A deterministic profit attribution model: The postal service,a case study

This paper derives a positive model relating changes in profitability to output levels, price, input quantities, and costs. The model involves decomposition of profit changes to define contributions associated with changes in the product market and production input variables. It can be derived from basic profit concepts without additional assumptions regarding the organization's behavioral decisions or about the shapes of the demand or production functions. It therefore avoids all normative underpinnings and is based strictly on measurable changes in the environment. The model is applied to results obtained from the United States Postal Service income statement. Changes in the Service's productivity and its components (e.g., labor, materials, and capital) are fully reconciled in an accounting sense with reported changes in net income. This reconciliation permits the identification of the sources of net income change.     

Campaigning against poverty: The local authority role

The Record increase in income inequality and poverty over the last 15 years have major implications for local government. Yet an anti-poverty agenda has been conspicuous by its absence until recently in local authority strategies and debates. A national political campaign with all party local authority support is now underway, linked to a growing awareness of the need for local authorities to adopt a truly strategic approach in addressing issues of poverty and social justice at the local level.     

On Cost Tradeoffs Between Conservative and Market Value Accounting

We identify a cost tradeoff relevant to the comparison of alternative accounting regimes. We compare equilibrium deadweight losses, due to transacting and auditing, across the historical cost, lower-of-cost-or-market, and market value regimes. We provide conditions for each of the regimes to dominate the other two. We show that while market-value accounting is likely to prevail in an inflationary setting, it may also be optimal under deflation. Similarly, lower-of-cost-or-market is likely to prevail in a deflationary setting, though it may also be optimal under inflation. Last, historical cost prevails only if the variation in asset prices is sufficiently high.     

Selective Hearing: Physician‐Ownership and Physicians’ Response to New Evidence

Physicians, acting in their role as experts, are often faced with situations where they must trade off personal and patient welfare. Physicians’ incentives vary based on the organizational environment in which they practice. We use the publication of a major clinical trial, which found that a common knee operation does not improve outcomes for patients with osteoarthritis, as an “informational shock” to gauge the impact of physicians’ agency relationships on treatment decisions. Using a 100% sample of procedures in Florida from 1998 to 2010, we find that publication of the trial reduced procedure volume, but the magnitude of the decline was smaller in physician‐owned surgery centers. Incentives affected physicians’ reactions to evidence.     

An economic estimate of the effect of a waterside location on property values

Since the rise of the railway, and the later development of road transport, the economic value of inland waterways in the UK as freight carriers has steadily declined. The reduction in the economic importance of canals has been somewhat offset by their growing popularity as a recreational resource, and by the amenity value which they provide to that part of the population living in close proximity to them. Focussing on two case study areas, this paper uses an hedonic price model to estimate the economic benefits which residents gain from a waterside location. These benefits may have important policy implications for those bodies who own undeveloped land bordering waterways.     

Influencing Agencies Through Pivotal Political Institutions

We draw on the positive political theory and campaign financeliteratures to examine how interest groups allocate influenceactivities (e.g., monetary donations, lobbying) across multiplegovernment institutions when seeking more favorable agency policydecisions. By modeling agency behavior in the context of legislativeoversight, we derive testable predictions about the politicalconditions under which an interest group will influence (1)only the agency, (2) the legislature and/or executive insteadof the agency, and (3) the legislature or executive in additionto the agency in order to induce a shift in regulatory policy.One implication of our conclusions relating to (2) and (3) isthat empirical studies seeking to identify a relationship betweenelectoral campaign contributions and public policy using dataon legislative votes are potentially misspecified.