What Our Students Should Know: Perspectives from Business and Academia

Perspectives from business and academia on the relative importance of various skills and attributes were compared. The perspective from academia came from the University of Guelph learning objectives and the AEB simple and complex skills required for undergraduate majors. A survey of Canadian agribusiness firms, including governmental agencies, provided the business perspective. Different types and sizes of businesses were consistent in ranking the relative importance of the various skills and attributes. The rankings by business were also consistent with the hierachial learning objectives from the University of Guelph and the disciplinary skills from the AEB. The hypothesis that business and academia are more convergent than divergent as to what our students should know is supported by these results.
Both business and academia rank communication skills highly. Business ranks personal qualities slightly higher than communication skills, but universities recognize that they can only screen for personal qualities, as opposed to the skills that they can enhance through education. Relatively low rankings of technical, computer and quantitative skills and experience should not be interpreted to mean they are unimportant, but rather that they are necessary but not sufficient for entry-level employees to succeed in agribusiness firms.     

The Elected Mayor and Local Leadership

This article examines the new leadership role of the English elected mayor. The authors suggest that the management and governance of the local authority is subject to significant change within the mayoral system, and that elected mayors represent a form of strong political management which is essentially new within English local government. The authors discuss the prospects for the future of the executive mayor, and suggest potential areas for further research, including succession planning in mayoral authorities, the nature of the first mayoral re-election campaigns outside London, and the possible growth of this form of local leadership.     

Strategies for best practice in research and technology institutes: an overview of a benchmarking exercise

Many technology institutes have been criticised for their dislocation from, or lack of relevance to, industry. This paper provides an overview of a major benchmaking study which analyzed in depth the most successful technology institutes from eight nations (four in Europe and four in East Asia). Institutes selected for study met a criterion which included a combination of dynamism, relevance to industry, contribution to the national science and technology infrastructure, independent fund-raising capability, innovative organizational structures, and effective management. The paper examines the activities engaged in by the eight institutes, the principal challenges they face, and identifies the main success factors underlying their achievements. The paper attempts to illustrate practical, best practice strategies by showing how leading technology institutes have successfully contributed to their national system of innovation. To this end, success factors have been categorized into those factors which are under the direct control of the institutes (internal), which are outside of their influence (external), and those which can be affected to a lesser or greater extent.     

The literature on the economic causes of and policy responses to obesity

This paper discusses economic perspectives on obesity, summarizes the economic literature and outlines potential policy responses. The paper provides the most up-to-date review of the literature. The literature illustrates the potential role of informational market failures and the dichotomy between the private and social costs of obesity. Market failures can act to provide a rationale for government intervention. Suggested factors for explaining the increase in the prevalence of obesity are discussed as relating to imperfect information, lifestyle changes and technology changes. Some of the potential remedial policies that are being debated in the literature include applying Pigouvian taxes, labelling regulation and advertising limitations.     

Default risk and equity returns: Australian evidence

We test whether default risk is related to equity returns using the Fama and MacBeth [Fama, E.F., MacBeth, J., 1973. Risk, return, and equilibrium: empirical tests. Journal of Political Economy 81, 607–636.] regression framework. The proxy we use for default risk is the default probability obtained from option-based models. Our findings show that default probability is negatively related to returns. While we find that size and book-to-market are related to default risk, the ability of these variables to explain cross-sectional variation in returns is not because they are proxying default risk. Further, our evidence suggests that the negative relationship between default probability and returns is not due to a leverage, volatility or momentum effect.     

Trust-Based Relationships in Local Government Contracting

This article examines issues of trust and competition as they relate to a number of services provided by British local government. The first section outlines the changing policy context of competition for local authority services and is followed by a discussion of the nature of trust under contracting, drawing on elements of (primarily) economic theory to identify the features of contracting which we would expect to find in a 'low trust world'. The authors ask whether these features appear to be present in contracting and point to some features of the CCT legislative framework which may help to explain this. After reviewing private sector practice, the extent to which it could be replicated under CCT is examined.     

Fostering the capital-goods sector in LDCs

The conventional arguments in favour of the production of capital goods by LDCs are based on comparative advantage, the possibility of designs appropriate to indigenous factor proportions, and the externalities conferred on other sectors. These and other arguments are inducing the governments of many middle-income countries to more intensively foster the development of the machinery sector. This paper examines the analytic and empirical bases of the conventional arguments and finds a considerably more complex picture than that contained in earlier studies.     

THE LOW EARNINGS OF AGRICULTURAL WORKERS: A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH*

This paper shows that agricultural economists have tended to account for the low incomes of agricultural workers by utilising the economic model which explains low returns to agriculture as a whole. This aproach is called low returns to agriculture as a whole. This approach is called into question by referring to regional data on workers' earnings and farmers' incomes. A sociological approach is outlined which takes account of the degree of choice open to agricultural workers to accept the earnings and conditions of agriculture.     

FINANCIAL LEASE ANALYSIS: CONSISTENT AND INCONSISTENT APPROACHES

This paper evaluates lease-purchase analysis methods which assume that leasing provides 100 percent financing and that purchasing involves a mixture of debt and equity finance. Such analyses are being used in Australia particularly in the promotion of leveraged leasing. It is argued that this method is unsound and that analysis of financial leasing should focus on the effects of leasing on the financial risk of the lessee.