An economic evaluation of area yield insurance for small-scale cane growers

In the past, crop insurance schemes have based indemnity payments on individual producers' yields. Insurance of individual yields does not cope efficiently with systemic risk and therefore fails in areas where crop yields are correlated across space. Area yield insurance provides an alternative and eliminates the problems of moral hazard and adverse selection associated with individual yield insurance. Area yield insurance therefore effectively copes with systemic risk. In this study, principles of area yield insurance were applied to yield data on small-scale cane growers in KwaZulu-Natal and used to calculate pure premium rates. The viability of a government-subsidised area yield insurance scheme for small-scale cane farmers was assessed in terms of affordability to the government, the farmers and private insurance companies. The empirical results obtained from this study indicate that such a scheme may pose great expense to the government and, as a result, may not be viable in South Africa. This topic needs further study, while other risk management strategies should also be considered.     

Vertical Pay Dispersion,Peer Observability,and Misreporting in a Participative Budgeting Setting

In this study, we examine the joint effect of vertical pay dispersion and peer observability on subordinates' misreporting choices. We adopt a participative budgeting setting in which two subordinates report to one superior, and we manipulate vertical pay dispersion (low/high) and peer observability (absent/present). Subordinates have private information about actual project costs and can over-report project costs to the superior without detection and thus create budgetary slack. When a peer's reporting choices are observable, we predict and find that peer reporting choices have an asymmetric influence on the focal subordinates' reporting choices, and this asymmetric influence depends on the level of vertical pay dispersion. Specifically, we find that when vertical pay dispersion is low, subordinates who observe peer reports containing low slack misreport less, whereas observing peer reports that contain high slack has no significant effect. However, when vertical pay dispersion is high, subordinates who observe peer reports containing high slack misreport more, whereas observing peer reports that contain low slack has no significant effect. Driven by these asymmetric effects, subordinates misreport less in the presence of peer observability than in its absence when vertical pay dispersion is low and misreport more in the presence of peer observability than in its absence when vertical pay dispersion is high. Overall, our findings suggest that when a firm has a more egalitarian pay structure (i.e., low vertical pay dispersion), an open information policy is conducive to a more honest reporting environment, whereas under a more hierarchical pay structure (i.e., high vertical pay dispersion), open information policies can compromise the honesty of subordinates' reports.     

The Effects of Mandatory Arbitration of Employment Discrimination Claims: Perceptions of Justice and Suggestions for Change

The ability of employers to require employees to submit claims of discrimination to final and binding arbitration in lieu of exercising their statutory rights represents a significant change in public policy. The methods traditionally used by enforcing agencies to investigate discrimination claims provide assistance and intervention that redress power asymmetries between employees and employers. Depriving employees of these enforcement mechanisms and requiring them to use arbitration may have adverse effects on perceptions of justice, both in procedural and distributive terms. We propose that mutuality, equality, and remediality are issues that must be addressed in situations of mandatory arbitration. We also suggest that mandatory arbitration may have other effects including expanding the scope of issues well beyond discrimination claims.     

Understanding frame‐of‐reference training success: a social learning theory perspective

Employing the social learning theory (SLT) perspective on training, we analysed the effects of alternative frame‐of‐reference (FOR) training protocols on various criteria of training effectiveness. Undergraduate participants (N = 65) were randomly assigned to one of four FOR training conditions and a control condition. Training effectiveness was determined via trainee reactions, learning and rating accuracy. The results partially supported the study hypotheses: compared to the control group, the more comprehensive FOR training conditions evidenced: (1) significantly higher rating accuracy; (2) significantly higher levels of learning; and (3) more favorable reactions to the training. The discussion focuses on the implications of the results for protocol development when designing FOR training programs.     

Towards a typology of business process management professionals: identifying patterns of competences through latent semantic analysis

While researchers have analysed the organisational competences that are required for successful Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives, individual BPM competences have not yet been studied in detail. In this study, latent semantic analysis is used to examine a collection of 1507 BPM-related job advertisements in order to develop a typology of BPM professionals. This empirical analysis reveals distinct ideal types and profiles of BPM professionals on several levels of abstraction. A closer look at these ideal types and profiles confirms that BPM is a boundary-spanning field that requires interdisciplinary sets of competence that range from technical competences to business and systems competences. Based on the study’s findings, it is posited that individual and organisational alignment with the identified ideal types and profiles is likely to result in high employability and organisational BPM success.     

Cross-boundary information sharing in regulatory contexts: The case of financial markets

Most studies about cross-boundary information sharing (CBIS) focus on private or public sector organizations only. There is limited research within regulated environments, which often requires information to be shared among multiple public, private and nonprofit organizations. This paper explores CBIS in different regulatory contexts, with a focus on financial markets in the USA, and finds some unique characteristics in terms of information asymmetries, incentive and governance structures, and structural complexity.     

Genuine Wealth Per Capita as a Measure of Sustainability and the Negative Impact of Corruption on Sustainable Growth in Sub‐Sahara Africa

In this paper, we argue that the answer to the question of whether the impact of corruption on development is homogenous, is no. Our optimism rest on how development may be conceptualised. When equated to a narrow measure in economic‐wise which fundamentally ignores critical issues, then there is a possibility the outlook could be positive. But when conceptualised using a broad‐based approach such as sustainable development, then the outlook could be negative. We assess a panel of 22 economies in Sub‐Sahara Africa with the most recent dataset (1996–2013) from the World Bank and other reputable agencies. Our finding is quite robust. It holds in pooled OLS, Fixed effects and GMM within IV settings; and it also holds for different measures of institutions and different measures of development using growth per capita GDP and genuine wealth per capita, respectively. Taking stock of major policy blue‐prints of selected countries in the region on the fight against corruption, we are able to point out that institutions play important role in insulating citizens against the devastation caused by corruption. Overall, through this comparison, we are able to signal that both incidental and systematic corruption poses a long‐term threat to sustainable development.     

Income Redistribution and Direct Taxes and Transfers in New Zealand

This article examines the redistributive effects of direct taxes and transfers in New Zealand. First, it reports summary measures of the income tax-and-transfer system using the NZ Household Economic Survey. Second, the article examines the characteristics of low-income NZ taxpayers. A decomposition by individual and household characteristics shows that different groups of low-income taxpayers can be affected quite differently by various aspects of the tax-and-transfer system. In particular, reforms involving tax-free zones do not appear to be well targeted to help those most in need.