Separate Crop Accounts for the Western Grain Stabilization Program

Payouts from the Western Grain Stabilization Program are determined on the basis of prairie-wide net cash flow from grains. Of particular importance is what happens to the returns to wheat – the predominant crop. Thus while wheat producers in aggregate can be expected to benefit from the current program, producers of nonwheat crops may not. This paper examines the economics of separate crop accounts as a way of providing greater sensitivity to such producers. It is concluded that the gains are not large enough to warrant such a program change. Les paiements versés en vertu du Programme de stabilisation des grains de ?Ouest sont déterminés à partir des fonds autogénérés par la production céréalière à ?échelle des Prairies. Or, il est particulièrement important de savoir ce qu'il advient des revenus provenant de la production du blé, la culture prédominante dans cette région. Ainsi, même si on peut s'attendre que dans ?ensemble, les producteurs de blé tirent avantage du programme actuel, tel n'est peut-être pas le cas pour les producteurs ?autres céréales. Dans le présent article, nous examinons les aspects économiques ?un traitement séparé du blé et des autres céréales en guise de moyen pour mieux tenir compte des besoins de ces producteurs. Nous concluons que les avantages ainsi obtenus ne sont pas suffisamment importants pour justifier un tel changement du programme.     

Country of origin labeling for complex supply chains: the case for labeling the location of different supply chain links

We investigate the value of a country of origin label (COOL) that separately identifies the geographic location of different stages in a food product's supply chain. We estimate the willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) of U.S. consumers for a packaged cereal product where the key grain ingredient may be grown in one country and processed in a second country (multicountry supply chain) and compare it to equivalent products that have both stages located in a single country. We find consumer WTP for products with single‐country and multicountry supply chains are statistically different, meaning that simplifying a multicountry label by listing only the country where the ingredients are grown or only the country where the ingredients are processed can result in different consumer values. We also find that for countries with a poor quality reputation, consumers respond more negatively when that country has the “last touch” than when that country's involvement is limited to upstream supply chain links.     

Are there ENSO signals in the macroeconomy?

Whether ENSO has affected U.S. macroeconomic performance has been a matter of dispute. To address the issue we explore whether there has been any co-cyclicality of ENSO fluctuations and the rates of inflation and economic growth over the 1894-1999 timespan and, failing this, whether aperiodic ENSO shocks have had any impact on these variables. Neither co-cyclicality nor aperiodic shocks are discernible. While ENSO may briefly influence the performance of particular sectors of the economy in particular regions, as documented by the previous literature, such locally-important effects vanish into the noise surrounding macroeconomic trends in an economy as large and complex as that of the U.S.     

Competition in shared markets and Major League Baseball broadcast viewership

This work evaluates the cross-quality elasticity of related products in the context of local market Nielsen Local People Meter ratings of Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season broadcasts from 2010 through 2013 from six teams in three shared markets. We employ a fixed effects panel regression with multi-way error clustering, finding that fans exhibit nuanced behaviour related to the absolute quality and relative quality of the two local teams. Our estimates imply quality-related competition for viewership between teams in the face of large disparities in quality. However, when both teams are of high quality, viewership increased beyond what own-team success would predict alone for the competing team. The competitive effects are largely dominated by the spillover effects. These findings point to complementary effects of team success beyond own-team interest, and bring about an important nuance in the literature on market definition, competition and substitution in sport.     

Part–Time Work During Post–Compulsory Education And Examination Performance: Help Or Hindrance?

This paper examines the effects on examination performance of having a part–time job whilst in full–time post–sixteen education, using new data on young people in Northern Ireland. Around 35% engaged in part time employment during their education spell, compared to over 60% found by recent GB studies. This may be related to Northern Ireland's comparatively slack youth labour market and might reflect part–time employment levels in other peripheral regions. Our estimations suggest working part–time per se is not detrimental to examination performance, although working long hours is. Policy makers might improve educational performance by reducing incentives to work long hours.     

Strategic human resource management at Herman Miller

This article describes the Human Resource Management system in place at Herman Miller, Inc. (HMI). HMI's HR strategy is comprised of three primary goals: (1) building employee capabilities, (2) building employee commitment, and (3) improving the professional capabilities of the HR function itself. Key emphases of HMI's HR management infrastructure include (1) employee competency identification and development, (2) building employee participation, (3) building business literacy, (4) creating a “corporate community” through strong values and a sense of “belonging”, (5) community responsibility and environmental protection, (6) competently delivering the HR “fundamentals”, and (7) developing innovative partnerships with suppliers. Key challenges for the future include (1) change management, (2) clarifying HR's strategic role throughout the firm, and (3) attracting and retaining a diverse workforce. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The welfare costs of unreliable water service

Throughout the developing world, many water distribution systems are unreliable. As a result, it becomes necessary for each household to store its own water as a hedge against this uncertainty. Since arrivals of water are not synchronized across households, serious distributional inefficiencies arise. We develop a model describing the optimal intertemporal depletion of each household's private water storage if it is uncertain when water will next arrive to replenish supplies. The model is calibrated using survey data from Mexico City, a city where many households store water in sealed rooftop tanks known as tinacos. The calibrated model is used to evaluate the potential welfare gains that would occur if alternative modes of water provision were implemented. We estimate that most of the potential distributional inefficiencies can be eliminated simply by making the frequency of deliveries the same across households which now face haphazard deliveries. This would require neither costly investments in infrastructure nor price increases.     

The growth of manufacturing protection in 1920s Britain

Prior to the Import Duties Act of 1932, an assortment of legislation expanded the scope of manufacturing protection in Britain. This article assesses the magnitude of manufacturing protection before the Import Duties Act and finds that, in 1930, 9% of net manufacturing output occurred in a protected industry. In the late 1920s, protected industries exhibited above‐average growth in labour productivity. However, protection was disproportionately extended to newer manufacturing industries, which presented greater potential for productivity growth. This article concludes that protection did not enhance productivity growth in Britain's manufacturing industries in the late 1920s.