Local compensation payments for agri-environmental externalities: a panel data analysis of bargaining outcomes

We analyse local compensation payments made to farmers for providinglandscape amenities in Alpine tourist communities. These paymentsresult from political bargaining at the municipal level. Paneldata estimation shows that the probability of introducing compensationpayments depends positively on the benefits of landscape amenities.Although no impact of service provision cost is found, transactioncosts at different levels of the bargaining process reduce theprobability of payments. Compensation payments mainly occurin communities where the provision of agricultural landscapeservices is perceived as relatively low and the diversity ofthe countryside seems to be endangered. We argue that municipalcompensation payments are an important supplement to nationaland European Union policy measures in support of less-favouredareas.     

The Great Inflation and the Greenbook

Can the story of evolving Federal Reserve beliefs in The Conquest of American Inflation simultaneously explain the Great Inflation and the forecasts published in the Greenbook during that time? If Sargent is correct then evolving beliefs should be reflected not only in policy outcomes but also in Greenbook forecasts. In this paper they are. By conditioning on the Greenbook, it is show that both inflation outcomes and Greenbook forecasts can be rationalised by evolving beliefs. The results improve on recent empirical evidence that has been criticised for relying on unrealistic beliefs that produce forecasts inconsistent with the Greenbook.     

The geometry of optimal taxation: a primal approach

We characterize zero tax results geometrically as a condition on indifference curves and the implementability constraint. The condition can also be expressed as a generalized homotheticity condition on the utility function and also extends older results on uniform taxation that use the duality approach. Many zero taxation results in dynamic macroeconomics can be derived from our characterization; thus it provides a unified framework for a systematic study of these phenomena. Our geometric method also allows to study the sign of deviations from zero tax results in more complicated frameworks such as taxation without commitment.      

The shaky legal foundations of European monetary union

A paper currency is underpinned by the power of a state to define and control the issue of legal tender. In legal theory, EMU will centralise this power. But in practice, the legal structure might not be strong enough to enforce currency issue rules against a member state in conditions of crisis. Instability could result if investors move euro balances out of a state's banking system to avoid perceived risk.     

Maintaining Leadership Legitimacy in the Transition to New Organizational Forms

Numerous new organizational forms have been proposed for ensuring the continuous strategic renewal of a firm. In essence, these forms are distinguished by: (1) their emphasis on bottom-up entrepreneurship, and (2) their reliance on a co-operative network that allows these entrepreneurial units to share their competencies with one another. One of the key behaviours required for the success of such an organization is employee empowerment. We argue in this paper that the legitimacy of corporate leadership during the restructuring of a traditional bureaucratic organization is crucial to its eventual transformation to one of the new organizational forms. The current wisdom of a two-stage transformation process, where an authoritarian restructuring precedes the more participative revitalization, is thus challenged. The transformation may get stalled after the restructuring stage because of top management’s inability to empower the firm’s employees at will, having lost their trust during restructuring     

On a computer-aided systems approach to personnel administration

A systematic evaluation methodology has been developed which integrates some major concepts from value, utility, decision, subjective probability theories and the Delphi method for obtaining a consensus of opinions. These theories are applied to the process of evaluation of personnel for recruitment, promotions, merit raises, transfer, salary administration, training and development. The model requires and utilizes as inputs explicitly stated sets of long-range goals, short-range objectives, resource needs, evaluative criteria, weighting and utility functions, as well as the subjective judgments of appropriate evaluators. The processing of this information may be implemented by manual calculations, batch processing on an IBM 1620 computer, or by direct simulation on a large time-sharing computer system. By utilizing standard statistical procedures and the decision rule to maximize expected utility, the methodology produces the type of output information required for rational decision making.     

Contracting for Health Services with Unmonitored Quality

In both the NHS and Medicare, recent emphasis has been on contracts with payment based only on the number of patients treated. It is shown that, without direct monitoring of quality or effort to reduce costs, such contracts are efficient only when it is efficient to treat all patients wanting treatment. It may not be when treatment costs are insured or subsidised. Such contracts can then be improved by including payments for the number of patients wanting treatment, as well as for the number actually treated. Even then, the outcome will not generally be efficient if quality is multi-dimensional.