Authentication as Institutional Maintenance Work

Institutional maintenance work refers to actors’ deliberate effort to maintain an institution. This paper examines how actors use authentication, i.e., the relational constitution of an artefact as original or as a genuine expression of a particular type, style or person, to accomplish institutional maintenance work. We investigated contemporary adjustments to six listed buildings. These works were undertaken to keep these buildings functional while at the same time protecting their listing; by doing so they contributed to maintain the institution of Architectural Heritage. Our analysis identifies three forms of authentication: material consolidation, crafts mobilization and character enhancement. We elaborate on each of them and explain their institutional underpinnings and outcomes. The paper concludes with an articulation of authentication as a potent form of institutional maintenance work. Taking its starting point in materiality, authentication is a relational practice that helps maintain institutions relying on irreplaceable artefacts for their maintenance.     

The Performance of Service Industries in Canada: A Real Value Analysis

The performance of service industries in Canada has been lower than that of good industries over the last four decades, with noticeable exceptions such as for railways and telecommunication carriers. Service industries were less economically (and technically) efficient in that they generated less output value (quantity) per hour worked (level and growth) or per combined unit of labour and capital (multifactor productivity growth) than good industries. The relative output price of services declined slightly over time compared with goods. At the disaggregated level, changing relative output prices were substantial and proved to be an important factor explaining the relative satisfactory economic performance of many service industries despite their low technical performance. Nevertheless, the output share of service industries increased over that period, sustained, mainly, by the growing recourse of all firms to outsourcing of services.     

Capacity Commitment versus Flexibility

We show how technological flexibility choices and equilibrium configurations (both simultaneous and sequential duopoly) depend on six industry characteristics. Low market volatility combined with intermediate market size favors inflexible technologies; large values of either volatility or size favor flexible technologies; low or intermediate values of both favor the coexistence of flexible and inflexible technologies. The possibility of a flexibility trap exists in industries of low volatility and intermediate size. Entry prevention can sometimes be achieved by inflexible technologies or flexible technologies, depending on the industry characteristics.     

The Flemish customer contact centre for public information from a marketing and management perspective

This paper describes the Flemish customer contact centre for government information (‘the Flemish Infoline’) as an example of marketing in the public sector. First it defines the term ‘customer contact centre’ and describes the objectives and main characteristics of the Flemish Infoline. It then identifies the three reasons for setting up the Flemish Infoline in 1999: the complicated Belgian institutional landscape; the unprofessional telephone traffic handling and service; and the lack of knowledge about citizens' information needs. Finally, the paper applies Kotler's 4 Ps concept to the case, and puts the relevant stages from Lees‐Marsh‐ment's political marketing orientations into one integrated scheme in order to understand the functioning of the Flemish Infoline. Based on the literature and on an in‐depth interview with the project head of the Flemish Infoline, the authors demonstrate that marketing techniques can be used in contact centres for public information, but they also illustrate some important differences from those in the forprofit sector, such as the available amount of customers' personal data, the level of call operators' skills and the degree of heterogeneity of the questions. Further research on information needs and contact centres, and providing one ‘umbrella’ contact centre for government information in Belgium are recommended. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Predictive validity of ethnic identification measures: An illustration of the English/French classification dilemma in Canada

To establish the predictive validity of ethnic identification measures, respondents in the Montreal Urban Community were surveyed and measured on a variety of ethnic dimensions. The data was then fed to a clustering algorithm. Two-group clustering assignments were then compared to traditional taxonomic measures. It is shown that some measures do an excellent job in classifying respondents, while others, which are commonly used in practice, do not fare as well.     

The Impact of the 9/11 Events on the American and French Stock Markets

Markets reacted strongly to the World Trade Center attacks both in Europe and in the United States. The extent of this crisis was difficult to assess at the time, underlining the need for a specific tool to measure the magnitude of financial crises. A first measure was recently proposed and applied to the foreign exchange market by Zumbach et al. (2000a,b ). Their measure relies on an analogy with geophysics; the related index of market shocks (IMS) that we propose here is also the counterpart of the Richter scale used for earthquakes. We apply this measure on the French and the American stock markets to put large market events into perspective. The crisis triggered by the September attacks was actually the worst since 1987, and the ninth worst when compared to major historical ones.     

Prudence, Demand Uncertainty, Background Risk, and the Law of Supply: A Nonexpected Utility Approach to the Firm

We identify two motives, prudence and risk aversion, which give rise to precautionary behavior for a quantity- or price-setting monopolist facing demand uncertainty who has dual theoretic preferences. We also analyze a piecewise linear profit function due to a tax on profits that varies with the profit level. We show that the comparative statics of greater risk (mean-preserving spread and mean-utility preserving spread) can be totally or partially determined by the Diamond-Stiglitz and Kihlstrom-Mirman single-crossing property. For example, for a prudent risk-averse quantity-setting dual theoretic monopolist, a mean-preserving spread will have the same impact on output under uncertainty as a fall in the state of demand under certainty. Finally, we find that, in contrast to expected utility, a stochastically larger state of demand (first-order stochastic dominance) will raise output even if background risk is present.     

International health law and consumer autonomy

Today, international health law and international consumer law are developing in the same direction and with much interaction. But the developments are not uniform. As international health law takes consumer protection into account, it tends to increase the gap between a Western international law and a Third World international law, and to emphasize the negative harmonization approach towards international health protection.Another problem concerns the unification of the rules of international health law and those of international consumer law. This problem is particularly difficult to solve, as the rules of international consumer law themselves are still far from being unified.

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Internationales Gesundheitsrecht und Verbraucherautonomie

Zusammenfassung Internationales Gesundheitsrecht und internationales Verbraucherrecht entwickeln sich heute in gleicher Richtung, obwohl sie anderen Quellen entspringen. Die wechselseitige Durchdringung nimmt zu, auch wenn die Enwicklung nicht einheitlich vor sich geht. Je mehr das internationale Gesundheitsrecht den Verbraucherschutz in sich aufnimmt, destomehr trennt es sich in ein Recht für entwickelte Staaten und ein solches für Dritte Welt-Länder. Ein vorwiegend negativ-abwehrender Zugang herrscht vor.Ein anderes Problem beinhaltet die Harmonisierung der Regeln des internationalen Gesundheits- und des internationalen Verbraucherrechts. Dies ist schon deshalb schwer erreichbar, weil das Verbraucherrecht selbst nicht einheitlich vorgeht. Die Probleme verschärfen sich, wenn man — ohne eine internationale Verbraucherinstitution wie die WHO — eine gemeinsame positive Gesundheitspolitik für Verbraucher erreichen will.

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Michel Bélanger teaches health law at the U.F.R. de Droit Public et Science Politique, Université de Bordeaux I, Avenue Léon Duguit, F 33604 Pessac, France.     

Lower Bound Restrictions on Intensities in Data Envelopment Analysis

We propose an extension to the basic DEA models that guarantees that if an intensity is positive then it must be at least as large as a pre-defined lower bound. This requirement adds an integer programming constraint known within Operations Research as a Fixed-Charge (FC) type of constraint. Accordingly, we term the new model DEA_FC. The proposed model lies between the DEA models that allow units to be scaled arbitrarily low, and the Free Disposal Hull model that allows no scaling. We analyze 18 datasets from the literature to demonstrate that sufficiently low intensities—those for which the scaled Decision-Making Unit (DMU) has inputs and outputs that lie below the minimum values observed—are pervasive, and that the new model ensures fairer comparisons without sacrificing the required discriminating power. We explain why the low-intensity phenomenon exists. In sharp contrast to standard DEA models we demonstrate via examples that an inefficient DMU may play a pivotal role in determining the technology. We also propose a goal programming model that determines how deviations from the lower bounds affect efficiency, which we term the trade-off between the deviation gap and the efficiency gap.