Economics of Quota Allocation Within Supply Managemnt Analysis of the Present Procedures for Quota Allocation

The institution of supply management has evolved to deal with a farm income problem and to achieve social objectives such as the maintenance of the family farm. In many respects, the institutions have developed in response to significant technological and market development that had potentially profound impacts on the number, size and profitability of farm operations. Supply management has proven successful in transfer— ring income, partially stabilizing prices and production and arresting the spread of vertical integration and maintaining the "family farm." Although the institution has had its failures, more specifically, income transfers have been capitalized into asset values. Second generation farmers will face higher costs and will benefit only if they too can "short the market" and extract monopoly profits from the marketplace. Further, the rigidities in quota allocation methods have inhibited resource allocation, necessary structural adjustments and imposed real costs to consumers. These negative results are incongruent to an otherwise viable and dynamic Canadian agriculture.
Is It North It
One may argue that the consequences of regulation, which are reduced efficiency/competitiveness and lost opportunities, are acceptable if it is felt a transfer of benefits to a disadvantaged group of society is needed. However, can it be held that those farmers operating under supply management remain disadvantaged? If not, regulatory reform and/or adjustments are needed. Otherwise, the tendency towards deregulation in the general economy, widening price gaps, consumer resistance, and the like will lead to imposed changes by regulatory authorities.
Supply management is an acceptable regulatory tool that should be employed to achieve a myriad of policy objectives.     

Testing for coefficient constancy in random walk models with particular reference to the initial value problem

This article is concerned with Locally Best Invariant tests for coefficient stability in a univariate random walk coefficient regression model. In particular, we explore the effects that different assumptions about the initial value of the random walk process have on the form and asymptotic distribution of the resulting test statistics. When this initial value is allowed to be random, it is shown that the test statistics are either exactly the same, or possess the same asymptotic distributions, as when the initial value is fixed.     

Visualizing the Self: Exploring the Potential Benefits and Drawbacks for New Product Evaluation

This study examines the role of visual processing in new product evaluation. The primary goal of this research was to provide insights into the role of visualization content (self‐related versus others‐related images) in product evaluation as it differentially relates to two separate types of products—incremental products and really new products. This study's results show that for incremental products, visualizing with self‐related images (versus others‐related images) led to higher evaluations. In this context, it seems that familiarity with the product category from which an incremental product extension is generated enables individuals to produce images easily where they can see themselves using the new product. In some sense, self‐related visualization might be thought of as a form of surrogate experience with the new product. The ability to self‐reference during evaluation provides positive benefits to the evaluation outcome. Contrasting this result, this study's findings showed that for really new product introductions the previously identified benefits of self‐visualization were not realized. Confirming this study's prediction, the advantage of self‐visualization over others‐related visualization was lost. This is attributed to consumer difficulty in visualizing the full application of a really new product to their current consumption behavior. Of further interest, this study's results also showed that in the case of really new products others‐related visualization facilitated higher evaluations than self‐visualization. The mediating role of visualization‐based evaluation difficulty provides further explanation for these findings. Self‐related images are shown to be difficult to imagine in a really new product context, whereas imagining others utilizing the really new product is shown to be significantly easier. Perhaps individuals can see the benefits and better understand the novel applications of a really new product when visually simulating someone else using it but have more trouble imagining the applicability of the innovation in their own life. These findings are integrated into a discussion of the managerial implications and the potential avenues for future research in the area.     

Administering the Employment Relationship: The Ethics of Conflict Resolution in Relation to Justice in the Workplace

The purpose of this paper is to provide a historical overview of the ethical concept of organizational due process in relation to contemporary issues in the utilization of company grievance procedures in the rapidly growing nonunion arena. Another objective of this paper is to appraise the current practices that employers have evolved for resolving issues generated by grievances, particularly those of professional, white collar employees.     

Coordination, Challenges, and Innovations in 19 National Sustainable Development Strategies

In this article, we study 19 developing and developed countries to identify key challenges, approaches, and innovations in strategic and coordinated action for sustainable development at the national level. We are interested in the institutional fabric of implementing sustainable development. What are governments actually doing to organize the processes required for this? What are the institutional innovations in this regard and what kind of typologies can be identified?Despite some true progress made, our findings indicate that countries are still at the early stages of learning toward effective action for sustainable development. This applies both to developing and developed countries. Key unsolved challenges include (a) coordination with the national budget, (b) coordination with sub-national level sustainable development strategies, and (c) coordination with other national-level strategy processes.     

Accounting conservatism and voluntary corporate governance mechanisms by Australian firms

This study examines the relationship between voluntary adoption of selected corporate governance mechanisms and accounting conservatism for a sample of firms listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) over the 11‐year period prior to the promulgation of the ASX Corporate Governance Council Good Governance Principles and Best Practice Recommendations in 2003. Using four accounting and market‐based accounting conservatism measures, our results provide evidence of both conditional and unconditional conservatism in accounting reporting for Australian firms. We find that voluntary audit committee formation, increasing board independence and decreasing board size are positively associated with unconditional accounting conservatism and negatively related to the degree of conditional conservatism. Our results support the contention that firms voluntarily adopting perceived best practice corporate governance mechanisms employ unconditional accounting conservatism as a complimentary agency control device and are consistent with the observed negative association between the unconditional and conditional forms of accounting conservatism practice.     

The impact of a sales team’s perceived entitativity on customer satisfaction

This research investigates the impact of a sales team’s entitativity—the extent to which a group of individuals is perceived as a unified single entity—on customer satisfaction. Four studies demonstrate that a sales team entitativity cue, either based on appearance (e.g., wearing the same outfit) or based on behavior (e.g., explicit coordination in service), leads to heightened perceptions of service quality, which subsequently enhances customer satisfaction. Further, these two entitativity cues are shown to have interactive effects. Specifically, when both cues indicate high entitativity, customer satisfaction with the sales team exceeds the average evaluation of individual team members. However, if at least one cue suggests low entitativity (e.g., different outfits or no explicit coordination), the positive influence of the entitativity cue is undermined and customer satisfaction with the team’s service is mitigated. Product category is identified as an important moderator of the main effect.