Regulatory Impact Assessment and the Economic Transition to Markets

In most developing and transition economies, far-reaching legal and regulatory reforms are essential for a successful transition to market-led economic development. One of the most important capacities of a market regulator is the ability to assess the market impacts of a regulation before it is adopted. Regulatory impact analysis (RIA) is a tool now used in most developed countries to improve understanding of the economic and social welfare impacts of a law and other forms of regulation. This article argues that institutional reforms aimed at good governance are at the core of the development process, that RIA can contribute to the quality of legal reforms and support other good governance goals, and that RIA can be implemented step-by-step by building on existing practices and investing in skills and training.     

UK trust fundraising - Learning to say thank you

In the United Kingdom, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) data suggest that grant-making trusts are currently responsible for supplying over 13 per cent of an ‘average’ charity's income (approximately four times the amount committed by corporate donors). Remarkably however, very little is known about the behaviour of such organisations and the contact strategies that are used by charities to solicit their support. This paper reviews the findings of a postal survey of 350 grant-making trusts and identifies the criteria most commonly used to perform an initial sift of proposals and to develop a final short list to appraise for support or rejection. The findings clearly show that charity applications to trusts have increased dramatically over the past three years. Regrettably however, trusts perceive that there has been an accompanying decline in the standards of application being made. Trusts report that they are now frequently subjected to ill-considered ‘blanket’ mailings from charities that often take no account of the specific aims and objectives of the trust. In general, the research also identified that applicants appeared to have undertaken very little research prior to submission of their application and if successful, would be unlikely to thank the trustees, nor to indicate what had been achieved as a result of their generosity.     

Incomplete Markets and Security Prices: Do Asset-Pricing Puzzles Result from Aggregation Problems?

This paper investigates Euler equations involving security prices and household-level consumption data. It provides a useful complement to many existing studies of consumption-based asset pricing models that use a representative-agent framework, because the Euler equations under investigation hold even if markets are incomplete. It also provides a useful complement to simulation-based studies of market incompleteness. The empirical evidence indicates that the theory is rejected by the data along several dimensions. The results therefore indicate that some well-documented asset-pricing puzzles do not result from aggregation problems for the preferences under investigation.     

Understanding Empirical Boundaries: A Systems-Theoretical Avenue in Border Studies

The aim of this contribution is to present a conceptual framework with potential application across the interdisciplinary field of border studies. This framework should embrace interdisciplinarity and the contextual nature of borders. Based on the systems theory of Niklas Luhmann, it elaborates an understanding of borders as being related to a dynamic process of social bordering/bounding processes that involves spatial, social, and conceptual boundaries. By introducing the notion of ‘empirical boundary’, our framework aspires to bridge the gap between (radical) constructivist theorising and the analysis of physical realities involved in the (re)production of boundaries.     

Gesundheitsfonds — effizientere Steuerung des Gesundheitssystems?

In 2009 the German central health fund was implemented. It was the result of a political compromise. One political party intended to equalise the risk structure among 130 different health care funds, and the other wanted to intensify competition and to improve efficiency among the different health insurances. The fund is flanked by a health-based risk adjustment and is aimed at sustainably ensuring the funding of the statutory health insurance system. It also constitutes the basis for competition among statutory health care funds, securing quality and efficiency in health care provision. To cover additional expenditures, health insurers had to charge flatrate premiums. A new law, which will come into effect in January 2015, will oblige health insurers to charge income related contributions. It is not clear how this will change competition among insurers. The federal government will not need to finance subsidies to low income individuals anymore. Income redistribution will only take place within the public health insurance system, exempting the privately insured and public servants from supporting low income individuals. The authors claim that the health care fund will not succeed in its aim of securing a sustainable financial basis for the statutory health insurance system. Most of the authors argue that there is no evidence of greater efficiency thus far, and they offer proposals on how to achieve improved performance.     

(Un)Ethical Behavior and Performance Appraisal: The Role of Affect,Support, and Organizational Justice

Performance appraisals are widely used as an HR instrument. This study among 332 police officers examines the effects of performance appraisals from a behavioral ethics perspective. A mediation model relating justice perceptions of police officers’ last performance appraisal to their work affect, perceived supervisor and organizational support and, in turn, their ethical (pro-organizational proactive) and unethical (counterproductive) work behavior was tested empirically. The relationship between justice perceptions and both, ethical and unethical behavior was mediated by perceived support and work affect. Hence, a singular yearly performance appraisal was linked to both ethical and unethical behaviors at work. The finding that ethical and unethical aspects of employee behavior share several of the same organizational antecedents, namely organizational justice perceptions, has strong practical implications which are discussed as well.     

Diversification revisited

Many investment companies hold diversified asset portfolios and frequently try to mirror or outperform a market index for each asset class such as stocks and bonds. As Wibaut and Wilford (2009) show, often the same issuers appear in each of those indices and this may lead to undesirable results such as during a crisis period. Our research further explores the topic of diversification with a special focus on the financial crisis period of 2007 through 2009. Our results indicate that there is benefit in terms of correlations from holding bond and stock portfolios. Interestingly, these findings show the benefit is most pronounced during times of market stress.     

New Developments in Soviet Advertising and Marketing Theory

This paper contrasts Soviet and Western advertising and marketing theory, and explains how Soviet theory has progressed in recent years. Soviet advertising practice has been adversely affected by the central planners' aim of regulating advertising, as well as consumption, so that demand is not stimulated beyond what is thought to be ‘rational’ or desirable. However, without abandoning their traditional product orientation, Soviet marketing theorists are developing the idea that consumer interests should be more important in product development. Moreover, in sharp contrast to previous Soviet practice, market segmentation is being examined as a means to increase the effectiveness of advertising. However, the omission of the important geographical and national group variables from this segmentation strategy implies that political considerations will remain paramount in any changes in theory or practice.     

Complexity: Toward an empirical measure

Complexity is a significant concern to managers and can undermine operational performance if not managed well, or if managed well could be used to strategic advantage. However, the quantification of complexity is requisite to managing and exploiting it. To date, an easily employable quantitative measure has not been introduced. This has hampered the ability of researchers to conduct large empirical studies and to gain a fuller understanding of the impacts of complexity on organizations. This has in turn impeded the ability of researchers to inform managers about how to manage complexity. This article presents one such measure, the Generalized Complexity Index (GCI), and illustrates it using publicly available data from the cruise line industry. The GCI employs the product structure diagram to create a geometric structure from which the level of the three dimensions of complexity (multiplicity, diversity, and interconnectedness) can be computed. The GCI is a function of these three dimensions. A significant advantage of the GCI is that it can be applied at multiple levels of analysis including product, portfolio, and supply chain. Implications for business diversification research and marketing strategy are introduced and future research topics are identified.