THE TREASURER'S DEPARTMENT AS A BUFFER ORGANIZATION

The present paper attempts to throw some light on the context within which municipal accounting is used and administered by the Treasurer's Department. The analysis shows that the Treasurer's Department uses the accounting system, and especially the budget, primarily as a buffer between politics and action. This is achieved by constructing an ambiguous accounting system, which is continually being reformed. The Treasurer's Department is therefore described as a 'buffer organization' with a function that is very different from the 'coupling' function assigned to the accounting system in most of the literature in this field.     

An Economic Analysis of Teenage Fertility

Abstract . The relationship between the probability of a teenage birth and various independent variables representing fecundity, attitudes, resources, and the economic opportunities for a sample of teenage females drawn from the 1980 census is examined. A theoretical framework, based on Becker's model, is employed to describe the birth-decision process and tested using a logit technique. The findings suggest that receipt of public assistance income and perceived economic opportunities are more important in explaining fertility probabilities among older (18–19 years old) teenagers. Among younger teens, accessibility to family planning and abortion services, and religious attitudes toward family planning ate more important predictors of fertility.     

The Linkages between Dividends and Earnings

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test the linkages between dividends and earnings. Using the Granger test of statistical causality, it is found that some firms use dividends for signaling, some follow a residual policy, and some firms simultaneously signal and follow a residual policy. Segmenting firms according to dividend policy, the results indicate that firms that follow a residual or signaling dividend policy tend to have a higher growth in asset turnover, but a lower growth in revenues. Signaling firms also tend to be smaller, have higher variability in revenues, and use less debt throught time.     

CEO expectation: the Star Wars materiel manager of the 1990s, or C-3PO as role model

Materiel-intensive expenditures account for a significant portion of all hospital costs, second only to salaries and wages, yet materiel managers may often be overlooked as key members of the management team. This is alarming since the potential exists for materiel managers to impact annual savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars by operating efficient departments. Materiel managers have a tremendous opportunity to enhance their image and improve hospital productivity in the coming decade. The challenges of the 1990s will stretch materiel managers' skills toward enhancing their professionalism and achieving the expectations of themselves and top management. If materiel managers will effectively utilize (C3)PO they will increase their educational levels, continue to learn new skills, maintain a customer-oriented management style, exercise creativity, develop and adhere to standards, and be proactive in their responsibilities. The benefits of their success will be felt by patients, hospitals, the industry, and materiel managers everywhere.     

Controlling a biological invasion: a non-classical dynamic economic model

This paper analyzes the optimal intertemporal control of a biological invasion. The invasion growth function is non-convex and control costs depend on the invasion size, resulting in a non-classical dynamic optimization problem. We characterize the long run dynamic behavior of an optimally controlled invasion and the corresponding implications for public policy. Both control and the next-period invasion size may be non-monotone functions of the current invasion size; the related optimal time paths may not be monotone or convergent. We provide conditions under which eradication, maintenance control, and no control are optimal policies.      

Attributes of the entrepreneurial type

In order to be entrepreneurs, people need to have both original ideas and the ability to make them work. This article focuses on three attributes which make this entrepreneurial orientation possible.     

A test of the Investor's Daily stock ranking system

This paper examines the profitability of trading strategies derived from stock rankings published in Investor's Business Daily. The best system provides market-adjusted abnormal monthly returns of 1.81% from buying S&P 500 stocks, and a 3.18% abnormal return on an arbitrage portfolio. Stocks selected for trading have above average volatility, but a portion of abnormal return may be a reward for identifying stocks with short-run sustainable price momentum. Results seem indicative of market inefficiency, but the phenomena may be temporary since abnormal returns are lower during the second half of the data set.     

A support vector machine (SVM) approach to imbalanced datasets of customer responses: comparison with other customer response models

Customer response is a crucial aspect of service business. The ability to accurately predict which customer profiles are productive has proven invaluable in customer relationship management. An area that has received little attention in the literature on direct marketing is the class imbalance problem (the very low response rate). We propose a customer response predictive model approach combining recency, frequency, and monetary variables and support vector machine analysis. We have identified three sets of direct marketing data with a different degree of class imbalance (little, moderate, high) and used random undersampling method to reduce the degree of the imbalance problem. We report the empirical results in terms of gain values and prediction accuracy and the impact of random undersampling on customer response model performance. We also discuss these empirical results with the findings of previous studies and the implications for industry practice and future research.     

Agency rulemaking, political influences, regulation, and industry compliance

This article empirically examines the impact of congressionaloversight and agency rulemaking on firm compliance behaviorin FDA-regulated industries. Congressional oversight hearingsprovide signals to firms about future changes in regulatoryenforcement strategies. Agency rulemaking influences firms'incentives to comply with regulation because firms must investsignificant resources to keep up with changing agency policy.This analysis uses three-stage least squares to simultaneouslyestimate both the numbers of FDA inspections and industry violatorsbetween 1972 and 1994. Results show that congressional oversightdeters industry noncompliance. The effect of agency rulemakingon noncompliance differs between industries. For instance, anincreasing stock of human drug rules has raised compliance amongdrug firms because newer more, cost-effective rules have replacedolder, more costly rules. In contrast, the increasing stockof medical device rules has reduced industry compliance amongdevice firms because these rules have increased the complexityand the scope of regulation.     

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Ethical Orientations and Willingness to Sacrifice Ethical Standards: China Versus Peru

Despite an increase in international business ethics research in recent years, the number of studies focused on Latin America and China has been deficient. As trade among Pacific Rim nations increases, an understanding of the ethical beliefs of the people in this region of the world will become increasingly important. In the current study 208 respondents from Peru and China are queried about their ethical ideologies, firm practices, and commitment to organizational performance. The empirical results reveal that Chinese workers are more relativistic and less idealistic than their Peruvian counterparts. One explanation for the disparity between these two groups is likely the variation in collectivism that can be traced to different levels of importance across ingroups and outgroups. In addition to a summary of the results, future research directions and managerial implications are discussed.