People's choice: Public spending,taxation and local rates

Elections may reflect ideological swings, but they do not enable voters to take account either of trade‐offs between spending programmes or of the price of extra spending in terms of higher taxes. No satisfactory way has yet been found of consulting voters on this point. Here is one suggestion.     

Signaling Quality and Credibility in Yellow Pages Advertising: The Influence of Color and Graphics on Choice

Abstract

This research investigates the ability of color and graphics to convey information about quality and credibility and their influence on choice in Yellow Pages advertising. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to Yellow Pages ads across three product categories had more favorable attitudes toward the advertisement, advertiser, and quality for ads in color than for noncolored ads. Attitudes about the advertisement, advertiser, quality, and credibility were more favorable for ads with photos than for ads with line art. In both cases, results varied by product category. Experiment 2 tested the effect of color and graphics on selection of a Yellow Pages advertiser across eight product categories. Selection from a 32-page, simulated Yellow Pages booklet was made by 384 subjects. A significant effect for process (full) color and photographic-quality graphics on choice of an advertiser from Yellow Pages was found and varied across product categories. The results also highlight the impact of other variables that are controlled by the advertiser.     

Did Hayek have a monetary theory of business cycles?

Joseph Schumpeter, a careful reader of Hayek, categorized Hayek??s theory of economic cycles as non-monetary. Almost every other source, including Hayek himself, categorized the theory as monetary. The issue turns on the concept of causality being used. The question of what causality concept to apply to complex phenomena has substantive implications for economic theory. A simple concept of causality, appropriate to the study of some physical phenomena, will mislead when applied to complex phenomena. We provide examples of errors in analysis that follow from the wrong choice of a causal paradigm.     

Music,music videos,and wear out

Repeated exposure to a music video was found to forestall wear out relative to repetitive exposure to the music only. Susceptibility to wear out in the case of the music video was further reduced by eliminating the closure associated with the story told by the video. The level of positive cognitive responses was posited as a mediator to help explain the observed results. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

HOW FIRMS MANAGE RISK: THE OPTIMAL MIX OF LINEAR AND NON-LINEAR DERIVATIVES

This paper provides guidance on how corporations should choose the optimal mix of "linear" and "non-linear" derivatives. Linear derivatives are products such as futures, forwards, and swaps, whose payoffs vary in linear fashion with changes in the un-derlying asset price or reference rate. Non-linear derivatives are contracts with option-like payoffs, including caps, floors, and swaptions.
A company's optimal hedging position should generally consist of linear contracts because of their effective-ness in smoothing corporate cash flows. But as the firm's business (quantity) risk increases, its use of linear contracts will decline due to costs associated with overhedging. At the same time, there will be a shift towards the use of non-linear contracts. The degree of substitution of non-linear for linear in-struments will depend on the relation-ship between the quantities to be hedged and market prices. A negative relationship will tend to exacerbate the substitution effect while a positive re-lationship will dampen the effect. An empirical examination of corporate derivative holdings provides support for all of the major hypotheses.     

How can nurses help patients work more effectively with nurses to improve the safety of patient care?

The literature seems quite clear that patients still regard the nurse as the principal link between the technical and interpersonal aspects of their care. The often-discussed medical error crisis tends to create in the patient mistrust of all care providers. The health care industry is driving towards a system that requires patients to be self-reliant in managing their care, without allowing for factual limitations in patient capability, ability, and interest in such an enterprise. Unfortunately for the overworked, understaffed nurse, patients still look to them to provide quality compassionate care without the patient having to police them. Health care providers have been mandated to provide assessment and intervention for pain management. It was mandated because we as health care professionals failed to perform this vital function in a consistent, quality manner. It did add to the workload of the nurse. However, if done properly, it is a valuable communication tool for the nurse and the patient to comfortably discuss pain and its management--the interpersonal part of care.     

A fragmented patient safety concept: the structure and culture of safety management in health care

The uniform and visible commitment to safety management is a cultural and structural change that health care organizations have not typically attempted. Committee structures are just one example of how culture drives structure in managing health care safety. The question is: "Are we interested in making nonpatient safety programs as well understood and as culturally significant as patient safety programs?" Models exist to institutionalize safety management in health care. We need only look to the JCAHO or OSHA and other high-hazard industry models for examples of safety management. Change requires a focus on safety, not occupational safety or patient safety, but just safety. In health care, safety would be a key characteristic of organizational culture. The organizational expectation is then that all employees will work safely and practice safety. Employees will apply safe practices when handling chemicals, in lifting, and when giving medications. Only when safety imbues the work and decisions of each employee in this way will the highest level of safety be attained.     

The Mortgage Acquisition Process: A Comparison of VRM and FRM Borrowers*

In recent years a number of alternative types of residential mortgage plans (i.e., alternative to the fixed-rate level-payment mortgage) have been proposed, and some of these have been available in various parts of the country. The most often proposed innovation has been the variable rate mortgage (VRM). The most widespread use of the VRM has been in the State of California, starting in early 1975. This paper discusses some of the results of a survey of over 1,700 homeowners in California that examined consumer reaction to the VRM. Specifically, this paper looks at the impact of the VRM on the mortgage acquisition process and the features of mortgages demanded by consumers. The data seem to indicate that the process of acquiring a mortgage has not been affected significantly by the availability of the VRM. However, the existence of alternative mortgage plans means that consumer choice can be broadened to include type of mortgage as well as lending institution.