A NOTE ON THE ECONOMIC SURPLUS FROM DAIRY HERD RECORDING IN VICTORIA*

An input demand model was used to estimate the own price elasticity of dairy herd recording in Victoria. The net benefits to society over a 21 year period were estimated by determining the economic surplus accruing to participators each year and then subtracting all Government monies involved. The net social benefits, unlike the benefits reported for the New South Wales scheme, have on average been positive and have been consistently positive over the latter years of the data.     

Economic Distance and Cross-Country Spillovers

Rates of long-run economic growth are not independent across countries. To account for this dependence we decompose the spatial covariance function of growth rates into a function of each countrys own observable characteristics, its unobservable characteristics, and cross-country spillovers. We use original data on economic distance to structure observed variation in countries long term growth rates. We use this structure to estimate the magnitude of economic interdependence among nations, and to give a nonparametric characterization of the relationship between economic distance and the magnitude of cross-country spillovers. These spillovers turn out to be quite important, accounting for more of the spatial covariance in growth rates than unobservable variables, and by some measures rivalling the importance of the countrys own observable characteristics.     

Maintaining a Scholarly Community: Casual Authorship and the State of IR Research

Any field of study must have a core of journals devoted to a literature and a critical mass of scientists interested in a problem area to permit knowledge to accumulate and grow (Crane 1969). Analyzing authors' institutional affiliations and the topics of the articles published in the field's premier journals from 1986 to 1995, this article assesses the vitality of the contemporary industrial relations (IR) publication network. We find that authorship in IR journals is largely casual and that the quantity of publications by Industrial Relations Research Association (IRRA) members in IR journals has declined. In addition, more than half the frequent contributors to IR journals do not belong to the IRRA, and notable differences exist between IRRA members and nonmembers in the substance of their published research. These results lead us to question the survival of IR as a distinct scholarly community.     

Culture and accounting in Indonesia: An empirical examination

This study examines the relationships among the cultural characteristics of Indonesian society, reporting practices of Indonesian firms, and accounting standards promulgated by the Association of Indonesian Accountants. It is argued that an empirical relation exists between the change in cultural values, as conceived by Hofstede's theory of the five dimensions of cultural values (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity, and time horizon and the change in accounting values as captures by Gray's four dimensions (professionalism, conservatism, secrecy, and uniformity). Using LISREL to evaluate data between 1981 and 1992, three of Hofstede's five cultural values (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism) have significant relationships with one or more accounting value. This limited confirmation of the culture-accounting relationships suggest that particular historical and economic configurations must be considered in longitudinal analysis. The conflicting influences of extensive government involvement in the economy and nascent market competition are a possible explanation of the Indonesian results.     

Stochastic unpaced line design: Review and further experimental results

Previous design studies of unpaced assembly lines that exhibit stochastic task times indicate that an unbalanced allocation of task times results in optimal output rates. In this article, we present a comprehensive review of the previous literature on this topic and discuss the results of simulation experiments that test the bowl distribution for unbalancing unpaced lines. The simulation experiment was designed to test the bowl distribution in more realistic environments than previously tested and illustrates that a balanced line configuration is as good as or better than an unbalanced line configuration when task times are modeled with more typical values of variance.Stochastic unpaced assembly line research employs both simulation and analytical approaches to test the allocation of buffer capacity and task times to work stations. Analytical models are utilized to investigate simple line designs with exponential or Erlang task time distributions. Simulation is used for longer lines and for normal task time distributions. From the review of the previous research using both approaches, we note five major findings: 1) unbalancing task time allocation is optimal when task time variation is large; 2) unbalanced allocation of buffer storage capacity improves line output rate when task time variation is large; 3) output rate of an unpaced line decreases as the number of sequential workstations increases; 4) output rate increases as more buffer storage capacity is available; and 5) output rate decreases as the task time variation increases.Most of the previous research on unpaced lines investigated lines with few workstations and large task time variation. Empirical research by Dudley (6) suggests that variation of task times in practice is much less than variations employed in previous unpaced line studies. We present the results from simulation experiments that model longer unpaced lines with lower levels of task time variance of the magnitude that is likely to occur in practice.The results of our simulation experiments verify the benefits of using the bowl distribution for task time allocation when line lengths are short and task times experience large variance. However, when line lengths are extended or task time variation is reduced, the use of the bowl distribution for unbalancing the line degrades the line's efficiency. In these situations, the optimal task time allocation is a balanced line.Two important implications for managers follow from the results of our experiments: 1) that unpaced line output rate is relatively insensitive to moderate variations from optimal task time allocations when buffer storage is limited; and 2) that perfectly balanced line designs are optimal for most cases in practice.     

Departures from marginal-cost pricing in the American automobile industry: Estimates for 1977–1978

How are prices set in the American automobile oligopoly? This paper seeks empirical estimates of the extent of departure from marginal-cost pricing and of the effects of foreign competition. The model estimated has product differentiation, multiproduct firms, and heterogeneity in consumer tastes. The estimation presumes that product type (proxied by engineering specifications) is exogenous to the price/quantity market equilibrium. Cross-section results for the 1977 and 1978 model years yield price-cost margins around 10%. Import competition has the effect of lowering equilibrium margins for compact and subcompact models.     

Changes in Non-Local Lending to Small Business

In this paper, I use recently collected Community Reinvestment Act loan data to examine how small business lending in local geographic areas (defined as markets) by lenders not physically located in those areas changed between 1996 and 2001. The results show that the importance of outside lending increased substantially over this period when measured in terms of the number of loans rather than the dollar volume of loans. The levels and rates of growth in out-of-market lending are more modest if the share of out-of-market lending is expressed in dollar volumes and almost insubstantial if organizations that engage in substantial credit card lending are excluded as out-of-market lenders. Using a fixed-effects model and an extensive panel data set, I find that the share of outside lending into local geographic markets is positively associated with local market concentration and the average wage of tellers in the market, consistent with the hypothesis that outside loans are to some degree substitutes for in-market loans.     

A Kuznets curve analysis of ozone-depleting substances and the impact of the Montreal Protocol

This paper examines the relationship between countries' propensityto emit chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and income per capita. Themain part of the analysis uses dynamic estimation methods ona panel of CFC production. In contrast to static analyses, wefind statistically significant quadratic relationship betweenincome and CFC production, with a critical income level in theKuznets curve of $16,050. This reinforces the trend observedin other papers that global pollutants have higher criticalincome levels than local or urban pollutants. In addition, itsuggests that, in the absence of any international agreement,CFC production in the poorest countries would ensure that thereis a substantial rise in global production over the next 50years.     

On the relation between ownership structure and capital structure

The agency relationship between managers and shareholders has the potential to influence decision-making in the firm which in turn potentially impacts on firm characteristics such as value and leverage. Prior evidence has demonstrated an association between ownership structure and firm value. This paper extends the literature by examining a further link between ownership structure and capital structure. Using an agency framework, it is argued that the distribution of equity ownership among corporate managers and external blockholders may have a significant relation with leverage. The empirical results provide support for a positive relation between external blockholders and leverage, and non-linear relation between the level of managerial share ownership and leverage. The results also suggest that the relation between external block ownership and leverage varies across the level of managerial share ownership. These results are consistent with active monitoring by blockholders, and the effects of convergence-of-interests and management entrenchment.