components. Our approach is explicitly rooted in the principles of welfare and production economics. We will proceed in four stages. First of all we present what we call the 'performance approach' to the public sector. This concept rests on the principal-agent relation that links a principal, i.e., the State, and an agent, i.e., the person in charge of the public sector unit, and on the definition of performance as the extent to which the agent fulfils the objectives assigned by the principal. The performance is then measured by using the notion of productive efficiency and the 'best practice' frontier technique.
In the second stage we move to the issue of measuring the performance of some canonical components of the public sector (education, health care and railways transport), assuming that there is no constraint as to data availability. The idea is to disentangle the usual confusion between conceptual and data problems. In the third stage, we move to real world data problems. The question is then given the available data, whether it makes sense to assess and measure the performance of such public sector activities. The final stage is devoted to explaining performance or rather lack thereof. This exercise has clear implications for public policy.
Finally we argue that when the scope is not components but the entirety of the public sector, one should restrict the performance analysis to outcomes and not relate them to inputs.     

Strategic budgets in sequential elimination contests

We study a sequential elimination contest where contestants (e.g., campaigns) spend resources that are provided by strategic players called backers (e.g., donors). In the unique symmetric equilibrium, backers initially provide small budgets, increasing their contributions only if their contestant wins the preliminary round. If backers are only allowed to provide budgets at the start of the game, as opposed to before each round, spending is higher. When unspent resources are refunded to the backer, total spending is higher than when all resources are sunk costs. We also study an extension of the model with asymmetric players.