Quality assurance in higher education: analysis of grades for reviewing course levels

In quality assurance, degree courses in European higher education have to demonstrate the course level by means of results. These courses produce many results, among them grades, referring to teachers’ evaluations of students’ performances, and it is our proposal to use them as an effective mean to reflect the course level. Our study examines the criteria that are needed to analyze grades as significant indicators for course levels. We considered what might constitute empirical proof of valid grades and from this analysis we established that the main proof of valid grades consists of measurements of construct validity, scale reliability, intercorrelation and face validity. The analyses delivered insights into the relationship between the proof of valid grades and elements of the curriculum. In the light of these insights we developed four characteristics as reference points for curricula realizing the course level. Following these points, we draw up a procedure to create such curricula. This procedure is explored in a study with eight bachelor degree courses. The conclusion is that the procedure traces the causes of invalid grades and confirms that valid grades are significant indicators of the course level.     

Statistical Analysis of Choice Experiments and Surveys

Measures of households' past behavior, their expectations with respect to future events and contingencies, and their intentions with respect to future behavior are frequently collected using household surveys. These questions are conceptually difficult. Answering them requires elaborate cognitive and social processes, and often respondents report only their “best” guesses and/or estimates, using more or less sophisticated heuristics. A large body of literature in psychology and survey research shows that as a result, responses to such questions may be severely biased. In this paper, (1) we describe some of the problems that are typically encountered, (2) provide some empirical illustrations of these biases, and (3) develop a framework for conceptualizing survey response behavior and for integrating structural models of response behavior into the statistical analysis of the underlying economic behavior.     

"Proxy Power" and Corporate Democracy:

A bstract . Separation of corporate ownership from control has permitted the rise of a self perpetuating managerial elite , which operates businesses in its own self interest. The attempt of the corporate democracy and corporate responsibility movements to curb unbridled management power through stockholder proxy proposals has been highly publicized. Analysis of stockholder initiated resolutions contained in the proxy statements of 626 corporations indicates that relatively few companies receive even one resolution, that proposers are usually small shareholders operating independently or in loose coalitions with limited resources and divergent interests, that managements use massive resources to oppose virtually all proposals and defeat most overwhelmingly, and that the handful of management concessions to stockholder activists is actually cosmetic mollification. We conclude the proxy power is structurally weak and is not a realistic agent of corporate change, in that management structure and policy-making power remain intact.     

The Generalized Composite Commodity Theorem and Food Demand Estimation

This article reports tests of aggregation over consumer food products and estimates of aggregate food demand elasticities. Evidence that food demand variables follow unit root processes leads us to build on and simplify existing tests of the Generalized Composite Commodity Theorem. We compute food demand elasticities using a method of cointegration that is shown to apply to a convenient but nonlinear functional form. Estimates are based on consumer reported expenditure data rather than commercial disappearance data.     

Local measured service and the attributes of a sound rate structure

Most U.S. jurisdictions use flat rates (FR) for local telephone service pricing. This paper explores why a majority of those exposed to usage-sensitive pricing or local measured service (LMS) generally prefer it to FR. One reason may be LMS promotes value-maximizing behavior for both the provider and the customer. Some customers may prefer FR, even if LMS is value maximizing, out of concern that gainers either cannot or will not compensate losers. Another possibility is LMS is not a value-maximizing option. This paper systematically compares LMS with FR, using the attributes of a sound rate structure.     

Post-War Productivity Patterns in U.S. Agriculture: Influences of Aggregation Procedures in a State-Level Analysis

Annual data for forty-eight states are used to account for changes in the composition of input and output aggregates over space and time, and thereby to obtain new evidence on changes in inputs, outputs, and productivity in U.S. agriculture. The measures change significantly when we use state-specific rather than national prices and when we allow for changes in the composition of the aggregates, especially of labor and capital inputs. We compare our estimates and those reported by Ball et al. ( American Journal of Agricultural Economics 81(1999):164–79). The national estimates are similar but substantial differences are found in state-level productivity growth.     

Judgmental aggregation strategies depend on whether the self is involved

We report the results of a novel experiment that addresses two unresolved questions in the judgmental forecasting literature. First, how does combining the estimates of others differ from revising one’s own estimate based on the judgment of another? The experiment found that participants often ignored advice when revising an estimate but averaged estimates when combining. This was true despite receiving identical feedback about the accuracy of past judgments. Second, why do people consistently tend to overweight their own opinions at the expense of profitable advice? We compared two prominent explanations for this, differential access to reasons and egocentric beliefs, and found that neither adequately accounts for the overweighting of the self. Finally, echoing past research, we find that averaging opinions is often advantageous, but that choosing a single judge can perform well in certain predictable situations.     

Credit Constraints in Manufacturing Enterprises in Africa

We investigate the question of whether firms in Africa's manufacturingsector are credit constrained. The fact that few firms obtaincredit is not sufficient to prove constraints, since certainfirms may not have a demand for credit while others may be refusedcredit as part of profit maximising behaviour by banks. To investigatethis question, we use direct evidence on whether firms had ademand of credit and whether their demand was satisfied in theformal credit market, based on panel data on firms in the manufacturingsector from six African countries. Of those firms with a demandfor credit, only a quarter obtained a formal sector loan. Ouranalysis suggests that while banks allocate credit on the basisof expected profits, micro or small firms are much less likelyto get a loan than large firms. We also find that outstandingdebt is positively related with obtaining further lending. Therole of outstanding debt is likely to be a reflection of inefficiencyin credit markets, while the fact that size matters is consistentwith a bias as well, although we cannot totally exclude thatthey reflect transactions costs on the part of banks. We presentan analysis showing how much more profitable small firms mustbe to obtain a loan than large firms.