Managing health authorities: One member's view

The Government have devoted a lot of energy to improving the quality of management in the Civil Service. Most of this effort has gone on internal management, leaving relatively untouched the management of Departmental and broader government programmes and of outside organisations such as the national health service ‐ with all its regions, districts, family practitioner committees, and medical practitioners. One reason for this imbalance may be that, as successive National Audit Office reports have shown, management in the broader sense is actually rather difficult.     

Effectiveness and Efficiency in Privatization Advertising

The privatization of a number of British nationalized industries during the 1980s involved the use of substantial marketing and, in particular, advertising expenditure. When the same or similar activities are repeated, some experience or learning curve effect can be expected, such that the relative efficiency of performing that activity rises. From an examination of the objectives for and the process of privatization, a learning curve effect might be expected that would result in a progressive lowering of privatization marketing and advertising costs.

The data on privatization from 1981 to 1989 shows the expected learning curve effect for total marketing cost, the total cost reducing over subsequent privatizations. However, the relative cost of advertising first rose and then failed to fall, even when the objectives for privatization changed from widening share ownership to deepening it. The expected learning curve is not then observable, leading to the conclusion that inefficiency existed in the advertising of privatizations, particularly in the late 1980s, and that considerable sums could have been saved if a different strategy had been followed.     

Too Far Away, Too High and Too Stable: The EEC and Trade with Australia During the 1960s

The EEC of the 1960s had little reason to prioritize trade with Australia: trade flows were too small and political ties between Australia and continental Europe too weak. That trade with Australia did become an issue of concern is thus largely due to Britain's 1961 EEC application. The shape of the deal that looked like emerging in 1961–3 was, however, highly ungenerous – a fact which reflected both the nature of Australian exports and a strong European belief that Australia was less 'deserving' than other Commonwealth countries. Australian relief at de Gaulle's veto may, however, have been premature, since early British membership of the Community might well have been in Australia's medium-term commercial interest.     

A Stochastic Frontier Analysis of Output Level and Growth in Poland and Western Economies

This paper uses Bayesian stochastic frontier methods to measure the productivity gap between Poland and Western countries that existed before the beginning of the main Polish economic reform. Using data for 20 Western economies, Poland and Yugoslavia (1980–1990) we estimate a translog stochastic frontier and make inference about individual efficiencies. Following the methodology proposed in our earlier work, we also decompose output growth into technical, efficiency and input changes and examine patterns of growth in the period under consideration. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

全面推行厂务公开促进湘钢和谐发展

湘潭钢铁集团有限公司是国内大型钢铁联合企业、中国南方专业化的精品线棒材和优质宽厚板生产厂家,实施厂务公开已有9年。9年来,湘钢坚持以人为本,依靠职工办企业,把厂务公开作为加强管理、推进改革、提高效益的有效途径,充分利用一切有利条件,调动一切积极因素,确保企业在良性循环轨道上和谐发展。"十五"期     

Benchmark priors for Bayesian model averaging

In contrast to a posterior analysis given a particular sampling model, posterior model probabilities in the context of model uncertainty are typically rather sensitive to the specification of the prior. In particular, ‘diffuse’ priors on model-specific parameters can lead to quite unexpected consequences. Here we focus on the practically relevant situation where we need to entertain a (large) number of sampling models and we have (or wish to use) little or no subjective prior information. We aim at providing an ‘automatic’ or ‘benchmark’ prior structure that can be used in such cases. We focus on the normal linear regression model with uncertainty in the choice of regressors. We propose a partly non-informative prior structure related to a natural conjugate g-prior specification, where the amount of subjective information requested from the user is limited to the choice of a single scalar hyperparameter g_0j. The consequences of different choices for g_0j are examined. We investigate theoretical properties, such as consistency of the implied Bayesian procedure. Links with classical information criteria are provided. More importantly, we examine the finite sample implications of several choices of g_0j in a simulation study. The use of the MC³ algorithm of Madigan and York (Int. Stat. Rev. 63 (1995) 215), combined with efficient coding in Fortran, makes it feasible to conduct large simulations. In addition to posterior criteria, we shall also compare the predictive performance of different priors. A classic example concerning the economics of crime will also be provided and contrasted with results in the literature. The main findings of the paper will lead us to propose a ‘benchmark’ prior specification in a linear regression context with model uncertainty.     

Rotation Patterns and Trend Estimation for Repeated Surveys Using Rotation Group Estimates

A general approach for constructing filters to produce trend estimates from a repeated survey is described. This approach accounts for the correlation structure induced by the rotation pattern used in the survey. Different filters are developed depending on whether the trend analysis is based on elementary estimates available for each rotation group or overall estimates obtained by combining the rotation group estimates. The properties of trend estimates obtained directly from the elementary estimates, those obtained from the simple average of the rotation group estimates and trend estimates obtained from the best linear unbiased estimates of the population characteristics of interest are compared. These comparisons are done for a number of rotation pattern, enabling an assessment of the impact of the choice of rotation patterns on trend estimation.     

Fish as the “bank in the water” – Evidence from chronic-poor communities in Congo

Small-scale fisheries in developing countries are often perceived as being a low-productivity and backward informal sector. As a result they are rarely considered in poverty reduction programmes and rural development planning. In this paper, we investigate the dual role of fish as a food and cash crop through data collected in river fisheries in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Fishing in this very remote rural region of DRC is operated both by men and women, as part of a household multiple activity livelihood strategy. The data shows that poor households rely heavily on fishing for their supply of protein-rich food, in particular through women’s subsistence catches. Fishing also appears to be the main source of cash-income for the majority of households, including local farmers. Based on these findings and a review of the literature, the paper argues that small-scale fisheries can play a fundamental role in local economies, especially in remote rural areas where they strengthen significantly the livelihoods of people through their role in both food security and cash-income generation.     

积极履行社会责任 推进和谐社会建设

武钢是新中国成立以来投资新建的第一个特大型钢铁联合企业。武钢于1958年建成投产，是我国重要的板材生产基地。经过50年建设发展，武钢已成为年产钢近3000万t的现代化钢铁企业集团，为我国经济社会建设做出了重要贡献。作为中央企业，武钢时刻牢记承担的使命与责任，在加快企业改革发展的同时。积极履行社会职责，为推进社会主义和谐社会建设做出了自己的贡献。