Future scenarios for the charity sector in 2045

Rapid change is affecting the demography, technology and availability of resources (both financial and volunteer) on which charities draw. This paper presents four different scenarios that could describe the charity sector one generation from now as it responds to a different world. We highlight the dangers if any one scenario becomes dominant. While it is inevitable that change will occur, these drawbacks should be minimized and it is important that public funders and policy makers steer intelligently through this changing world. Also, charity leaders must prepare and plan for inevitable change in the sector.     

Corporate venture capital and the returns to acquiring portfolio companies

A prominent motive for corporate venture capital (CVC) is the identification of entrepreneurial-firm acquisition opportunities. Consistent with this view, we find that one of every five startups purchased by 61 top corporate investors from 1987 through 2003 is a venture portfolio company of its acquirer. Surprisingly, our analysis reveals that takeovers of portfolio companies destroy significant value for shareholders of acquisitive CVC investors, even though these same investors are “good acquirers” of other entrepreneurial firms. We explore numerous explanations for these puzzling findings, which seem rooted in managerial overconfidence or agency problems at the program level.     

Socially responsible investment fund performance: the impact of screening intensity

Perhaps the most common criticism of socially responsible investment funds is that imposing non‐financial screens restricts investment opportunities, reduces diversification efficiencies and thereby adversely impacts performance. In this study we investigate this proposition and test whether the number of screens employed has a linear or curvilinear relation with return. Moreover, we analyse the link between screening intensity and risk. Screening intensity has no effect on unadjusted (raw) returns or idiosyncratic risk. However, we find a significant reduction in α of 70 basis points per screen using the Carhart performance model. Increased screening results in lower systematic risk – in line with managers choosing lower β stocks to minimize overall risk.     

Measuring Selection Incentives in Managed Care: Evidence From the Massachusetts State Employee Insurance Program

Capitation gives insurers incentive to manipulate their offerings to attract the healthy and deter the sick. We calculate the incentives for such service-specific quality distortions using managed care medical and pharmacy spending data for fiscal years 2001 and 2002 from the Massachusetts State Employee Insurance Program. Services most vulnerable to stinting are cardiac care, diabetes care, and mental health and substance abuse services. Empirically, the financial temptation to distort service quality increases nonlinearly with supply-side cost sharing. Our empirical results highlight how selection incentives work at cross-purposes with efforts to reward excellent chronic disease management. Initiatives coupling pay-for-performance with risk adjustment and mixed payment hold promise for aligning incentives with quality improvement.     

Long‐term effects of alcohol warning labels: Findings from a comparison of the United States and Ontario,Canada

Since 1989 the U.S. federal government has required warnings on alcohol containers. Findings are presented from telephone surveys conducted between 1990 and 1994 in the U.S. and Ontario, Canada, the no‐treatment reference site. In the U.S., penetration peaked in 1993–94, with 43% of the lifetime drinkers reporting label awareness. Label exposure was weaker (<20%) for all years in the reference site. The proportion reporting conversations about drinking during pregnancy was higher among label seers in both sites. Those seeing labels in the U.S. were more likely to engage in conversations about drinking and driving than those not seeing. Reports of limiting drinking for health reasons showed a positive association with label exposure increasing with time. In the U.S. only, across all years, controlling for age, gender, education, and alcohol consumption, label seers were more likely to drive after drinking too much, but also to say they had deliberately not driven after drinking during the last year. Findings from this quasi‐experiment cannot establish causal relationships, but the pattern of results, though mixed, suggests modest effects on conversations and several precautionary behaviors related to risks of drinking. The label's effects may partially offset an overall trend toward lower public concern about health risks of alcohol. Results are interpreted as consistent with Congressional intent to remind people of certain hazards of drinking, especially during pregnancy or before driving vehicles. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Housing Attribute Preferences in a Northern Mexico Metropolitan Economy

Studies of the valuation of housing attributes have been conducted for numerous metropolitan markets. Empirical analyses of this nature for cities in Latin America and Mexico are less common. This study utilizes data for 175 new houses in Ciudad Juarez, a major metropolitan economy in northern Mexico, to estimate a hedonic pricing model. All units in the sample were completed and sold between November 2006 and April 2007. For each house, a total of 14 characteristics relating to structure and location are employed as explanatory variables. Estimation results indicate that the structural characteristics play bigger roles than the neighborhood amenities. Surprisingly, neighborhood parks are found to lower housing values.      

Aviation and the environment in the context of the EU–US Open Skies agreement

We examine the impacts of the EU–US Open Skies agreement on the environment on emissions from the aviation sector. We use the Hamburg Tourism Model of domestic and international tourist numbers and flows, to estimate these impacts. The Open Aviation Area will result in increased competition between carriers and falls in the cost of transatlantic flights. This will not only have implications for the size and structure of the industry but also for climate policy. The paper assesses what effects the expected increases in passenger numbers will have on CO₂ emissions and tests whether this increase in travel will result in a corresponding rise in emissions. Simulations show that passenger numbers arriving from the US to the EU will increase by between 1% and 14% depending on the magnitude of the price reductions because of substitution between destinations, the percentage increase in global emissions is much smaller (max. 1%) than the increase in cross-Atlantic traffic.     

A typology of solo independent women travellers

This paper aims to profile solo independent women travellers in Tropical North Queensland, describe their key motivations for travel and behaviours, and locate this group on a typology of solo independent travellers in Australia. Previous research has painted solo independent women at one end of a travel spectrum as fearful and risk‐adverse and at another end, as risk‐takers who have few concerns about safety within the destination. This analysis is based on visitor surveys completed over 21 months at Cairns Airport (n = 2,618). The results indicated that solo independent women travellers (n = 228) felt safe in the destination and participated in a wide variety of activities including those with some degree of risk. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.