Integration into the South African core economy: household‐level covariates

In this analysis of household survey data, households' main income sources are used as indicators of integration into the South African core economy. The allocation of main income sources is studied as the outcome of households' demographic composition, geographic location and earners' characteristics. The emerging picture of household income generation is one that disputes the common perception of African households as raising their incomes from a multitude of sources. The majority of surveyed households rely to a large extent on a single source of income and a single income earner. Separate multinomial logit models are estimated for urban and non‐urban households where, in addition to the considerable association with non‐urban residence, prominent earner covariates of low‐integration income sources are female gender, old or young working age, and low levels of education. Both provincial location and within‐provincial, subregional locations display strong impacts. The study also finds associations between main income sources and households' demographic compositions that are compatible with findings both in studies on private transfer behaviour and in the growing literature on endogenous household formation in South Africa.     

Research Method and Methodology in Finance and Accounting (2nd edn)

Bob Ryan, Robert W. Scapens and Michael Theobald, London: Thomson, 2002, £21.59, 240pp. ISBN: 186-1528-817     

Index numbers and demand functions

The article proposes a method of approximating the Konüs true cost of living index, given a system of integrable demand functions. It is shown that the approximation is contained within the Staehle bounds so long as the Engle curves satisfy a weak monotonicity condition. The result is likely to be most useful where the demand functions are known-and known (or constrained) to be integrable-but the solution for the form of the direct or indirect utility function is unknown.     

Economies of scale in the US computer industry: An empirical investigation using data envelopment analysis

Up to recently, economists have had no good tools to measure the returns to scale of individual corporations in an industry. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a linear programming technique for determining the efficiency frontier (the envelope) to the inputs and outputs of a collection of individual corporations or other productive units. While DEA offers an avenue for calculating the returns to scale of individual corporations, the approach has been riddled by mathematical complications arising from the possibility of alternate optima. The present paper develops theory for calculating the entire range of these alternate optima. Furthermore, in a quite ambitions empirical application, DEA is employed to determine the time path of returns to scale of all publicly held U.S. computer companies over the time period 1980–1991. For the great majority of companies, a unique time path is obtained; only in less than 4 percent of the linear programming calculations is an entire range of alternate optima obtained. The results indicate that the computer industry was polarized into two camps: large aging corporations with decreasing returns to scale, and swarms of small upstart companies with advanced technology exhibiting increasing returns to scale.     

Budgetary behaviour in local government — A case study over 3 years

A case study of budgetary behaviour over three years revealed behaviour characterised by a confrontation between central and local actors during the first years of stagnating income. During the following year, this confrontation changed into disillusionment with the “unrealistic” expenditure limits. The general level of inflation also contributed to a refusal by the actors to take responsibility for the budget. In the final year mistrust of the whole budgeting procedure changed the focus of attention to a reorganization of the budgeting procedure. Budgeting was again fairly undramatic, but the procedural change did nothing to solve the underlying financial problems which the actors were in the process of discovering when the case study ended. Although Wildavsky's (1975) framework was found useful in explaining the observed behaviour, the context of the budgetary process was also found to be of critical importance.     

De skandinaviske Aktuarforeningers Virksomhed i 1939

Abstract

Der er afholdt 7 Møder. 11. Januar. Generalforsamling. Aktuar W. Simonsen valgtes til Sekretær og Aktuar F. Howitz og Fuldmægtig H. P. Rasmussen til Medlemmer af Bestyrelsen.     

Is rising RTS a figment of poor data?

While using detailed firm-level data from the private business sector, this study identifies two empirical puzzles: (i) returns-to-scale (RTS) parameter estimates rise at higher levels of data aggregation and (ii) estimates from the firm level suggest decreasing returns to scale. The analysis shows that, although consistent with rising estimates, neither entry/exit nor the Basu-Fernald [Returns to scale in U.S. production: estimates and implications. Journal of Political Economy 105, 249-283) aggregation-bias effect drives this result. Rather, rising and too low RTS estimates seem to reflect a mixture of random errors in factor inputs at the firm level. It turns out, in fact, that a 7.5-10 percent error in labor (hours worked) can explain both puzzles.     

Chance-constrained data envelopment analysis

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is extended to the case of stochastic inputs and outputs through the use of chance-constrained programming. The chance-constrained frontier envelops a given set of observations ‘most of the time’. As an empirical illustration, we re-examine the pioneering 1981 study of Program Follow Through by Charnes, Cooper and Rhodes.