New ways of achieving debt sustainability beyond the enhanced HIPC Initiative

In 1996 the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative was launched by the Bretton Woods institutions to reduce the external debt burden of low-income countries (LICs) to sustainable levels in a reasonably short period of time because debt constitutes an obstacle to sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. In some HIPCs, however, debt sustainability has been in danger despite debt relief under the HIPC Initiative. Debt relief is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for development. It can do no more than play a catalytic role. The question, then, is how to achieve debt sustainability beyond the HIPC Initiative.     

The impact of time duration between trades on the price of treasury note futures contracts

Recent research in finance has indicated that the institutional structure in which financial asset prices are determined can have a nontrivial impact on pricing. This report examines transaction level data for Treasury Note futures contracts traded at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) to identify institutional, or market microstructure, impacts on the pricing of these contracts. Relatively few articles have conducted empirical research on the microstructure of U.S. futures trading due to the limited availability of comprehensive transaction level data from the futures exchanges. This report uses the CBOT's Computerized Trade Reconstruction database, a comprehensive transaction level dataset, to identify the price impact of the time duration between trades in a manner analogous to that of A. Dufour and R. F. Engle (2000). Unique differences from prior research include the application to futures contracts with their relative higher frequency of trading, as well as the investigation of the price impact of the number of active traders present on the trading floor and the trading volume. Subsequent price and sign of trade significantly relate to the time duration between trades, the number of floor brokers, and the trading volume. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl. Fut Mark 24:965–980, 2004     

The Influence of Task Load and Automation Trust on Deception Detection

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects that user task load level has on the relationship between an individual's trust in and subsequent use of a system's automation. Military decision-makers trust and use information system automation to make many tactical judgments and decisions. In situations of information uncertainty (information warfare environments), decision-makers must remain aware of information reliability issues and temperate their use of system automation if necessary. An individual's task load may have an effect on his use of a system's automation in environments of information uncertainty.It was hypothesized that user task load will have a moderating effect on the positive relationship between system automation trust and use of system automation. Specifically, in situations of information uncertainty (low trust), high task load will have a negative effect on the relationship. To test this hypothesis, an experiment in a simulated command and control micro-world was conducted in which system automation trust and individual task load were manipulated. The findings from the experiment support the positive relationship between automation trust and automation use found in previous research and suggest that task load does have a negative effect on the positive relationship between automation trust and automation use. Experiment participant who incurred a higher task load exhibited an over-reliance on their automated information systems to assist them in their decision-making activities. Such an over-reliance can lead to vulnerabilities of deception and suggests the need for automated deception detection capabilities.     

Drug testing in the transportation industry: The maritime case

The maritime industry provides an interesting case study of the design and implementation of drug-testing programs in the transportation industry during the 1980s. It is clear that such programs were designed and implemented less because of empirical evidence of safety problems than for political reasons. The results in the maritime industry are indicative of a program that is expensive to operate, intrusive with regard to employee privacy, and which will have little or no impact on safety. Focusing such programs on the issue of impairment rather than on the issue of drug usage per se is likely to improve the outcome of the programs. Although, despite common belief, there is little evidence that drug usage or the “drug problem” in U.S. society as a whole had gotten worse in the preceding years (Schonsheck, 1989, 250–251).