The entropies: Some roots of ambiguity

Entropy concepts have developed in four general contexts—thermodynamics, communication theory, statistical information theory and social and life sciences. These concepts have five distinct mathematical forms. Ambiguity and complexity in utilization of the concept has been heightened by this multi-faceted heritage. Effective utilization may be strengthened by a sharper articulation of entropy through combinations of literal, mathematical and graphical modes of expression. Geography and planning as user disciplines have important responsibilities in enhancing cross-disciplinary communication of this important adisciplinary concept. Implications of these arguments for the social sciences include the need for caution in drawing social analogies from the ambiguous entropy concepts of statistical mechanics; and an indication of the potential benefits of social science models based on the unambiguous entropic constructs of statistical information theory.     

The Distributional Impact of Selected Commonwealth Outlays and Taxes and Alternative Commonwealth Grant Allocation Mechanisms

This article examines the redistributive impact of Commonwealth outlays and taxes (including outlays directed through and to the States)and two possible alternative systems of distributing Commonwealth funding amongst the States.     

Jackknifing Bond Option Prices

Prices of interest rate derivative securities depend cruciallyon the mean reversion parameters of the underlying diffusions.These parameters are subject to estimation bias when standardmethods are used. The estimation bias can be substantial evenin very large samples and much more serious than the discretizationbias, and it translates into a bias in pricing bond optionsand other derivative securities that is important in practicalwork. This article proposes a very general and computationallyinexpensive method of bias reduction that is based on Quenouille's(1956; Biometrika, 43, 353–360) jackknife. We show howthe method can be applied directly to the options price itselfas well as the coefficients in the models. We investigate itsperformance in a Monte Carlo study. Empirical applications toU.S. dollar swap rates highlight the differences between bondand option prices implied by the jackknife procedure and thoseimplied by the standard approach. These differences are largeand suggest that bias reduction in pricing options is importantin practical applications.     

Incentive Fees and Mutual Funds

This paper examines the effect of incentive fees on the behavior of mutual fund managers. Funds with incentive fees exhibit positive stock selection ability, but a beta less than one results in funds not earning positive fees. From an investor's perspective, positive alphas plus lower expense ratios make incentive-fee funds attractive. However, incentive-fee funds take on more risk than non-incentive-fee funds, and they increase risk after a period of poor performance. Incentive fees are useful marketing tools, since more new cash flows go into incentive-fee funds than into non-incentive-fee funds, ceteris paribus.     

Longevity Bonds: Financial Engineering, Valuation, and Hedging

This article examines the main characteristics of longevity bonds (LBs) and shows that they can take a large variety of forms which can vary enormously in their sensitivities to longevity shocks. We examine different ways of financially engineering LBs and consider problems arising from the dearth of ultra‐long government bonds and the choice of the reference population index. The article also looks at valuation issues in an incomplete markets context and finishes with an examination of how LBs can be used as a risk management tool for hedging longevity risks.     

Texas 9-1-1: Emergency telecommunications and the genesis of surveillance infrastructure

Infrastructures of surveillance—everyday, taken-for-granted, institutionalized and technically mediated practices which identify, observe, and analyze individual actions—permeate society. These infrastructures mediate the production of social knowledge and action toward individuals. This article examines the genesis of one such infrastructure, namely the coordinated practices of identifying and locating mobile phone users during emergency (9-1-1) calls. Implementing this infrastructure has entailed creating and coordinating systems to locate wireless phones, to deliver the emergency calls to the appropriate service agency, and to deliver appropriate services to the emergency event. This implementation has occurred within historically specific regulatory, political, cultural, technological, and economic contexts and has specific implications for general surveillance practice. Focusing primarily on the state of Texas, this article examines the development of systems which store and deliver individuals’ geographic location. It argues that, despite privacy laws tightly restricting the use of information generated in the 9-1-1 process, and despite the special purpose to which the 9-1-1 system is dedicated, the wireless 9-1-1 initiative has created the infrastructure for a general purpose locational surveillance infrastructure capable both of surveilling broad patterns of activities and of responding to particular individuals. Moreover, the infrastructure is more available to police agencies and to well-established and well-funded corporate entities than to grass roots organizations. This trend is driven by the need to coordinate a national emergency response system within a fractured telecommunication industry, by the desire of marketers to understand and address their customers’ habits of mobility, and by an increasing willingness of police agencies to include widespread surveillance under the rubric of “emergency services.” Policy responses such as greater ability to opt out of the surveillance system, public oversight of emergency operations, and greater public access to the infrastructure itself might mitigate the most harmful potential social effects of this infrastructure, while distributing its benefits in a more democratic and egalitarian way.     

The distribution of returns from land efficiency improvement in multistage production systems

This paper assesses the distributional consequences of technical changes that improve the efficiency of land and of other inputs in a multifactor crop‐production system. We introduced an equilibrium displacement model (EDM) by using the specification of a factor‐augmenting approach. Given the uncertainty about the EDM parameters, a Monte Carlo simulation is used to produce a distribution of possible return measures. We found that land suppliers (likely farmers) receive a larger share (73%) of total benefits from the adoption of land‐technical change than they do from the adoption of other input technologies. Each input supplier receives a larger share of total benefits from technical change in her own input. However, this result is sensitive to the value of the parameters, especially the value of the elasticity of substitution. We applied the EDM to the case of no‐tillage (NT) to provide insight into how the aggregate return from the adoption of NT was distributed among different groups on the Canadian Prairies. The results of this study can be used by policymakers and funding agencies in order to influence landowners and farming communities to adopt environmentally sound land technologies to achieve both greater agricultural productivity and sustainability.