Leaving studies because of lack of interest: an analysis of the risk factors of school dropouts in Pakistan

Quality & Quantity - Among all the students dropping out of school for different reasons in Pakistan in 2017, nearly 23% of the students dropped out because they were not...     

The use of simulation in system design: A case study using the precision location strike system

The purpose of the article is to illustrate the use of computer simulation study and modeling in the design of complex systems. When new systems are designed, decision-makers rely heavily upon judgment, intuition and experience. The method discussed is intended to enhance these executive attributes by providing a vehicle with which the decision-maker may be proactive before implementing the system rather than being solely reactive after implementation.The application of a method known as the “systems science paradigm” is discussed and illustrated using the U.S. Air Force's Precision Location Strike System. The problem was to design a logistical support structure for the Strike System. The three major options proposed were to locate repair and resupply structures at the point of equipment use in Europe, to have a mixed system, or to locate support at a base in the continental United States.The research employed the paradigm suggested to develop an experimental Q-GERT simulation model of the processes and structures envisioned. Data development for abstract systems is illustrated and methods to experiment with alternate structures are developed and discussed. The concept of multiechelon inventory and repair are addressed within the problem's context.A proposed design alternative resulted from application of the process. Methods, other than cost effectiveness, to evaluate the system are also suggested. Implementing the design process for ill-defined systems appears to be an effective method for dealing with such design problems.     

中国电影企业股份制改制现象的探讨

中国电影企业越来越热衷于股份制改制 ,本文从股份制改制所带来的直接利弊 ,股份制改制的本质 ,以及中国电影企业目前的现状和经营管理特点着眼 ,进行深层次的部析和研讨 ,发掘中国电影业发展过程的矛盾和问题 ,明确指出中国电影业进行股份制改制时机尚未成熟 ,并就解决问题的方法提出了个人的观点和见解。     

The emergence of Zipf's Law in a system of cities: An agent-based simulation approach

This paper develops a spatial agent-based model to generate a system of cities that exhibits the statistical properties of the Zipf's Law. The numerical results suggest that the combination of bounded rationality and maximum heterogeneity of agents can produce a generic power-law relationship in the size distribution of cities, but does not always generate the Zipf's Law. We found sufficient conditions on the probability distribution of spatial reach to generate the Zipf's Law associated with unit power coefficient. Our model also indicates that the Zipf's Law breaks down unless the extent of agglomeration economies overwhelms the negative disagglomerating forces.     

Economies of scale for a state system of public school districts

A review of the different variables, school district samples, regression techniques and a priori assumptions utilized in recent studies clearly indicates that no standard model or set of procedures have been developed for the problems of economies of scale within the educational sector. Based on these studies and a brief discussion of the limitations of economies of scale models as a tool in policy planning, we present a generalizable model that can easily be applied to statistics now available in state departments of education to derive valuable new information about the existing cost-size relationships and opportunity costs that exist in a state system of public school districts. A recent application of the model in Oregon that illustrates its generalizability is described. An example of how economies of scale information might be used in policy planning and proposed district consolidations is also outlined.     

地方创新系统构建的必要性及地方政府的作用

在全球化的过程中 ,地区形象超越了国界 ,也跨越了大企业 ,新的国际竞争力主要不是以国家为依据 ,而是以地方竞争来表现。因此 ,需要建立地方创新系统。同时 ,它也是国家创新系统的基础和创新网络的终点。地方政府具有市场经济条件下竞争主体的特征 ,地方政府在地方创新系统中只能扮演着准创新主体的角色 ,应该发挥其积极的作用 ,限制其消极的一面。     

Class and the local state: a reply

If anyone ever made money in Gateshead, they must have taken great care not to spend any of it in the town. And if nobody ever did make money in the town, what is it there for? It cannot be there for fun. Gateshead is not Somebody's Folly. How is it that a town can contain one hundred and twenty five thousand persons and yet look like a sprawling swollen industrial village? The answer is that this is a dormitory for the working class. Perhaps at first they wanted nothing better, and now, by the time that some of them want something a great deal better, there is no money.… Every future historian of modern England should be compelled to take a good long slow walk round Gateshead. After that he can at his leisure fit it into his interpretation of our national growth and development.     

Kornai's soft budget constraint and the shortage phenomenon: A criticism and restatement

Concluding Remarks In this paper we have sought to modify Kornai's analysis of the shortage phenomenon. One point and two modifications are suggested. The point is that firms' budget softness in real terms, while generally probably higher under socialism than capitalism, is always limited enough for any economies still to remain very much productive. One modification is that, in the theory of the shortage phenomenon, the key operational variable is not the degree of budget softness, provided it is not too high as to make the economy unproductive, but a quite different concept of the degree of budget flexibility. Our example of the Leyland-type economy and references to Yugoslav economy were intended to make this proposition evident. In this and any other soft-budget economy the degree of softness is, instead, linked with inefficiency, both static and dynamic. The other modification is that while the household does have a hard budget constraint and the firm has a soft one, sufficiently high prices for consumer goods would nevertheless be able to abolish any consumer goods' shortages.An important topic which has been alluded to, but not discussed in this paper, is Kornai's suggestion that there may operate a trade-off between the rate of unemployment and the degree of goods shortages. This topic is related to a number of issues, one of which is the validity of equating shortage economy with resource-constrained economy. To indicate a potential problem, it may be noted—as Kornai himself does—that an abstract, perfectly competitive economy is free of shortage (as well as of unemployment), and yet it is resource-constrained (as well as demand-constrained). Actual market-based economies are from time to time also resource-constrained, but the point is that the distance to full employment is, in those economies, related to the inflation rate (the Phillips curve) rather than to the incidence of shortage (Kornai's suggestion), especially if the upward price flexibility is high. However, these are matters which may be better left for separate treatment.This paper was written when the author was Visiting Professor at the Department of Economics, the University of Pennsylvania. Its ideas were presented earlier, at seminars at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford. The paper benefited much from detailed critical comments from Wlodzimierz Brus of Wolfson College, Oxford, Philip Hanson of the University of Birmingham, UK, Cezary Jozefiak of Lodz University, Poland, János Kornai, Kazimierz Laski of Linz University, Austria, Herbert Levine of the University of Pennsylvania, and Peter Wiles of the London School of Economics.     

A question of community: at not-for-profit hospitals health is a local affair

For-profit hospitals' entrepreneurial status, big business climate, and adherence to market discipline mandate that their services be considered akin to any other market commodity, to be bought and sold at the highest margin to the largest audience. Investor owned healthcare's primary allegiance must be a reasonable return to its stockholders and as a result it must avoid unprofitable services and unprofitable patients, by displacing their costly burdens onto the rest of the healthcare system.     

Concentration on the nearby contract in financial futures markets: A stochastic model to explain the phenomenon

A stochastic model is developed to explain how the early unwinding propensity of market participants in financial futures markets can lead to a strong concentration of the trading volume on the nearby contract. In this model the position closing behavior of the market participants is captured by three distribution functions. The concentration process works under many realistic specifications of these distribution functions. The authors would like to thank Wolfgang Bühler (University Mannheim) and Michael Brennan (UCLA/Los Angeles) for valuable discussion and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for financial support.     

Violence in European schools: A widespread phenomenon that matters for educational production

Violence at schools is a well-known problem in many societies. This paper assesses the degree of school violence in 11 European countries and analyzes the determinants of being a victim and its effect on student performance. The study draws on the international TIMSS 2003 and the British longitudinal NCDS data. The level of school violence is high in most countries but seems not to increase over time. Besides gender, social and migration background and the appearance of students determine being bullied, hurt or stolen from by fellow students. Being a victim has a significantly negative impact on contemporary and later student performance. In addition, the level of educational attainment is affected while there is no direct link to earnings when controlling for education, non-cognitive skills and appearance.     

A simulation study of smoothing constant limits for an adaptive forecasting system

A set of computer simulation experiments were designed to investigate the use of Winters' forecasting models with the adaptive system of Trigg and Leach for short term forecasting. These two methods are popular and effective methods used for short term forecasting, but no systematic study of their joint usage has been reported. The results provide a set of smoothing constant limits which yielded accurate forecasts for the experimental conditions investigated. The experimental conditions were designed to cover as wide a range of situations as possible to maximize potential usefulness to practitioners.     

Outsourcing,delocalization and firm organization: Transaction costs versus industrial relations in a local production system of Emilia Romagna

This article investigates the firms’ decisions to outsource, taking into account the impact of their embeddedness in a specific regional context on the relative entrepreneurial decision. It focuses on the role of industrial relations, as a factor that could interfere with the entrepreneurs’ decision of resorting to market relationships in discovering and exploiting new business opportunities. We study a local production system in Emilia Romagna (Northern Italy), i.e. the province of Reggio Emilia (RE), whose firms are characterized by a district kind of environment and where entrepreneurship develops in the presence of ‘thick’ industrial relations. The empirical part of the study shows that the role of transaction costs in explaining the outsourcing is blurred, while industrial relations have a stronger explanatory power. Furthermore, it seems that RE firms generally use outsourcing and international delocalization in complementary ways; however, the correlation depends on the activity and the nature of the delocalization channel. Outsourcing strategies appear to be affected by the pattern of socio-economic development in the region where the firms are located. In particular, the entrepreneurial decision to externalize a part of the production process seems to be related to the specific participatory, formal and informal mechanisms involved in regional development.     

Urban school desegregation and declines in white enrollment: A reexamination

This paper presents a reexamination of James Coleman et al.'s study of white enrollment losses from desegregating urban school districts over the period 1968–1973. New equations are estimated using a different measure of desegregation, additional explanatory variables, and modified samples. The earlier conclusion that desegregation has been a significant stimulant of white enrollment losses in the largest central city districts is supported, although this overall effect comes almost entirely from districts in which black-white contact exceeds a threshold level. In addition, the age structure of the district's white population and the geographical coverage of the district are significant in explaining white losses for some samples.     

论高校财务会计管理体制创新的理论评析

创建高校会计核算中心是整顿高校财务会计秩序,规范会计行为的需要。事业单位会计管理体制是高校会计运行机制得以形成和存在的基础。随着高等教育体制改革的日益发展,针对高等教育的规律和特点,首先要重视高校财务会计管理体制的创新。会计核算中心体制成为“内部人控制”进行约束的有效手段,建立会计核算中心正是实行会计委派制的一种重要形式,是会计委派制的深化和发展。     

A simulation of the insurance industry: the problem of risk model homogeneity

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - We develop an agent-based simulation of the catastrophe insurance and reinsurance industry and use it to study the problem of risk model...     

True and fair in the Czech Republic: a note on local perceptions

With the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia’, and the subsequent desire of Czechoslovakia to join the European Union, in common with other countries in Central Europe, Czechoslovakia utilized the Fourth Directive as a ‘toolkit’ in designing part of its new accounting legislation. In incorporating the Fourth Directive, it has also included the requirement for financial statements to show a ‘true and fair’ view. Given the confusion over the exact meaning of ‘true and fair’ it is interesting to study how ‘true and fair’ has been introduced into the Czech Republic, and what it seems to signify for those who implemented it and for those who are preparing and using financial statements. Our initial findings indicate that ‘true and fair’ varies in its significance for the groups of individuals involved in preparing and using financial statements and that it may have particular significance for some groups of accountants who wish to secure specific advantage within the Czech economy.With the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia’, and the subsequent desire of Czechoslovakia to join the European Union, in common with other countries in Central Europe, Czechoslovakia utilized the Fourth Directive as a ‘toolkit’ in designing part of its new accounting legislation. In incorporating the Fourth Directive, it has also included the requirement for financial statements to show a ‘true and fair’ view. Given the confusion over the exact meaning of ‘true and fair’ it is interesting to study how ‘true and fair’ has been introduced into the Czech Republic, and what it seems to signify for those who implemented it and for those who are preparing and using financial statements. Our initial findings indicate that ‘true and fair’ varies in its significance for the groups of individuals involved in preparing and using financial statements and that it may have particular significance for some groups of accountants who wish to secure specific advantage within the Czech economy.With the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia’, and the subsequent desire of Czechoslovakia to join the European Union, in common with other countries in Central Europe, Czechoslovakia utilized the Fourth Directive as a ‘toolkit’ in designing part of its new accounting legislation. In incorporating the Fourth Directive, it has also included the requirement for financial statements to show a ‘true and fair’ view. Given the confusion over the exact meaning of ‘true and fair’ it is interesting to study how ‘true and fair’ has been introduced into the Czech Republic, and what it seems to signify for those who implemented it and for those who are preparing and using financial statements. Our initial findings indicate that ‘true and fair’ varies in its significance for the groups of individuals involved in preparing and using financial statements and that it may have particular significance for some groups of accountants who wish to secure specific advantage within the Czech economy.With the collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia’, and the subsequent desire of Czechoslovakia to join the European Union, in common with other countries in Central Europe, Czechoslovakia utilized the Fourth Directive as a ‘toolkit’ in designing part of its new accounting legislation. In incorporating the Fourth Directive, it has also included the requirement for financial statements to show a ‘true and fair’ view. Given the confusion over the exact meaning of ‘true and fair’ it is interesting to study how ‘true and fair’ has been introduced into the Czech Republic, and what it seems to signify for those who implemented it and for those who are preparing and using financial statements. Our initial findings indicate that ‘true and fair’ varies in its significance for the groups of individuals involved in preparing and using financial statements and that it may have particular significance for some groups of accountants who wish to secure specific advantage within the Czech economy.     

A disaggregated approach to test the J-Curve phenomenon: Japan versus her major trading partners

A limited number of studies have tested the J-Curve phenomenon using bilateral trade data between the United States and its major trading partners. In this paper, we test the J-Curve hypothesis by using quarterly bilateral data over the 1973–98 period between Japan and its nine major trading partners. We demonstrate that when aggregate data are used, there is no evidence of the J-Curve in the short run or any significant relation between trade balance and effective exchange rate in the long run. However, when bilateral data are employed, we find evidence of the J-Curve between Japan and Germany as well as between Japan and Italy. We also find that real depreciation of the yen has favorable long-run effects in the cases of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.