Health screening strategies for international air travelers during an epidemic or pandemic

Air travelers can carry an infectious disease's pathogenic microorganism in their bodies and spread the disease from one country to another in a few days. To delay the spread, health screening stations may be set up at airport terminals to screen travelers. This research tested three different health screening strategies, each with a different combination of screening stations at trip origins, destinations and connecting airports. Discrete event simulations were performed, based on the 2014 to 2016 Ebola virus epidemic, with special focus on travelers from the West African countries traveling to the United States, including travelers who transferred flights at airports in European Union member states. The effectiveness of the screening strategies was analyzed in terms of correct detection, missed detection and false alarm rate. The results showed that exit screening at trip origins brought big improvements in the performance measurements compared to no screening. However, additional screening at the destinations and connecting airports contributed marginal benefits.     

Drug testing and the law

This article examines judicial and administrative rulings and legislation involving or related to the issue of drug testing in the workplace. It discusses the rights of employees in the public and private sector: constitutional rights; federal, state, and local statutory rights; rights of unionized employees; and common law rights. It analyzes both the current state of the law and future directions the law may take, as courts and administrative agencies decide more cases and governmental bodies continue to pass drug testing legislation.     

农村税费改革试点的进展、难点与政策思考——来自洪山农村税费改革一线的调查报告

农村税费改革是减轻农民负担、进一步保护和解放农村生产力、密切党群和干群关系的重大举措。目前,随州市洪山镇的农村税费改革工作已进行了三年。本文拟以洪山镇黄龙寺、火焰套等十余个行政村的调查为基础,介绍试点工作的进展和难点,并就如何完善农村税费改革作了一些初步探讨。     

Conditions for Asymmetric Information Solutions when Alliances Provide Acquisition Options and Due Diligence

One main problem with both acquisitions and alliances is separating the attractive partners from the rest. An additional problem with alliances is getting each partner to provide its best assets and efforts. One solution offered for the acquisition adverse selection problem is due diligence through a pre-acquisition alliance; however, none of the papers recommending such an approach analyze the alliance adverse selection and moral hazard problems. This paper presents the first formal model of joint venturing as acquisition due diligence, detailing how the joint solution works and under what conditions.revised version received October 20, 2003     

论风险投资中的尽职调查

通过对20多位风险投资家的调研,对他们尽职调查所必备的条件、策略及过程进行了系统分析,总结出其内在规律,以期对我国风险投资项目的筛选有所启示.     

正当怀疑和应有关注理念在审计师非审计服务中的运用

正当怀疑和应有关注是审计师在执业过程中应始终坚持的重要理念。随着非审计服务的不断拓展，强调正当怀疑和应有关注理念，无论对于保证审计师非审计服务的执业质量，还是维护审计师审慎的职业形象，都具有重大意义。审计师应在提供非审计服务时始终保持正当怀疑和应有关注理念，并将其灵活地运用于具体实务。     

Risk Awareness of Interpersonal Trust and Entrepreneurship in China: Evidence from Survey Data

This paper aims to build a theoretical framework for the influence of risk awareness of interpersonal trust (RAIT) on entrepreneurship, and explores the influence of RAIT on entrepreneurship with the micro survey data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2010–2013. The study found that, individuals with higher level of RAIT, their probability of starting new business will increase significantly, and with every increase of RAIT level, the probability of business venturing increase almost 4.0%. No mediation effects of information screening and cooperative mechanism are found in the relationship between RAIT and entrepreneurship. Moreover, during the venturing process, risks accompanying interpersonal trust cannot be reduced by social input; the reduction occurs only in eastern China where the economic system and the industrial development standards are more comprehensive and mature. This paper contributes to the literatures in the following two areas: it provides new evidence on how to deal with risks in the entrepreneurship process that accompanying interpersonal trust; meanwhile, it provides an explanatory mechanism on how the risk awareness affects business venturing.     

Brighter prospects? Assessing the franchise advantage using census data

This paper uses Census microdata to examine how starting a business as a franchise rather than an independent business affects its survival and growth prospects. We assess factors that influence the decision to become a franchisee and use various empirical approaches to correct for selection bias in our performance analyses. We find that franchised businesses on average exhibit higher survival rates than independent businesses; but importantly, the difference is small compared with claims in the trade press. The effect is also short lived: conditional on surviving a year or two, we no longer find survival (or growth) differences. We then explore two potential sources for this small survival advantage, namely franchisors’ screening process and the benefits arising from the brand and business know‐how provided by franchisors. We find evidence that both of the sources contribute to the franchising advantage.     

Job protection,housing market regulation,and the youth

Young Europeans experience high unemployment rates, job instability, and late emancipation. Meanwhile, they do not support reforms weakening protection on long‐term contracts. In this paper, we suggest a possible rationale for such reform distaste. When the rental market is strongly regulated, landlords screen applicants with regard to their ability to pay the rent. Protecting regular jobs offers a second‐best technology to sort workers, thereby increasing the rental market size. We provide a model where nonemployed workers demand protected jobs despite unemployment and the share of short‐term jobs increases, whereas the individual risk of dismissal is unaffected. Our theory can be extended to alternative risks and markets involving correlated risks and commitment under imperfect information.     

The determinants of employers’ use of temporary contracts in the frictional labor market

This paper focuses on the following two primary reasons that employers use temporary contracts: to flexibly adjust employment and to screen workers. A search-matching framework is used to not only address employers’ endogenous choices in using temporary contracts, but also numerically identify the situations in which these contracts are likely to be used as a screening tool for permanent positions. This numerical exercise demonstrates that reducing employment protections in permanent jobs, reducing benefits for unemployed workers and raising the conversion probability from temporary to permanent employment will increase the relative proportion of employers who use temporary contracts as a screening device.