DOMINANCE TESTING OF TRANSFERS IN ROMANIA

In this paper we compare the progressivity of different government transfers made to households in Romania. We use distribution free standard errors to examine the difference between concentration curves that may be correlated, and thereafter employ statistical tests that take into account the covariance matrix for the ordinate estimates. In addition, we estimate extended Gini coefficients for the same transfers to check their consistency with the tests of inequality dominance. The results show that almost all transfer payments in Romania are progressive, and that they have an important effect on the distribution of income. Rankings among different transfer payments are, however, not robust. In particular, sensitivity analysis using different household equivalence scales indicates that many results are not consistent across scales, and that lower size elasticities contribute to changes in ranking of Ginis and loss of statistical significance in dominance tests.     

Tax Incidence in Madagascar: An Analysis Using Household Data

This article discusses tax incidence in Madagascar and askswho pays the taxes that finance government spending. Its mainconcern is to identify the progressivity of different taxeslevied in Madagascar, based on the consumption and income patternsfound in the 1994 Enquête Permanente auprès desMénages, a nationally representative survey. The resultssuggest that most taxes are progressive, meaning that wealthyhouseholds pay proportionately more of these taxes relativeto their expenditures than do poor households. Two notable exceptionsare taxes on kerosene and export duties on vanilla, both ofwhich are regressive. These results are consistent with thoseof a study of Ghana, the only other comparable research on taxincidence in Africa. That study found taxes on kerosene andcocoa exports to be the most regressive taxes in Ghana. Making firm policy recommendations for tax reform would requirean analysis of the economic efficiency and administrative efficacyof different taxes to complement this article's work on theirequity implications. Nevertheless, the results suggest thatthe movement away from trade taxes, especially export duties,and toward broadly based value added or income taxes would bemore equitable and more economically efficient. The only legitimateimpediment to such reforms in Madagascar is administrative,that is, the government's ability to collect different taxeseffectively. Although administrative efficiency may be a problemfor value added or income taxes, taxes on petroleum products(except kerosene) are highly progressive and provide a goodtax handle.     

Strategic restructuring

Never before has there been so much organizational restructuring, in spite of consistently mixed results. This article argues that the reason organizational restructuring so often fails to increase productivity and profit is that it is not guided by business strategy. While most managers agree that structure should follow strategy, few have a process for moving from strategy to restructuring at the business level where most restructuring occurs. A number of businesses, however, have based restructuring decisions on a clear and well-understood strategy. This article describes what is common to the processes these businesses have followed. Human resource managers, whose role and competence should include the alignment of change processes with business needs, have often abdicated responsibility for ensuring that restructuring efforts are strategic and are competently implemented. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The Demand for Health Care Services in Rural Tanzania

This paper examines the pattern of health care demand in rural Tanzania. We distinguish between hospital and clinic‐based care, in both the public and private sector using a two‐level nested multinomial logit model. Own price elasticities of demand for all health care options are high, although less so for public clinics and dispensaries than other choices. However, there is a high degree of substitution between public and private care. Consequently, price increases or user fees will result in small percentage of people opting for self‐treatment. Another important contribution of this paper is that the quality of medical care has large effects on health demand. This applies to the quality and availability of doctors/nurses, drugs and the clinic environment.     

The State of the HR Profession

We want to create a new narrative about the human resource (HR) profession. HR professionals have often been plagued with self‐doubts, repeatedly re‐exploring HR's role, value, and competencies. If HR is to fully (and finally) become a profession, these self‐doubts need to be replaced with informed insights. These informed insights should be based more on global data than personal perceptions so that the emerging narrative for the HR profession has both substance and meaning.     

The twenty‐first‐century HR organization

Like any value‐creating staff function, HR departments should operate as a business within a business. Others have focused on the strategy and direction of HR departments. This article examines the next evolution for how HR department organization structure can deliver value based on two premises: (1) HR organization should be structurally aligned with the organization structure of the business and (2) because diversified/allied business models prevail, it is important to lay out the five roles and responsibilities of HR that respond to this organization model: service centers, corporate, centers of expertise, embedded HR, and operational HR. The article lays out the duties of each role, the relationship among these roles, and suggestions for implementing this new HR structure. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.