Peer effects in the diffusion of water‐saving agricultural technologies

We investigate the role of peer effects in the diffusion of an important water‐saving irrigation technology: low energy precise application (LEPA). Using detailed irrigation behavior data for growers in the High Plains Aquifer region of Kansas covering 1990–2014, we find clear evidence of peer influence in adoption of LEPA, net of environmental factors. Specifically, an additional neighboring LEPA installation within 1 km increases the probability of adoption by about 0.3 percentage points, on average, and this effect diminishes with distance. Our empirical estimates indicate that in the absence of peer effects, LEPA adoption would have been about 10% lower (1,000–1,600 fewer installations) per year. In addition, we find that growers install LEPA in response to higher energy prices.     

Global peace as a professional concern,I

The most serious threat currently facing people all over the world is that of a global nuclear war, in which hundreds of millions of people would be killed by the immediate effects of nuclear explosions, and over a billion others would later die of cold and starvation in the ensuing nuclear winter. Physicians and other health professionals have an ethical responsibility to educate themselves, their patients, and the public to the need for major political changes to achieve multilateral disarmament and thus prevent nuclear war. Scientists ought to oppose all research and government expenditures preparing for war, and should participate only in work designed to improve health and living standards for all the world's inhabitants.Dr. Perry is Professor of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia. Educated at Oxford and at Harvard Medical School, he first practiced pediatrics, and later became a neurochemist researching a variety of human brain disorders. He has been a peace activist since seeing combat in Europe during World War II. He works in Canadian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and in Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, and is an appointed member of Vancouver City Council's Special Committee on Peace.The articles by Thomas L. Perry, Gilles D. Hurteau, and Joanna Santa Barbara are the result of a three-person panel presentation and therefore appear under the same title. At the publisher's discretion, roman numerals have been included to distinguish these articles.     

The macroeconomic determinants of technology stock price volatility

Stock prices reflect the value of anticipated future profits of companies. Since business cycle conditions impact the future profitability of firms, expectations about the business cycle will affect the current value of firms. This paper uses daily and monthly data from July 1986 to December 2000 to investigate the macroeconomic determinants of US technology stock price conditional volatility. Technology share prices are measured using the Pacific Stock Exchange Technology 100 Index. One of the novel features of this paper is to incorporate a link between technology stock price movements and oil price movements. The empirical results indicate that the conditional volatilities of oil prices, the term premium, and the consumer price index each have a significant impact on the conditional volatility of technology stock prices. Conditional volatilities calculated using daily stock return data display more persistence than conditional volatilities calculated using monthly data. These results further our understanding of the interaction between oil prices and technology share prices and should be of use to investors, hedgers, managers, and policymakers.     

The mature region building a practical model for the transition to the sustainable society

The demographic shift from the northeast to the “sunbelt” has resource implications that will span several decades. Early in the 21st century, today's “boom” regions will be significantly affected by declining petro-energy and an aging population and infrastructure. The northeast is now in an analogous situation.The transition to the sustainable society is unlikely to occur in the sunbelt while the boom is on, but the need for sustainability is immediate in the northeast. For the mature industrial states, economic survival is tied to the level of self-sufficiency they can achieve in the 1980s and 1990s. The efforts toward greater regional sustainability can offer practical models to regions yet to encounter cyclical decline. The transition to the sustainable society will be built on the aggregated efforts of regions to bring their unique circumstances into balance.New England is presented as the case study of a mature region, no longer growing, but embarking in measurable ways on a path toward regional sustainability. The model focuses on the recapture of resources that have traditionally sustained the region—the landscape, the 19th century settlement pattern, and the educational establishment.The inquiry is directed to practical efforts now being made by the private sector to readapt these traditional resources and increase New England's self-sufficiency. The paper will examine the significance of New England private sector endeavors, for effects on other regions, demonstration value and transferability, and conditions that merit continuing investigation as models for the transition to the sustainable society.     

A Research Note on Discrimination in Mortgage Lending

This paper examines the hypothesis that mortgage lenders rank applications from better to worst and encourage the better ones to apply. A second ranking occurs when the application is ranked by the loan committee and funds are approved from the top of the list until exhausted. A theoretically correct procedure for analyzing the resulting multivariate ordinal data is the little known rank multiple discriminant analysis. Preliminary results have revealed that this technique produces a "best" model with fewer variables and a higher classification rate than the commonly known multiple discriminant analysis, logit, or probit.     

Strategic restructuring

Never before has there been so much organizational restructuring, in spite of consistently mixed results. This article argues that the reason organizational restructuring so often fails to increase productivity and profit is that it is not guided by business strategy. While most managers agree that structure should follow strategy, few have a process for moving from strategy to restructuring at the business level where most restructuring occurs. A number of businesses, however, have based restructuring decisions on a clear and well-understood strategy. This article describes what is common to the processes these businesses have followed. Human resource managers, whose role and competence should include the alignment of change processes with business needs, have often abdicated responsibility for ensuring that restructuring efforts are strategic and are competently implemented. © 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Measuring resource scarcity in non-renewable resource with an application to oil and natural gas in Alberta

In this paper annual Canadian exploration data are used to estimate a multiple-output translog exploration cost function. A new definition of depletion is introduced and its estimated coefficient is found to be statistically significant. The fitted cost function parameters are then used to obtain estimates of the marginal costs of exploration for oil and gas. Our estimated marginal exploration costs are smaller than in previour studies because we have allowed for technical progress which offsets the depletion effects. These marginal cost estimates are employed, along with previous estimates of exploration rents, to measure resource scarcity. We find some evidence for the increased scarcity of oil and gas in Alberta. For oil there is a 10.1% per year increase in scarcity along the trend line while for natural gas there is a 2.4% per year increase in scarcity along the trend line.