Food Aid Disincentives: the Tunisian Experience

An econometric model is used to assess the short‐term (impact), interim, and cumulative effects of food aid on the economy of Tunisia for the period 1960–92. Food aid displaced neither domestic production nor commercial imports of food grains. Rather, food aid provided incentives to promote growth through its income and policy effects. Food aid provided increased public revenue that enabled the government to take an active role in domestic pricing, preventing disincentive prices and promoting domestic production. The results indicate a positive role for food aid when disincentive effects are managed through public policies.     

Accounting for Spatial Effects in Economic Models of Land Use: Recent Developments and Challenges Ahead

The marked increase in the availability of spatial data has forced researchers engaged in land use modeling to directly confront the question of space and the theoretical and methodological challenges involved in developing spatial models. Advances have come from multiple disciplines, most notably through the development and application of spatial theory and methods from regional science, geography, urban economics and more recently, theoretical and applied econometrics. The main goal of this paper is to summarize the econometric challenges of spatial data and to highlight spatial models and methods with a particular focus on models of land markets and land use change. We also discuss the data and modeling challenges associated with modeling the underlying spatial economic mechanisms that give rise to land use patterns and the complexities involved in modeling land use as a coupled economic-ecological system.     

Lining Up for Star-Wars Tickets: Some Ruminations On Ethics and Economics Based on An Internet Study of Behavior in Queues

Queues may represent business ethics in microcosm: they provide an opportunity to study in a smaller package the fundamental ethical tension in economic activity between self-interest and civility in the context of uncertainty and stress. In May 1999 people began forming lines to purchase tickets to the new Star Wars movie "The Phantom Menace." This paper reviews responses to a questionnaire on the internet regarding experiences in those lines. It focuses on two behaviors threatening queue discipline – the formation of cooperative groups and "pre-scalping." It concludes that although queues are complex phenomena, exhibiting important ethical, economic, social, and psychological elements, the general organizing principle of "first-come-first-served" still provides the foundation for queues while at the same time making room for a variety of legitimate modifications. Second, this paper concludes that, as with queues, the thought that self-interest is the exclusive guiding principle for business behavior is likewise too narrow, inducing participants to neglect opportunities for personal enrichment and satisfaction.     

Research Applications of the Multifamily Housing Institute's Apartment Database

Data on the financial performance of multifamily rental housing has not been available nearly as long as such information for single-family housing. It is believed that this lack of information has increased the cost of debt and equity capital to apartment housing and thus has increased the rents paid by apartment residents. Data on apartments, which is now becoming available through an industry-sponsored initiative, has the potential of narrowing this information gap. This article has several objectives: to describe this new database, AptData^TM, to housing researchers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of AptData^TM for housing market and policy research, to compare estimates from AptData^TM with those from other sources, and to offer several potential research applications of this new data resource.     

Removing the contextual lens: A multinational, multi-setting comparison of service evaluation models

Four service evaluation models are identified from the literature that are commonly offered to depict the relationships amongst the primary service evaluation constructs of sacrifice, service quality, service value, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions. We comparatively test the models using samples of service consumers in Australia, Hong Kong, Morocco, the Netherlands, and the United States, as well as across varied temporal and service settings. The results of the comparative analyses reveal that one conceptualization, the “comprehensive” model, best captures the identified relationships. This model is the best fitting across all countries and settings, which indicates it has the greatest external validity. These findings are discussed relative to the limitations associated with the use of less generalizable models.     

The Internet, Economic Growth and Governance

The Internet developed largely as a 'spontaneous order' without central co-ordination. Further development will increase the mobility of capital and labour and make tax collection more difficult. Attempts at self-regulation and government regulation are now under way but meddling is likely to be 'wealth destructive and counter productive.'     

A fast method for analysing and improving complex software processes

This paper presents a simple, fast method (or management tool) for the analysis and improvement of software-intensive complex products and systems (CoPS) called software analysis-software improvement (SA-SI). The tool relies on outside intervention, rapid data collection and structured in-company workshops. The distinctive feature of the method is that it focuses on the 'soft', human side of the software development process and examines and compares formal (or rational) processes ('what should be') with real, actual practices ('what is'), in order to identify problems, their causes and strategies for improvement. The tool complements existing formal approaches by delivering a 'bottom up', grass roots, practitioner view of real processes in action. The purpose of SA-SI is to help overcome the severe problems of measuring, analysing and improving performance in large scale, complex software projects. An illustrative case example (Company X) is used to show how the tool is applied and how it confronts the problem of actual/real processes differing from ideal/formal processes. It also shows how SA-SI is used to identify process 'hot spots'(severe problems), analyse their causes and identify solutions. The paper provides guidance on typical problems encountered in running SA-SI and how to overcome them. It also shows how the tool has been modified and extended to deal with other complex domains and innovation management issues. Although SA-SI cannot be a substitute for a change programme, it can play a useful part in complementing ongoing improvement activities. From a research perspective, the method helps link up studies from the organisational development and software fields and assists in 'closing the loop' between innovation research and business practice.