Towards a General Managerial Framework for Performance Measurement: A Comprehensive Highway Maintenance Application

This paper describes the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to a highway maintenance setting, using measures of inputs, outputs and outcomes reported by New Zealand local authorities. A general framework of performance measurement is developed and illustrated through application to the highway setting. The framework encompasses a performance pyramid embodying multiple-perspectives of the organisation with a structure of measures linking critical success factors to process drivers, methods of data analysis and influencing factors such as professional culture. Distinctions between measures of outcome, output and input enable finer partitioning of analyses into managerial notions of efficiency, effectiveness and economy. The impact of environmental factors on efficiency is explored through two approaches suggested in the literature.     

Data Envelopment Analysis: A Practical Tool to Measure Performance

This paper describes a productivity method, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and how it can be used to measure performance using multiple performance measures. DEA compares organisations or parts of organisations that share common goals and use similar resources to produce similar products, and calculates the technical efficiency with which firms convert bundles of inputs into bundles of outputs. DEA has been used in both public and private settings, and the paper describes some of its applications within Australasia. A case study of New Zealand dairy farms is used to demonstrate the benchmarking capability of DEA. While built upon solid theoretical foundations, DEA is essentially a practical tool that can be used by academics for research as well as by managers and practitioners for improved performance measurement and accountability.     

Agricultural technology and land use futures: The UK case

This paper explores how agricultural technology has interacted with recent land use in the UK and how it might do so in the next 50 years. From 1960 to 1985, farmers successfully used technology to increase the output of crop and animal products per unit of land and particularly of labour. This reduced the number of people employed in agriculture, and promoted larger and more specialised farm enterprises. Between 1985 and 2006, food prices were relatively low, and although labour productivity continued to increase, land productivity remained relatively static. However during this period, farmers started to address the effects of agriculture on reduced water quality and habitat loss.For established agricultural products, technological innovation tends to have an incremental effect, working through genetic improvement, the removal of abiotic and biotic stress (e.g. crop nutrition and protection, irrigation and drainage, and animal nutrition, health and housing) and the substitution of labour. Whereas the first two processes tend to be scale-neutral, the substitution of labour is usually easiest to achieve on larger farms. Other key areas for technological innovation include addressing air, soil and water quality, biodiversity, waste reduction, and information management. Over the next 50 years, large step-changes in land use arising from agricultural technology are predicted to arise from the development of new markets for agricultural products. A strong bioenergy sector will strengthen the links between crop commodity and energy prices and will have a major effect on future land use. Climate change and the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will alter the relative profitability of crop and animal production systems. Lastly, increased public awareness of the links between food, health and the environment could substantially shift the demand for specific agricultural products.Continual improvements in agricultural technology are pivotal to providing society with the flexibility to balance the challenges of improving human well-being with the management of the planet's ecosystem. Increased technological innovation increases the probability that agricultural land can be used for other purposes, but the exact relationship is dependent on trade and environmental policies. The large external effects of agriculture mean that decisions regarding the adoption of future technologies should be taken by farmers working with other stakeholders.     

High food commodity prices: will they stay? who will pay?

Much of the public discussion of the food price crisis has focused on the sharply increased use of food commodities for biofuel production, framing debate in simple food versus fuel terms. Reality is more complex. Multiple forces drove food prices to high levels and, according to findings we report in this article, these forces will sustain high prices over the medium term. We also find that the distinction between high world prices for food commodities and the consumer costs of food is an important one to make. Food consumers do not buy raw food commodities at international prices. The degree to which the price of traded food commodities and the price of food are related depends on a long list of factors, most of which operate to dampen price transmission. In the search for appropriate policy response, it is essential to measure consumer effects correctly and to apportion properly the causes of current high prices.     

Bank Regulatory Agreements and Real Estate Lending

Recent studies have found that banks with low capital ratios have significantly decreased their lending to the real estate sector. This correlation between real estate lending and bank capital could be the result of voluntary decisions by banks to recapitalize, or it could be the result of direct actions taken by bank regulators. We find that banks with low capital ratios reduce their real estate lending substantially more after formal regulatory actions have been initiated by regulators. Furthermore, this reduction in lending is particularly large for the categories of real estate borrowers most likely to be bank dependent.     

Strategies for understanding and changing local revenue policies and practices in Ghana's decentralization programme

The 1971 Local Administration Act is the basis for Ghana's attempt to decentralize development planning and budgeting from the centre in Accra to the 68 districts of Ghana. The Act allows District Councils to collect numerous revenues and to retain them as a financial base for implementing District development projects. In 1977 the Economic and Rural Development Management training programme was initiated to help improve revenue collection and the development planning and budgeting capacity of elected officials and civil servants at the district level. Participants worked in teams to determine the potential district revenue base for decentralized development planning, to understand local behavioural patterns in the revenue collection process, and to recommend procedures for improving district revenue administration. The training programme has resulted in dramatic improvements in district government revenue policies and practices leading to a larger financial base for the funding of projects identified and designed locally. Data indicating the positive impact of the training programme for improving local revenue are provided for Techiman District.     

Racial differences in unemployment: A spatial perspective

Conclusions It has been demonstrated that racial differences in unemployment in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas are widespread. The differences tend to vary, however, by region with the greatest difference occurring in the metropolitan areas of the North-Central region and the least difference occurring in the metropolitan areas in the West.