ASSESSING THE EFFICIENCY OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS USING DATA ENVELOPMENT ANALYSIS AND FRONTIER REGRESSION

The cost efficiency of 520 New York school districts is measured using data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier regression. Mean inefficiency is 14% using either method, and the rank order correlation coefficient of inefficiency between the two methods is 86. The three largest school districts (Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse) are among the most efficient. Student test scores are output variables, and socioeconomic control variables are included to adjust for the harshness of the educational environment in which districts operate. (JEL C29, C61, 121)     

An Examination of Moral Development within Public Accounting by Gender,Staff Level,and Firm*

Abstract. This study extends prior research on the average level of moral development in public accounting by examining five large accounting firms and three staff levels. The research is important because it highlights the need to include auditors from several firms in research designs, provides evidence of differences in moral development among public accounting firms, and profiles the professions' average level of moral development for three levels. The data are from 494 managers and seniors (204 females and 290 males) from five Big Six firms. Using the Defining Issues Test (Rest 1979a) to measure moral development, several results were noted. First, the results indicate a difference in the average level of moral development among firms, suggesting that use of subjects from only one firm inhibits the generalizability of findings regarding moral development. Second, female managers are at a significantly higher average level of moral development than male managers. In fact, the average scores for male managers fell between those expected for senior high school and college students. The data suggest that a greater percentage of high-moral-development males and low-moral-development females are leaving public accounting than their respective opposites. These results indicate that the profession has retained, through advancement, males who are potentially less sensitive to the ethical implications of various issues. The analysis also indicates that Kohlberg's (1969) theory of moral development is not biased towards the thought processes of males because female auditors did not score lower on the Defining Issues Test.     

Earnings Yields,Market Values,and Stock Returns

Earlier evidence concerning the relation between stock returns and the effects of size and earnings to price ratio (E/P) is not clear-cut. This paper re-examines these two effects with (a) a substantially longer sample period, 1951–1986, (b) data that are reasonably free of survivor biases, (c) both portfolio and seemingly unrelated regression tests, and (d) an emphasis on the important differences between January and other months. Over the entire period, the earnings yield effect is significant in both January and the other eleven months. Conversely, the size effect is significantly negative only in January. We also find evidence of consistently high returns for firms of all sizes with negative earnings.     

A Measure Of The Trade‐Off Between Responsiveness and Nondictatorship for Arrovian Social Welfare Functions

If individuals are never indifferent between distinct alternatives then for any transitive‐valued social welfare function satisfying IIA, and any fraction t, either the set of pairs of alternatives that are socially ordered without consulting more than one individual's preferences comprises at least the fraction t of all pairs, or else the fraction of pairs that have their social ordering determined independently of everyone's s preferences exceeds, or is very close to, 1 ?t. The Pareto criterion is not imposed. (There is also a version of this result for the domain of preferences that admit indifference.)     

Consumers' Nutritional Ratings of Fast-Food Meals

This study examines the nutritional beliefs about fast-food restaurant meals held by a small sample of consumers. Views on the nutritional quality, caloric content, potential hazards and economic value of such meals were examined with respect to the socioeconomic level and nutritional knowledge of consumers. Findings indicate that consumers perceive these nutritional aspects of fast-food meals to be important but often ignore them in practice. Implications for consumer education and a need for greater social responsibility on the part of the restaurants are noted.