WHAT IS THE PROBLEM OF RETRENCHMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION? [I]

Single- and double-loop organizational learning are discussed in the context of retrenchment in higher education. A model of the research university illuminates impediments to internal resource reallocation, programme elimination and integrative leadership, and suggests the need for alternatives to usual efforts to increase efficiency while retaining existing norms, goals, and organizational structures.     

How do storefront window displays influence entering decisions of clothing stores?

Store window displays play important roles in influencing shoppers' store entry decisions and their perceptions of brand/store image. The purpose of this study is to explore how shoppers' perceptions of window displays interact with situational variables in making their store entry decisions. We conducted experimental studies by using merchandise-focused versus artistic storefront window displays under situations comprising of shopping motive types (purchase versus recreational) and cognitive load levels (low versus high). Our results demonstrate the effectiveness of these window displays bounded by the interplay between shopping motives and cognitive loads.     

The Implications for Health,Depression, and Life Satisfaction from a Permanent Increase in Income for the Disadvantaged Elderly: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper uses an exogenous increase in income for a specific subgroup to explore the extent to which higher income leads to higher levels of health and well-being. In 1995, the Taiwanese government implemented the Senior Farmer Welfare Benefit Interim Regulation (SFWBIR) that was a pure cash injection to senior farmers. A difference-in-differences (DiD) approach is used on survey data from the Taiwanese Health and Living Status of Elderly in 1989 and 1996 to evaluate the short-term effect of the SFWBIR on self-assessed health, depression, and life satisfaction (LS). Senior manufacturing workers are employed as a comparison group for senior farmers in the natural experiment. This paper provides evidence that the increase in income caused by this pension reform significantly improved the mental health of senior farmers by reducing 1.697 points of the depression scale in DiD and 2.178 points in the robust estimation; however, it had no significant short-term impact on self-assessed health or LS.     

Favor trading in public good provision

Favor trading is common. We do something nice for someone and they do something nice in return. Several motives might underlie such behavior, including altruism, strategic motives, and direct or indirect positive reciprocity. It is not yet well-understood how these fit together to affect behavior, how they interact in various institutional structures, and how they play out over time. We use a laboratory experiment to study the elements and dynamics of favor trading in a particular setting: the private provision of a public good. In our experiment, giving subjects the ability to practice targeted reciprocity by making a simple, low-cost change in information provision increases contributions to the public good by 14 %. Subjects reward group members who have previously been generous to them and withhold rewards from ungenerous group members. Strategic concerns cannot explain all of this behavior, and it must be at least partly due to direct reciprocity. When someone cannot directly benefit from favor trading, he gives much less to the public good. People thus excluded from the “circle of reciprocity” provide a clean and strict test of indirect reciprocity. Contrary to previous studies in the literature, we do not observe indirect reciprocity.     

Farm Household Production Efficiency: Evidence from The Gambia

This article investigates the economic efficiency of farm households, with an application to The Gambia. The efficiency analysis is conducted not at the farm level but at the household level, thus capturing the importance of off-farm activities. Output-based measures of technical, allocative, and scale efficiency are generated using nonparametric measurements. An econometric analysis of factors affecting the efficiency indexes is then conducted using a Tobit model. Technical efficiency is fairly high indicating that access to technology is not a severe constraint for most farm households. The cost of scale inefficiency is modest. Allocative inefficiency by contrast is found to be important for the majority of farm households. On the basis of the Tobit results, imperfections in markets for financial capital and nonfarm employment contribute to significant allocative inefficiency.