Optimal surveillance against foot‐and‐mouth disease: the case of bulk milk testing in Australia

Previous foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks and simulation‐based analyses suggest substantial payoffs from detecting an incursion early. However, no economic measures for early detection have been analysed in an optimising framework. We investigate the use of bulk milk testing (BMT) for active surveillance against an FMD incursion in Australia. We find that BMT can be justified, but only when the FMD entry probability is sufficiently high or the cost of BMT is low. However, BMT is well suited for post‐outbreak surveillance, to shorten the length of time and size of an epidemic and to facilitate an earlier return to market.     

Modelling spatial regimes in farms technologies

We exploit the information derived from geographical coordinates to endogenously identify spatial regimes in technologies that are the result of a variety of complex, dynamic interactions among site-specific environmental variables and farmer decision making about technology, which are often not observed at the farm level. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity is a fundamental challenge in empirical research, as failing to do so can produce model misspecification and preclude causal inference. In this article, we adopt a two-step procedure to deal with unobserved spatial heterogeneity, while accounting for spatial dependence in a cross-sectional setting. The first step of the procedure takes explicitly unobserved spatial heterogeneity into account to endogenously identify subsets of farms that follow a similar local production econometric model, i.e. spatial production regimes. The second step consists in the specification of a spatial autoregressive model with autoregressive disturbances and spatial regimes. The method is applied to two regional samples of olive growing farms in Italy. The main finding is that the identification of spatial regimes can help drawing a more detailed picture of the production environment and provide more accurate information to guide extension services and policy makers.     

Strategic and organisational determinants of sophistication in deployed sales force automation systems within three industry sectors in the UK

Abstract

This paper investigates strategic and organisational context determinants of the sophistication of adopted sales force automation (SFA) systems in three UK industries: financial services, pharmaceuticals, and building/construction. Sophistication of adopted systems is associated with the organisation placing greater emphasis on information orientation, which is itself driven by an increased integration of IT and sales coupled with increased organisational slack. Increased integration of IT and sales is itself driven by increased strategic importance of sales coupled with increased use of internal communication networks. Importantly, a firm's marketing orientation, although also driven by the strategic importance of sales, has no impact on either information orientation or SFA sophistication. We discuss the implications of our findings to aid understanding of SFA implementation failure.     

Book review

Sales Management Concepts and Cases (4th Edition) by Douglas J. Dalrymple and William L. Cron. (John Wiley & Sons, Inc, New York, 1992). 758 pages. £18.95. ISBN 0 471 57258 6.     

Leverage and growth: Effect of stock options

Previous literature documents a negative relationship between leverage and firm growth. This paper finds that once the incentives provided by stock options are accounted for, leverage does not affect firm growth. The paper also finds that the sensitivity of CEOs’ wealth to stock price (i.e. option delta) instead of leverage has a negative relationship with growth. These findings suggest that incentive contracts that tie managers’ wealth to firm value prevent managers from overinvesting. Thus in presence of options the role of debt as a disciplining mechanism has become less important.     

The nonprofit sector's $100 billion opportunity

Imagine what an extra $100 billion a year could do for philanthropic and other nonprofit institutions. According to a new study, the nonprofit sector could free that amount--maybe even more--by making five changes in the way it operates. The study asked two central questions: Does the sector's money flow from its source to its ultimate use as efficiently and effectively as possible? If not, where are the big opportunities to increase social benefit? According to former senator Bill Bradley and McKinsey's Paul Jansen and Les Silverman, nonprofits could save roughly $25 billion a year by changing the way they raise funds. By distributing funds more quickly, they could put an extra $30 billion to work. Organizations could generate more than $60 billion a year by streamlining and restructuring the way in which they provide services and by reducing administrative costs. And they could free up even more money--an amount impossible to estimate--by better allocating funds among service providers. The authors admit that making those changes won't be easy. The nonprofit world, historically seen as a collection of locally focused charities, has become an enormous sector, but it lacks the managerial processes and incentives that help keep the for-profit world on track. And when the baby boomers start to retire in less than a decade, public budgets will be squeezed even more than they are today. If the nonprofit sector is to help the nation cope with the stresses ahead, it must become more efficient and challenge its traditional concepts of stewardship.     

Influence of cultural factors on price clustering and price resistance in China's stock markets

This paper builds on prior research by analysing the impact of cultural factors on both price clustering and price resistance in China's stock markets. The results support the presence of cultural factors impacting on price clustering with the digit 8 showing a higher propensity for clustering and the digits 4 and 7 showing a lower propensity in the A‐share market, where stock is denominated in renminbi and traded by mainland Chinese. These results are further supported by an analysis of the B‐share market, where cultural factors have no (or less) impact on the price of Chinese stocks traded by foreign investors in US dollars (or in Hong Kong dollars). A range of measures for price resistance show the digits 0 and 5 to be significant resistance points in the A‐share market. Although digit 8 cannot be considered as a resistance point, its resistance level is highest among the remaining numbers. In conclusion, cultural factors help to explain not only price clustering in the Chinese stock markets but price resistance levels as well, albeit at a weak level.