Growing market concentration and changes in consumer welfare: The case of the U.S. commercial airline market

Initial assessments of the economic deregulation of the U.S. airline industry indicated that most consumers gained from the increased competition in the airline market. More recent studies have reached less favorable conclusions. In this study, changes in passenger welfare are determined for 19 U.S. destination cities for the years 1979, 1983, and 1987 on the basis of Hicks' equivalent variation measure, using a counterfactual research design. Particular attention is given to variations in consumer welfare gains/losses depending on (a) the proportion of the change in air fares attributed to deregulation, and (b) the destination airport's classification. The estimates suggest that travelers to large, long-standing hub cities were generally insulated from any large post-1979 welfare changes. Travelers to new hubs experienced substantial welfare declines between 1979 and 1987 — although their post-1983 welfare changes were uniformly positive. Travel to nonhub airports showed the greatest variance, with both the relatively largest welfare gains and the relatively largest losses.     

On the choice of support of Re-descendingψ-Functions in linear models with asymmetric error distributions

InM-estimation of the regression parameter vector in the linear model, we discuss the choice of the support of certain re-descendingψ-functions for both cases when the distribution of the i.i.d. errors is partially known and when it is completely functionally unknown. Research supported in part by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.     

A review of job embeddedness: Conceptual,measurement issues,and directions for future research

Job embeddedness (JE) theory is a relatively new perspective in turnover research. Although theoretical and empirical implications are encouraging, the construct of JE is still under development. In this paper, we identify five conceptualization and measurement issues warranting additional discussion and research. These are: (1) the composite measure vs. the global measure, (2) conceptual and measurement problems of community embeddedness, (3) conceptual and measurement problems associated with links, (4) discriminant validity issues and (5) the cultural boundaries of JE. For each issue, we discuss our concerns and suggest future research directions.     

Building organizational integrity

Ethical lapses by employees can put organizations at substantial risk. Although improved compliance procedures can help limit this risk, successful efforts must extend beyond compliance to build a culture of organizational integrity. Recent changes in regulatory requirements and more stringent sentencing guidelines demand an integrated approach to ethical awareness, one that encompasses the four organizational practices of controls, clearly defined principles and purpose, core values, and culture. Inevitably, the most difficult of these is building a culture of high ethical standards that are reflected in day-to-day practice. To overcome the barriers to building organizational integrity, leaders must question key organizational practices while constructing a culture based on ethical behaviors.     

Income risk and farm consumption behavior

Using panel data from Illinois grain farmers, a direct test of the relationship between income risk and farm consumption behavior is conducted. The estimation results indicate that income risk significantly affects farm consumption and the results are robust using alternative risk measures. This finding casts doubt on the relevance of the conventional life-cycle permanent income hypothesis, which implies that risk has no effect on consumption.     

Land rights in postwar Liberia: The volatile part of the peace process

The end to the war in Liberia, along with quality leadership and a large UN presence has laid the foundation for a successful peace process. Now the delicate part of the process is underway—building viable, equitable, and durable social relations, institutions and legal constructs. A potentially volatile part of any postwar scenario is the inability of land rights institutions to perform in an effective, legitimate, equitable manner. Reform of land tenure via policies, laws, institutions, and capacity, needs to happen in a manner that is able to attend to both the land rights related causes of conflict, and the tangle of land problems brought on by the war itself. This article reports on the current situation in Liberia, and examines the primary set of land tenure problems in the country. The article concludes with a series of suggestions for dealing with the unique circumstances of postwar land tenure, and the Liberian case.     

The Economics of Grain Cleaning on the Prairies

In the Canadian grain marketing system, grains have typically been cleaned to very tight levels at port elevators. In recent years, changes in rail rates, livestock production and grain handling technology are pressuring the system for change. A mathematical programming model of vertical marketing functions in western Canada is developed to determine optimal locations for cleaning. Cleaning margins are positive in all regions of the prairies. Grain cleaning is found generally to be more efficient on the prairies than at the ports. However, grain cleaning will continue at ports to some extent because of inadequate capacity at country positions and sunk costs at port facilities and because primary elevators will likely clean only the dominant grains. Dans le système canadien de commercialisation des céreales, les grains passent généralement par un nettoyage très rigoureux aux silos portuaires. Ces dernières années, les changements affectant les tarifs ferroviaires, les productions animales et la technologie de manutention des céréales rendent cependant nécessaire un changement du système. Les auteurs utilisent un modéle mathématique de programmation des fonctions verticales de mise en marché pour déterminer les emplacements idéaux pour le nettoyage du grain. Les marges commerciales des nettoyeurs étaient positives dans toutes les régions des Prairies et le nettoyage était généralement plus efficient dans cette partie di pays qu'aux situations portuaires. Il continuera cependant à sefaire à ces derniers endroits dans une certaine mesure, en raison du manque de capacités suffisantes aux emplacements de campagne, des coûts irrécupérabies aux installations portuaires et du fait que les élévateurs primaires ne nettoieront vraisemblablement que les céréales commercialement le plus importantes.     

When Is Efficiency Separable from Distribution in the Provision of Club Goods?

Using the homogeneous of degree zero inverse congestion (“quality”) function employed most frequently in the literature, we characterise completely the families of utility functions which are then necessary and sufficient for break-even utilitarian welfare maximising provision of club goods with self-selection to be separable from distribution. Two types of separation—involving, alternatively (a) the price and quality; (b) the price, quality, facility size and total utilisation—are considered. When separation is possible, utility functions and optimal decisions take simple, intuitive forms. Our results extend the scope of separation results previously obtained only for pure public goods. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D62, H23, H40.