Implications of Seasonal Climate Forecasts on World Wheat Trade: A Stochastic, Dynamic Analysis

Improvements in seasonal climate forecasts have potential economic implications for international agriculture. A stochastic, dynamic simulation model of the international wheat economy is developed to estimate the potential effects of seasonal climate forecasts for various countries' wheat production, exports and world trade. Previous studies have generally ignored the stochastic and dynamic aspects of the effects associated with the use of climate forecasts. This study shows the importance of these aspects. In particular with free trade, the use of seasonal forecasts results in increased producer surplus across all exporting countries. In fact, producers appear to capture a large share of the economic surplus created by using the forecasts. Further, the stochastic dimensions suggest that while the expected long‐run benefits of seasonal forecasts are positive, considerable year‐to‐year variation in the distribution of benefits between producers and consumers should be expected. The possibility exists for an economic measure to increase or decrease over a 20‐year horizon, depending on the particular sequence of years. Le progrès des prévisions saisonnières du climat a une portée économique pour l'agriculture internationale. Un modèle stochastique et dynamique de l'économie internationale du blé est développé afin d'estimer les effets potentiels des prévisions saisonnières du climat sur la production de blé de divers pays, leurs exportations et le commerce mondial. Les études précédentes ont généralement ignoré les aspects stochastiques et dynamiques des effets liés à l'utilisation des prévisions climatiques. Cette étude montre l'importance de ces aspects. En particulier avec le libre échange l'utilisation de ces prévisions aboutit à l'augmentation des excédents dans tous les pays exportateurs. En fait, il apparaît que les producteurs accaparent une grande part de l'excédent économique créé par l'utilisation de ces prévisions. De plus, les dimensions stochastiques suggèrent que bien que les bénéfices à long terme des prévisions climatiques puissent être substantiels, on s'attend à des variations considérables d'une année à l'autre dans la distribution des bénéfices entre les producteurs et les consommateurs. Il est possible qu'un indicateur économique varie à la baisse sur 20 ans eus fonction de la séquence de variation climatique.     

Values motivation and concern for appearances: the effect of personality traits on responses to corporate social responsibility

• The present research seeks to examine differences in support for corporate social responsibility based on certain personality traits. Secondary data from a nationally representative sample of 6065 respondents were examined. The results demonstrate that individuals motivated by a concern for appearances, an egoistic enhancement motivation, as well as individuals motivated by their values, make purchases in support of corporate philanthropy. However those concerned for appearances do not view CSR as a normative requirement, unlike those motivated by their values.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of management changes on winning in professional sports: Analysis using a dynamic lag adjustment model

This paper examines whether coaching and general manager (GM) changes among three professional sports leagues—the National Football League (NFL), the Major League Baseball (MLB), and the National Basketball Association (NBA)—effect on‐field performance. Our empirical methodology uses team‐level data by season and adapts a lag adjustment econometric approach designed to resolve several statistical challenges that arise both in general managerial settings and in sports settings. Our main finding is that coaching changes in the NFL boost the number of wins per season by between 0.5 and 1.2 in each of the first five seasons. Coaching changes have smaller, but still positive, impacts in the MLB and NBA. For all the three leagues, we find that GM changes have no discernable impact on performance. A separate cross‐sectional analysis suggests that those small impacts stem from coaches and GMs having extremely compressed talent distributions. The data indicate that coaches and GMs, en masse, are important, but changing the people who occupy those positions rarely seems to move teams to different locations on the performance distribution.     

Volunteering: the long arm of the law

Voluntary organisations are beginning to acknowledge that they have responsibilities towards volunteers that closely resemble their duties towards paid staff. There is a move towards interviewing volunteers, taking up references and defining the terms and conditions of volunteer work. This paper explores some legal implications of the formalisation of the relationship between voluntary organisations and their voluntary workers. Particular emphasis is placed on the problems that can arise when voluntary workers receive payment over and above the reimbursement of their actual expenditure. Copyright © 1999 Henry Stewart Publications