Analytical methods for planning educational facilities in an era of declining enrollments

With declining enrollments, metropolitan school districts are faced with problems of property disposition. A school facilities planning and management model utilizing a linear programming approach enables assessment of alternative uses for school facilities. The objective in this study is to minimize expenditures subject to constraints which include a limit to distance traveled, racial ethnic quotas, and overhead costs, such as transportation, maintenance and energy. An economic post-optimal cost sensitivity analysis of the proposed options is presented and also a comparison of this approach to school management with others found in the literature.     

Effects on earnings of the removal of direct discrimination in minimum wage rates: A validation of the Blinder decomposition

Prior to 1969, the Australian labour market was characterised by institutionalised gender wage discrimination. Wages for the majority of the workforce were set by government wage tribunals, and these tribunals set the wages of women at 75 percent of the male rate of pay. Following equal pay decisions in 1969 and 1972, the award rates of pay for all work were, by June 1975, to be determined without consideration of the sex of the worker. Examination of data from surveys conducted in 1973 and 1989 show that the removal of this institutionalised discrimination is captured by the Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) wage decompositions as a marked decline in the absolute value of the ‘discrimination’ component of the gender pay gap. The analyses also reveal some merit in the decomposition proposed by Cotton (1988).     

The emergence of the Euro-company: towards a European industrial relations?

The growth of European-scale companies represents a further centralisation of management organisation in large enterprises. But processes of decentralisation are also evident. Implications of these opposing trends for labour relations are unclear. Taking account of differences between national systems, the article considers two paths that management approaches could follow.     

The case for non‐formal vocational education for out‐of‐school youths in rural Malawi

Malawi's literacy rate for people aged 15 years and above is estimated at 48,3 percent. The high level of illiteracy impedes the exchange of information and so also socio‐economic development. The government of Malawi launched the functional literacy programme so that those without formal education could achieve numeracy and literacy and also education for socio‐economic development. The programme has failed to attract the youth, whose major concern is getting a job or self‐employment that would enable them to earn a cash income. It is argued here that literacy education should feed into apprenticeship training and that this would help to alleviate poverty in the country.     

Discussion of “Inventory Changes and Future Returns”

Review of Accounting Studies -     

Primal/Dual Positive Math Programming: Illustrated through an Evaluation of the Impacts of Market Resistance to Genetically Modified Grains

The goal of Howitt's positive mathematical programming procedure is to calibrate a mathematical programming model so that it will reproduce a set of base data for the primal variables. This article develops an analogous procedure allowing one to specify the levels of both primal and dual variables. This article also sheds light on a potential ambiguity of Howitt's procedure (with attendant policy evaluation impacts). The procedure is illustrated through application to an equilibrium displacement model focused on evaluating the consequences of the reluctance of U.S. trading partners to accept genetically modified crop products for U.S. production patterns and net farm income.