When haste makes sense: Cracking down on street markets for illicit drugs

This paper presents an analytical approach to the tactical question: ‘What level of enforcement over time allows one to eliminate a street market for illicit drugs while expanding the least possible total effort?’ The analysis is done in the context of Caulkins' model [6] which predicts the rate of change of dealers as a function of enforcement level and several market parameters. Our analysis suggests that the simple strategy of using the maximum available enforcement intensity until the market has been eliminated minimizes the total enforcement effort required.     

Productive Efficiency of the Swine Industry in Hawaii: Stochastic Frontier vs. Data Envelopment Analysis

Improving productive efficiency is an increasingly important determinant of the future of the swine industry in Hawaii. This paper examines the productive efficiency of a sample of swine producers in Hawaii by estimating a stochastic frontier production function and the constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) output-oriented DEA models. The technical efficiency estimates obtained from the two frontier techniques are compared. The scale properties are also examined under the two approaches. The industry's potential for increasing production through improved efficiency is also discussed.     

Hölder continuity of the policy function approximation in the value function approximation

We show that given a value function approximation V of a strongly concave stochastic dynamic programming problem (SDDP), the associated policy function approximation is Hölder continuous in V.     

Flexibility at different stages in the life cycle of projects: An empirical illustration of the “freedom to maneuver”

Many textbooks on project management present illustrations concerning the relative size of project attributes during different project phases. The derived models all have attributes in common, such as uncertainty, significance of decisions, and degree of freedom to maneuver, that are typically high in the beginning of the project and low in the end. At the same time, variables such as the accumulated cost and available information begin at low levels and end up at a high level at the end of the project. Based on empirical data from projects, this paper illustrates and quantifies one of these attributes, the freedom to maneuver, in different project phases.     

Party alternation,divided government,and fiscal performance within US States

The literature on US state government fiscal performance has examined the role of institutional factors such as budget rules and divided government, but has largely ignored the impact of party alternation. This paper primarily focuses on whether party alternation in the governor’s office affects fiscal performance. Our hypothesis is that frequent party changes create a political environment that impacts fiscal performance. To further assess the impact of party alternation on fiscal performance, we consider our primary hypothesis in conjunction with the degree of division that exists between the governor’s office and the legislature. Using panel data from 37 states between 1971 and 2000 we test the hypothesis that frequent party alternation can be expected to affect fiscal performance and find strong support for the hypothesis. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 Public Choice Society Meetings. The authors would like to thank the conference participants, William Shughart, Charles Register, Jocelyn Evans, John D. Jackson, Amihai Glazer, and two anonymous referees for their comments. We would also like to thank Craig R. Stiller for his help in the collection of data. Any remaining errors remain the responsibility of the authors.     

The topography of metropolitan employment: Identifying centers of employment in a polycentric urban area

While it is well recognized that US metropolitan areas are polycentric, there is little consensus as to the appropriate method for identifying concentrations of employment within them. Existing methods suffer from strong assumptions about parametric form, misspecification, or reliance on local knowledge to calibrate model parameters. This paper introduces a new nonparametric method for identifying subcenters. Results indicate that this, more flexible, nonparametric approach yields greater accuracy with regard to both urban and suburban centers compared with other approaches. This approach should provide better data for the numerous topics that depend on the spatial accounting of employment within metropolitan areas.     

Drug testing and the law

This article examines judicial and administrative rulings and legislation involving or related to the issue of drug testing in the workplace. It discusses the rights of employees in the public and private sector: constitutional rights; federal, state, and local statutory rights; rights of unionized employees; and common law rights. It analyzes both the current state of the law and future directions the law may take, as courts and administrative agencies decide more cases and governmental bodies continue to pass drug testing legislation.     

Remarks on sequential estimation of a linear function of two means: The normal case

Asymptotic normality of the stopping time ofMukhopadhyay [1976] relating to the point estimation problem is proved. Also moderate sample size behaviour of this stopping time has been studied by Monte-Carlo methods.