The contribution of organic farming to rural development: An exploration of the socio-economic linkages of organic and non-organic farms in England

Organic farming has experienced considerable growth in recent years. Proponents of organic farming point to the environmental and nutritional benefits of organic systems, although these are contested by some. More recently, it has been argued that organic farming can provide rural development benefits through enhanced employment and through closer connections with the local economy, reconnecting consumers with producers and stimulating positive economic multipliers. Against the background of claims made for the rural development potential of organic farming, this paper considers the generation and retention of income, purchasing patterns, and direct employment impacts of a large sample of organic and non-organic farmers in England. The paper reveals some important distinctions between the characteristics of organic and non-organic farms and farmers. It is argued that most of these differences do not stem directly from differences in farming systems but, rather, reflect considerable differences in the people who operate organic farms as well as the distinctive business configurations they frequently adopt.     

Smartphones Could Make Keys Obsolete

Front pockets and purses are slowly being emptied of one of civilization's most basic and enduring tools: the key.It's being swallowed by the cellphone.New technology lets smartphones unlock hotel, office and house doors and open garages and even car doors. It's a not-too-distant cousin of the technology that allows key fobs to remotely unlock automobiles or key cards to be waved beside electronic pads at office entrances.What's new is that it is on the device more people are using as the Swiss Army knife of electronics, in equal parts phone, memo pad, stereo, map, GPS unit, and camera and game machine.     

The Causal Effect of Education on Wages Revisited*

This study estimates the return to education in Britain using two instrumental variable (IV) estimators: one exploits variation in schooling associated with early smoking, the other uses the raising of the school leaving age; both affect a sizeable proportion of the sample. Early smoking is found to be a strong and valid IV and unlike previous IV strategies uses variations in education at numerous points across the distributions of (i) education, and (ii) ability. Thus whilst still a ‘local average treatment effect’ the estimate is closer to the average effect of additional education, akin to least squares but corrected for endogeneity.     

Health and income inequality: attempting to avoid the aggregation problem

Attempts to test the relative deprivation hypothesis, that income inequality affects individual health, are subject to the aggregation problem. Waldmann (Quarterly Journal of Economics 107, 1992) ingeniously attempts to overcome the difficulty by using income data for the poor and the share of income accruing to the rich. The study finds that his results do not hold for a more recent data set and it suggests that his method may not overcome the aggregation problem.     

Economic value and cost-effectiveness of biventricular versus right ventricular pacing: results from the BLOCK-HF study

Abstract

Aims: The Biventricular vs Right Ventricular Pacing in Heart Failure Patients with Atrioventricular Block (BLOCK-HF) demonstrated that biventricular (BiV) pacing resulted in better clinical and structural outcomes compared to right ventricular (RV) pacing in patients with atrioventricular (AV) block and reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF; ≤50%). This study investigated the cost-effectiveness of BiV vs RV pacing in the patient population enrolled in the BLOCK-HF trial.

Methods: All-cause mortality, New York Heart Association (NYHA) Class distribution over time, and NYHA-specific heart failure (HF)-related healthcare utilization rates were predicted using statistical models based on BLOCK-HF patient data. A proportion-in-state model calculated cost-effectiveness from the Medicare payer perspective.

Results: The predicted patient survival was 6.78?years with RV and 7.52?years with BiV pacing, a 10.9% increase over lifetime. BiV pacing resulted in 0.41 more quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) compared to RV pacing, at an additional cost of $12,537. The “base-case” incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) was $30,860/QALY gained. Within the clinical sub-groups, the highest observed ICER was $43,687 (NYHA Class I). Patients receiving combined BiV pacing and defibrillation (BiV-D) devices were projected to benefit more (0.84?years gained) than BiV pacemaker (BiV-P) recipients (0.49?years gained), compared to dual-chamber pacemakers.

Conclusions: BiV pacing in AV block patients improves survival and attenuates HF progression compared to RV pacing. ICERs were consistently below the US acceptability threshold ($50,000/QALY). From a US Medicare perspective, the additional up-front cost associated with offering BiV pacing to the BLOCK-HF patient population appears justified.     

Evaluating the Work of Internal Audit: A Comparison of Standards and Empirical Evidence

Numerous changes have recently been proposed or made to audit standards providing guidance for external auditors' evaluations of internal audit work. This paper reports the results of a study to compare the UK's Accounting Practices Board Statement of Auditing Standard 500, first, with similar standards promulgated by international, Canadian and US societies, and second, with audit quality factors derived from practising internal auditors. The data for the latter comparison was obtained from a two-phase study that first generated a set of potential quality factors through intensive structured interviews with audit groups from six different and diverse organisations, and then obtained evaluations of these factors from a large sample of internal auditors worldwide. Results first indicate that there are strong similarities between the guidance provided by SAS 500 and that proposed or promulgated by the UK, international, Canadian and US audit groups. Furthermore, the guidance provided by these SASs for items to consider in evaluating the quality of internal audit work are largely in agreement with the factors determined by practising internal auditors. There are, however, several items listed in SAS 500 that are not considered useful by internal auditors and there are other factors considered crucial by internal auditors but not mentioned in the SASs.