The Earnings Effects of Multilateral Trade Liberalization: Implications for Poverty

Most researchers examining poverty and multilateral trade liberalizationhave had to examine average, or per capita effects, suggestingthat if per capita real income rises, poverty will fall. Thisinference can be misleading. Combining results from a new internationalcross-section consumption analysis with earnings data from householdsurveys, this article analyzes the implications of multilateraltrade liberalization for poverty in Indonesia. It finds thatthe aggregate reduction in Indonesia's national poverty headcountfollowing global trade liberalization masks a more complex setof impacts across groups. In the short run the poverty headcountrises slightly for self-employed agricultural households, asagricultural profits fail to keep up with increases in consumerprices. In the long run the poverty headcount falls for allearnings strata, as increased demand for unskilled workers liftsincomes for the formerly self-employed, some of whom move intothe wage labor market. A decomposition of the poverty changesin Indonesia associated with different countries' trade policiesfinds that reform in other countries leads to a reduction inpoverty in Indonesia but that liberalization of Indonesia'strade policies leads to an increase. The method used here canbe readily extended to any of the other 13 countries in thesample.     

Using a balanced scorecard to improve the performance of an emergency department

The performance of the emergency department significantly improved after implementing the balanced scorecard including hours of continuing education attended by the staff, staff job satisfaction, the rate of incomplete laboratory tests within 30 minutes, the average monthly inappropriate return rate, and hospital profit. The results can assist administrators plan for the future. Although this was a pilot program for implementing a balanced scorecard in an emergency department, the indicators used in this study may also be reasonable for a hospital that has limited resources.     

Über die Verteilung von Produktionszeiten in Assemblage-Prozessen

Zusammenfassung Es werden Produktionszeiten in Assemblage-Systemen behandelt;p parallele Produktionslinien erzeugen Teilstücke, die zu Gruppen vonp Stücken, je eines aus einer Linie, zusammengestellt werden. Als Produktionszeit wird die Zeit zwischen zwei aufeinanderfolgenden Gruppenoutputs definiert. Aus der Verteilung der Produktionszeiten an den einzelnen Linien wird die Grenzverteilung der Produktionszeiten hergeleitet. Dabei zeigt sich, da? diese Grenzverteilung im wesentlichen von den Wahrscheinlichkeiten abh?ngt, da? bestimmte Produktionslinien zurückbleiben und dadurch den Produktionstakt der Gruppen bestimmen. Sind — das ist der interessanteste Fall — die Mittelwerte der Produktionszeiten an den einzelnen Linien gleich, so sind diese Wahrscheinlichkeiten als Funktionen der Varianzen der Produktionszeiten darstellbar; sie lassen sich darüber hinaus als Volumina gewisser nichteuklidischer Simplexe in sph?rischen R?umen mit konstanter Krümmung deuten.

---

Summary Production times in assemblage-systems are considered;p parallel production lines produce pieces, which are combined to groups ofp pieces, each from another line. Production time is defined as the time between two consecutive outputs of such groups. Given the production time of the individual lines, the limiting distribution of the group production times will be derived. This limiting distributions are essentially dependent on the probabilities that a specified line will lag behind all others and so will determine the production time of the groups. If the means of production times of the single lines are equal — this will be the most interesting case — then these probabilities can be expressed as functions of the variances of the production time of the single pieces. They also can be interpreted as volumes of certain non-euclidean simplices in spherical spaces of constant curvature.

     

Social security and saving — A critical note on the feldstein hypothesis

Zusammenfassung In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird versucht, Feldsteins Hypothese, wonach die Sozialversicherung das Sparen dämpft, an Hand internationaler Querschnittdaten zu überprüfen. Ausgehend von einem Ansatz, den Feldstein aufbauend auf das Lebenszyklusmodell in den Jahren 1977 und 1980 entwickelte, wird versucht, die Validität der Ergebnisse in bezug auf Änderungen in den Variablendefinitionen, der Zeitperiode sowie der Sampleauswahl aufzuzeigen. Weiters wird der Einfluß von geringen Modellmodifikationen (Berücksichtigung der Arbeitslosenrate als Unsicherheits-bzw. Stimmungsindikator) sowie Änderungen der Schätzmethode (gewogene oder ungewogene Regression bzw. OLS oder TSLS) auf die Resultate untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß die Feldstein-Hypothese keineswegs als ein empirisch allgemein gültiges Gesetz angesehen werden kann, sondern eher als zufällig zustandegekommen.     

Taxes, clientele effect of dividend and risk, return linearity

This paper extends the equivalence relationship between risk/return linearity and portfolio efficiency as derived in Roll (1977) to the case where there is differential taxation affecting investors optimal portfolio choice. Following the formulation of Brennan (1970a), the fundamental linearity relationship is derived which raises serious doubts to the testability of the extendedCAPM that accounts for the effect of differential taxation. Finally by aggregating other imperfections as well as differential taxation into a dividend yield constraint, a different version of theCAPM is derived which offers alternative interpretations of the existing empirical results on the subject.     

INFLUENCE OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ON CONSUMER PURCHASING PATTERNS AND PREFERENCES FOR GROUND BEEF

A study of 198 household units in the Fort Collins, CO area was made to ascertain the importance of such factors as consumer age, income, education and marital status on the purchasing patterns for ground beef. Compared to younger consumers, older consumers tended to: (1) make more frequent purchases of ground beef; (2) buy less ground beef per purchase; and (3) select leaner ground beef. Households with gross incomes in excess of $25,000 tended to buy larger quantities of ground beef per purchase and bought leaner ground beef compared to households with less than $15,000 gross income. In making purchasing decisions, participants in the study considered leanness, visual appearance and price as the most important factors, while packaging and brand name were considered the least important factors.