The Gatekeeper Appraiser's Role in an Era of Higher Energy Prices*

This article discusses the notion of gatekeeper, or opinion leader, appraisers. Because these appraisers are instrumental in disseminating information to other appraisers they are very influential in shaping appraisal practices. A sample of 763 appraisers is used to identify these gatekeepers and to examine their appraisal practices relative to other appraisers. Differences are noted between opinion leaders and non-opinion leaders in the importance attached to and in the use of energy conservation components of real property in appraisals.     

The integration of a logistical decision-making framework into nonprofit marketing

Marketing practitioners in for-profit-making settings are typically well acquainted with what logistical decisions can do for a marketing program and what marketing constraints can do to a logistics system. For the most part, however, the conceptual tansfer from a product-oriented firm to a service-producing organization has been lacking and obviously not made in non-profit marketing situations. This paper examines these areas and presents a creative expansion of the logistics decision-making area into nonprofit marketing. Hopefully, this setting will encourage others to investigate non-profit areas and, in particular, the interrelationships involved in the logistics area.     

Challenge to personnel: A story of change and growth

An overburdened 2-man Personnel Department helped a small company start a one-year program of change that encouraged managers to attack problems that once looked too big.     

Computing optimal tax equilibria

This paper proposes a technique for computing optimal taxes in a full general equilibrium model. It is based upon a fixed point algorithm of the type that is widely used to solve Walrasian general equilibrium models. Computing an optimal tax equilibrium is more difficult than solving a general equilibrium model only to the extent that the derivatives of the social welfare function and of the consumer demand functions must be calculated in the former case. Solutions to several sample problems are provided to demonstrate the technique. They suggest that optimal tax rates are exceedingly sensitive to the specification of the model used to derive them.