Nineteenth Century Urban Market Failure?: Chadwick on Funeral Industry Regulation

This essay analyzes the regulatory theory and policy preceptions of Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890), the premier Benthamite utilitarian reformer. We focus on and analyze Chadwicks economic diagnosis of the London funeral market in the first half of the nineteenth century. In his view, externalities and market failure in both the burial and funeral service markets demanded socialization of property rights and implementation of a franchise bidding scheme. Chadwicks rationales for government intervention, including high taxes and information costs—unique, we believe, for his time—provide the basis for numerous forms of contemporary regulations at all levels in the United States today.     

Banking lessons from the past: The 1938 regulatory Agreement interpreted

We show that the interagency 1938 Uniform Agreement on Bank Supervisory Procedures set the precedent for dynamically varying supervisory standards to conform to national macroeconomic policies and political agendas. Our evidence indicates that the conferences leading to the Agreement were motivated and dominated by the Federal Reserve. Contrary to the goals of the other banking agencies, the Fed sought greater leniency in bank examination in order to stimulate bank credit creation. This precedent for softening examination standards was paralleled in 1991–1992 when the administration and regulatory agencies attempted to offset a proclaimed credit crunch by subordinating bank examinations to the perceived need for more bank credit. The implied risk of trading off bank safety for short-lived economic policies merits more open national debate.Our earlier work on this topic was partially supported by the National Center on Financial Studies, University of California, Berkeley.     

Limited paternalism and the salesperson: A reconsideration

Any paternalistic obligation a salesperson might have toward a client isnot, as was previously argued, determined or grounded in his/her being in a position of superior knowledge. Rather, the obligation stems first and most basically from the principle of non-maleficence. Beyond that, however, the particulars of any such obligation: who is vulnerable to being harmed, the harm(s) that might occur and even the kinds of actions that can reasonably be taken to protect a client from such harm, all flow from the fact that the salesperson-client relationship is fundamentally one of dependency and trust.Various reasons are given to support this view and to indicate both the comprehensiveness and the fruitfulness of this way of perceiving the sales situation. In particular, the argument rules out of consideration what would, on analysis, be self-defeating or contradictory behavior on the part of the client and it helps explain why a salesperson is not obligated to certain behaviors.George Brockway combines two quite distinct tracks in his background: the academic and business. On the academic side, he has a Ph.D. in Philosophy as well as two masters degrees. His emphasis within Philosophy was in applied ethics. Subsequent to earning his degree, Dr. Brockway held teaching positions at both the University of Richmond and the University of Wisconsin. More recently, Dr. Brockway was the co-owner and operating manager of a medium sized financial consulting firm in the U.S., where the emphasis was on planning for individual client goals, investment analysis and implementation. Currently, Dr. Brockway is on sabbatical in Europe, taking the time to reflect back on and combine these two tracks by teaching and writing in the area of business ethics. Prior publications include articles inThe Hastings Center Report and theFinancial Planning Magazine. Dr. Brockway was recently quoted inNewsweek Magazine on an area of investment analysis.     

Determining the scope and impact of market orientation profiles on strategy implementation and performance

Strategy implementation and performance in organizations are influenced by its market orientation. Market orientation is the collective of employee behaviors that affects strategy implementation, how an organization interacts with its environment and adjusts to changes within that context. The relationship between market orientation, strategy implementation, and performance is robust across environmental contexts. This study identifies ideal behavioral profiles for organizations seeking to maximize performance by considering the scope and impact of market orientation on strategy implementation. This is accomplished by considering market orientation and strategy profiles in relation to performance in a holistic coalignment perspective, corresponding to competitive contexts characterized by varying degrees of market turbulence and competitive intensity. Important strategic and performance implications of this dynamic are revealed that should be considered by academics and practitioners alike. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The potential benefits of herbicide-resistant transgenic rice in Uruguay: Lessons for small developing countries

In many developing countries, the potential benefits from adopting a transgenic variety developed by a multinational corporation are limited by the crop’s small production base. This paper presents an ex-ante evaluation of the economic impact of herbicide resistant transgenic rice in a small developing country, Uruguay. To fully account for the multinational’s market power, the firm’s seed markup is assumed to affect the adoption rate for the variety. Stochastic simulation techniques are employed to understand how potential benefits may vary with changes in technology, yield, costs, and adoption parameters. The results indicate a $1.82 million mean net present value for producers from the development and utilization of transgenic rice in Uruguay and $0.55 million for the multinational. These relatively small multinational firm benefits suggest that a firm will not undertake significant efforts to develop transgenic varieties adapted to local conditions without either strategic partnerships with local institutions or access to wider regional markets.     

A comparative analysis of perception of dividends by financial managers

This paper is a report about the perception of dividends by Chief financial officers (CFOs). The research encompasses five countries, on three continents, and covers three types of economies. Our cross-sectional study is concerned with both inter- and intra-societal differences that may or may not exist regarding the perception of dividends by those who are in charge of making such decisions in the firm. Using a survey instrument, we find that both similarities and dissimilarities exist inter- and intra-culturally. Perhaps the most important conclusion we reach is that dividend research must take a different track than it has been following so far.     

Two Views of Accounting Measurement

The two views to be addressed here are the Chambers/Sydney view that accepts only one measurement method—current net realizable price—and the Staubus/mainstream view that accepts several measurement methods in the same financial report. These two views became well-established in the literature of accounting in the 1960s and their proponents have clung tenaciously to their oft-criticized positions for some forty years. However commendable their original expositions may have been, their continuing existence does no credit to the small coterie of accountants now interested in theory.
This article is aimed at 'narrowing the areas of difference' between adherents to the two views by isolating fundamental bases for them and exposing the reasoning supporting their structures. In a nutshell, they differ in their objectives and they can be expected to survive unless their adherents agree on the objectives of financial reporting.     

The Load Model: an alternative to QALY

Background: QALYs are widely used in health economic evaluation, but remain controversial, largely because they do not reflect how many people behave in practice. This paper presents a new conceptual model (Load Model) and illustrates it in comparison with the QALY model.

Methods: Load is the average annual weight attributed to morbidity and mortality over a defined period, using weightings based on preference judgements. Morbidity Load is attributed to states of illness, according to their perceived severity. When people are in full health, Load is zero (no morbidity). Death is treated as an event with negative consequences, incurred in the year following death. Deaths may be weighted equally, with a fixed negative weight such as ?100, or differ according to the context of death. After death, Load is zero. In a worked example, we use the standard gamble method to obtain a weighting for an illness state, for both Load and QALY models. A judge is indifferent between certainty of 1.5 years’ illness followed by death, or a 50/50 chance of 1.5 years’ full health or 1-year illness, each followed by death. The weightings calculated are applied to a hypothetical life, 72 years in full health followed by 3 years with illness then death, using both models. Three other hypothetical outcomes are also compared.

Results: For an example life, the relative size of the morbidity component compared with the mortality component is much higher in the Load model than in the QALY model. When comparing alternative outcomes, there are also substantial differences between the two models.

Conclusions: In the Load model the weight of morbidity, relative to mortality, is very different from that in the QALY model. Given the role of the QALYs in economic evaluation, the implications of an alternative, which generates very different results, warrant further exploration.