Using Limited Information to Support the Decision to Launch a New Product in the Fruit Juice Market: A Teaching Case Study

Fresh Juice Incorporated (FJI) is in the process of determining whether it should launch a new fruit juice, Genetically Enhanced (GE) Juice. The GE Juice meets consumers' demands for a tasty, nutritious product and it would be the first new juice product in the last fifteen years. Before FJI decides to launch GE Juice, it must analyze the uncertainty surrounding market size, market share, and price of GE Juice. Finally, if FJI decides to launch GE Juice, then they must decide if they will bottle the juice themselves or outsource this process. This case teaches students how to discuss the strategic implications of launching a new product and develop a net present value and financial feasibility simulation model given limited information.     

Assessing the Effect of Bilateral Collaborations on Learning Outcomes

Despite recent interest in the effects of student-driven collaborations on learning outcomes, little or no empirical investigations examine the potential benefits from collaboration between instructors of separate, but related, courses. This study proposes a learning intervention that explicitly accounts for interdependencies across courses and extends the traditional definition of collaborative learning to include the synthesis of teaching and learning in four courses through bilateral, group activities between instructors and among students. A student-performance measure assesses the intervention. Statistical results suggest that the collaborative learning intervention improved student-writing performance.     

Institutional convergence: exit or voice?

There is a small but growing literature on the determinants of economic freedom. This paper contributes to this literature in two ways. First, it is empirically shown that β-convergence in economic freedom occurred from 1980 to 2010. Countries with low levels of economic freedom in 1980 “catch up” at a rate of 0.7 percent a year on average, ceteris paribus. Second, the structural characteristics that contribute to this institutional convergence are documented. Conditional convergence estimates suggest democratic institutions do not con- tribute to conditional convergence. Exitability, a variable that captures how easy it is for citizens to “vote with their feet” is related to the change in economic freedom from 1980 to 2010 in a statistically significant manner across all specifications. This provides some preliminary evidence as to the importance of “exit” versus “voice” with respect to the question of institutional change.     

THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION SHOW THE NEED FOR DIRECT TAXATION? IT JUST AIN'T SO!

Historians and economists often refer to the United States experience under the Articles of Confederation as evidence against decentralised government finance. While it is true that the US government had difficulty raising money from the states during this period, we argue that these facts are a benefit of the system, not a flaw. A 'bottom-up' system of finance, such as the one that existed under the Articles of Confederation, is an important check on Leviathan and has implications for United Nations fund-raising efforts and development economics.     

Did Vietnam veterans get sicker in the 1990s? The complicated effects of military service on self-reported health

The veterans disability compensation (VDC) program, which provides a monthly stipend to disabled veterans, is the third largest American disability insurance program. Since the late 1990s, VDC growth has been driven primarily by an increase in claims from Vietnam veterans, raising concerns about costs as well as health. We use the draft lottery to study the long-term effects of Vietnam-era military service on health and work in the 2000 Census. We find no evidence that military service affected overall employment rates or overall work-limiting disability rates (that is, health conditions that make work difficult). At the same time, military service sharply increased federal transfer income, especially for lower skilled white men, among whom there was also a large negative impact on employment and a marked increase in disability rates. The differential impact of Vietnam-era service on low-skilled men cannot be explained by more combat or war-theatre exposure for the least educated, because high school graduates were at least as likely to be exposed to combat or war theatre as the less-educated. This leaves the relative attractiveness of VDC for less-skilled men and the work disincentives embedded in the VDC system as a likely explanation for our findings.