Confessions of an information worker: a critical analysis of information requirements discourse

This paper seeks to demonstrate the benefit of critical discourse analysis as a research approach for examining information systems development. Research has shown that eliciting user requirements is a critical activity of information systems development. However, the requirements phase is not only a key activity, it is highly problematic. Requirements determination is considered a process fraught with conflicting, inconsistent and competing viewpoints in which users and analysts do not share a “consensual domain,” thus barring them from reaching agreements about requirements. Therefore, analytic tools that recognize and examine requirements analysis as a polyphonic interaction hold much promise for improving requirements elicitation and analysis.Critical discourse analysis offers the tools to examine systematically the fundamental substance of requirements elicitation — interactional talk. This analysis employs sociolinguistic methods for specifying the linguistic features of different types of discourse units and the way they are tied together to create meaning, but also concerns itself with critically examining social context. In this paper requirements elicitation takes on the form of a “confessional” act where the individual verbalizes thoughts, intentions and consciousness. Findings show that during this ritual, discourse is revealed as a dialectic between two different domains of meaning, that of analyst and client. Analysts, in their official roles, propose a “frame” which conflicts with that proposed by clients during interviews. Changes in frames and deft face-saving work during interviews function to discursively produce and challenge client identities. The paper explores the tension between the frames proposed by the analyst and client during interviews which explains some of the frustrations and “gaps” which characterize this type of encounter. Issues of power inequality, identity formation, and symbolic control are presented as explanations of why competing frames are proposed and sustained while resisted by clients.     

On the optimality of pure bundling for a monopolist

This paper considers a monopolist selling two objects to a single buyer with privately observed valuations. We prove that if the virtual valuation for each object is non-negative for all possible types, then the optimal price schedule is such that the objects are sold only in a bundle. Under an additional regularity condition, pure bundling is the optimal sale mechanism among all individually rational and incentive compatible mechanisms.     

Incentive effects in the demand for health care: a bivariate panel count data estimation

This paper contributes in three dimensions to the literature on health care demand. First, it features the first application of a bivariate random effects estimator in a count data setting, to permit the efficient estimation of this type of model with panel data. Second, it provides an innovative test of adverse selection and confirms that high‐risk individuals are more likely to acquire supplemental add‐on insurance. Third, the estimations yield that in accordance with the theory of moral hazard, we observe a much lower frequency of doctor visits among the self‐employed, and among mothers of small children. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The demand for judicial sanctions: voter information and the election of judges

We examine 20 partisan judicial elections over an 8-year period to determine whether judge specific information shows in election results. We find demand for judicial sanctions looks much like other voting processes. Among voters, Democratic incumbent judges, who tend to be lenient, are rewarded for being harsh, while Republican incumbent judges, who generally are harsh, are rewarded for being lenient. Voters are not found to be a random sample of the population, and we find that straight ticket votes obscure information from selective voters. This paper benefitted from comments received by participants at the Public Choice Meetings, and from useful comments from Aimee Chin, Janet Kohlhase, an anonymous referee and the editor.     

The level of average production cost chosen by a multiplant spatial monopolist

Multiplant monopoly models generally assume that firm demand is unaffected by the number of plants established. This assumption is inappropriate when transportation costs are significant. Because of this, a multiplant spatial monopolist may choose to operate on the downsloping, constant, or upsloping segment of plant average production cost curves, depending upon the impact of additional plants on cost levels. However, such a monopolist will choose a long-run firm size which is associated with increasing firm level average costs as long as economic profits are available. Long-run average costs are minimized if the monopolist just breaks even.     

Capital,labor, and derived demand for information: Evidence from China

In this paper, information capital is considered as a separate input of production along with noninformation capital and labor. The substitution possibility among information capital, noninformation capital and labor has been estimated by nonlinear iterative algorithm using Chinese data for 1995–2017. The empirical results from the study imply that estimates of Chinese input substitution degree and productivity are underestimated without including information capital as an input separate from noninformation capital. When information capital and labor are combined, the contribution ratio of labor force may increase. Information capital interacts with noninformation capital and labor to promote economic development and production efficiency.     

Epidemiology of inflation expectations and internet search: an analysis for India

Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination - This paper investigates how inflation expectations of individuals are formed in India. We investigate if the news on inflation plays a role in the...     

Hedonic estimation of housing demand elasticity with a markup over marginal costs

We show that recent developments in hedonic pricing theory allow modeling of the equilibrium pricing function as the marginal cost of an additional housing unit plus a markup that varies inversely with the elasticity of demand. Useful information about demand elasticity at a given point on the envelope function can be recovered from the hedonic regression and limited information on marginal costs. In particular, the elasticity of the envelope with respect to any characteristic such as interior area provides information on the elasticity of demand. Relative price elasticities (i.e., elasticities that vary from a base value in a known way with interior area, unit type or neighborhood characteristics) can be computed from the elasticity of the hedonic envelope. Like Yinger (2010), our method is based on a single hedonic equation.We test our method using sales of new high rise condominiums in two districts within Shenzhen, China: Futian and Longgang. The results strongly confirm the main hypothesis of this paper: price elasticity with respect to size is increasing for more complex types of units. Together with estimates of marginal costs of production, these results imply that relative demand elasticity is declining for larger, more complex units.     

浅议网络环境下会计信息系统的安全问题及其监控

现代信息技术的发展对传统的会计信息系统产生质的变革。但是,也增加了会计信息系统中的数据信息风险。本文试从内部控制和技术控制两个方面提出防范、监管措施,以达到减小信息风险,保障网上会计信息的安全性和可靠性的目的。     

Cross-sectional estimation of a simultaneous model of tenure choice and housing services demand

In this paper we analyze the demand for housing services, integrating into a single analysis a systematic treatment of several important conceptual and empirical issues. Our three major objectives are to (1) evaluate the empirical importance of the simultaneity between the tenure choice and consumption level decisions; (2) analyze the relationship between household type and housing demand; and (3) present new estimates of the parameters of housing demand which are based on detailed microdata. In the process, we derive and estimate overall income and price demand elasticities which incorporate the impacts of income and price on both the tenure choice and consumption level decisions.     

Economic incentives and the demand for accounting information: Perspectives from medieval English finance

In this paper we examine similarities that medieval English finance bears to modern systems of national finance. First, the medieval system afforded economic incentives which invited potential abuse by self-interested parties; second, while proposed solutions to such abuses were both administrative and fiscal, the fiscal monitoring solutions were largely accounting in nature. We discuss several of the medieval abuses and their accounting-based solutions instituted from, roughly, A.D. 1200 to 1375. We conclude that many of the economic factors and competing relationships of constituent groups are remarkably similar in principle and application to today’s environment. By gaining a perspective on their historical bases, we can gain a richer understanding of current practices.     

High-speed Internet growth and the demand for locally accessible information content

Proximity to information resources has repeatedly been shown to affect urban development. However, individuals’ increased abilities to access information content electronically may have dampened urban areas’ comparative advantage of proximity-driven knowledge flows. We investigate the effects of increased high-speed Internet access on the role of information proximity by modeling changes in the demands for locally-based information resources, exploiting variation in the use of US public libraries—the most common low-cost providers of locally accessible information content. Data describing a nearly comprehensive set of US public libraries during 2000–2008 provide empirical evidence of complementary growth in Internet access and the use of public library resources, suggesting that Internet access increases the value of locally accessible information content and overall information demand. Moreover, the complementarity is found to be largest in metropolitan areas, indicating that improved Internet access in locations with greatest proximity and information spillover effects are likely to experience more substantial economic impacts.     

Forecasting spare part demand with installed base information: A review

The classical spare part demand forecasting literature studies methods for forecasting intermittent demand. However, the majority of these methods do not consider the underlying demand-generating factors. The demand for spare parts originates from the replacement of parts in the installed base of machines, either preventively or upon breakdown of the part. This information from service operations, which we refer to as installed base information, can be used to forecast the future demand for spare parts. This paper reviews the literature on the use of such installed base information for spare part demand forecasting in order to asses (1) what type of installed base information can be useful; (2) how this information can be used to derive forecasts; (3) the value of using installed base information to improve forecasting; and (4) the limits of the existing methods. This serves as motivation for future research.     

Semiparametric estimation of consumer demand systems in real expenditure

Microdata concerning consumer demand typically show considerable variation in real expenditures, but very little variation in prices. We propose a semiparametric strategy for the consumer demand problem in which expenditure share equations are estimated nonparametrically in the real expenditure direction and estimated parametrically (with fixed or varying coefficients) in price directions. In our model, Engel curves are unrestricted: demands may have any rank. Because the demand model is derived from a cost function, it may be restricted to satisfy integrability and used for consumer surplus calculations. Since real expenditure is unobserved, but rather estimated under the model, we face a semiparametric model with a nonparametrically generated regressor. We show efficient convergence rates for parametric and nonparametric components. We illustrate the feasibility of our proposed strategy using Canadian expenditure and price data: Engel curves display curvature which cannot be encompassed by standard parametric models. We also find that the rationality restriction of Slutsky symmetry is rejected in the fixed‐coefficients model, but not in the varying‐coefficients model. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of food demand in Turkey: method of an almost ideal demand system

In this study, data of the household income and consumption expenditure surveys conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute for 1994 and 2003 years were used; income, price, and cross price elasticities under six aggregated product groups were estimated within the framework of the an almost ideal demand system approach for food expenditures; and estimation of household consumers’ food demand in Turkey was analyzed. According to the findings obtained, it was established that a price-bound change would appear in the food demand, and elasticities were calculated. Expenditures by product groups and price elasticities were obtained, and the product groups were aggregated as bread and cereals; meat, fish, and poultry; milk and dairy products, oil and egg; vegetables and fruits; various fast food and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.