Increasing school quantity versus quality in kenya: impact on children from low-and high-income households

A common dilemma facing educational planners engaged in educational reform in developing countries is the allocation of sharply-reduced resources to the expansion of school facilities versus improvement of existing school facilities (say, by raising the teacher/pupil ratio). The empirical results presented in this paper for Kenya suggest that the two interventions have diametrically opposite effects on poor and nonpoor children. An expansion of school facilities increases the enrollment of children in the poorest expenditure quintiles but has no impact on the enrollment of children in the top quintiles. On the other hand, an improvement in the teacher-pupil ratio increases the enrollment rate of children in the top quintiles, and actually reduces the enrollment of children in the poor quintiles. These findings suggest that in situations where there is less than universal primary enrollment (UPE) and the government has set a time-bound goal of UPE, such as in Kenya, policies that serve to expand the number of school facilities may make more sense than interventions that increase the teacher-pupil ratio.     

Beliefs,Economic Volatility,and Redistributive Preferences Across Developing Countries

Beliefs about social competition affect redistributive demands and the responsibility assigned to government regarding public provisions. Given the strong link between beliefs and the extent of support for social protection, it is important to explain the cross‐country differences. The paper analyzes the factors that are crucial in explaining redistributive demands across developing countries with a special emphasis on beliefs about social competition. While ideas about luck versus effort in determining economic prospects are explanatory in every country, our findings also suggest that in societies with high economic volatility the role of beliefs is amplified. Vast fluctuations in economic performance fuel the opinion that economic failure is a result of systemic characteristics, and individuals are not necessarily held fully responsible for their material faiths in such settings. Therefore, government is assigned a greater role in basic provisioning.     

Purchasing Power Parity and aggregation bias for a developing country: The case of Mexico

This paper investigates long-run Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) between the US and Mexico. We use a panel of disaggregated price data between the US and Mexico with a long time series to look at two types of aggregation bias. The first is examined in Imbs et al. — which we refer to as estimator aggregation bias — and the second is put forth by Broda and Weinstein — hereafter, data aggregation bias. The findings indicate substantial estimator aggregation bias and data aggregation bias. Although estimates using aggregate data and imposing homogeneous coefficients provide little evidence of PPP, findings with disaggregated data and heterogeneous coefficient estimators offer strong support. The results also suggest the presence of small-sample bias as examined in Chen and Engel, but with little effect on the qualitative results. Tradable goods and non-tradable goods show little distinction in convergence rates. Estimated half-lives are lower under flexible than fixed exchange rates and indicate rapid convergence during the Mexican peso crisis.     

Creating a competitive advantage in the global flight catering supply chain: a case study using SCOR model

Flight catering is a complex food service industry that caters to a wide range of airlines. Meals provided to passengers are a measure of in-flight service on an airplane. In the case of the airline industry, flight catering companies are responsible for preparing the meal that flight crews serve it at a voyaging altitude. This case study examines Emirates Kitchen Flight Catering (EKFC), a jointly owned entity of Dubai Civil Aviation (10%) and the Emirates Group (90%). Based on existing literature, international archival reports, company publications and participant observations of EKFC, the paper examines how EKFC reached the top of the catering supply chain by offering the best-in-class quality services and food to its passengers. The paper addresses the persistent growth of EKFC’s operations and investigates relevant strategies that reinforce EKFC’s fundamental competencies through the application of Supply Chain Operations Reference framework. Offering a combination of on-board excellence, quality, and fresh and delicious food while controlling costs across the supply chain is an important differentiator of EKFC’s flight catering business, thereby setting a benchmark for other businesses.     

The intrinsic fallacy of market mechanism and private property rights in alleviating the tragedy of the commons

ABSTRACT

Economists’ solution to the tragedy of the commons relies on well-defined property rights and competitive market mechanism for limiting individuals’ self-serving, short-sighted actions that result in a dramatic depletion of the common resources. However, this solution implicates a serious threat in terms of sustainability. Recently, deterioration of genetic diversity reached alarming levels, mainly attributed to escalating economic pressure that obliges farmers to shift from local breeds towards more profitable and more productive industrial breeds. This study empirically examines the efficiency of the free market mechanism as a solution to the tragedy of the commons through a unique natural experiment in which a huge demand shock arises regarding sheep. Results robustly show that the free market mechanism can cope with even a very challenging demand shock through the adjustment of prices without any shortage of the commodity. However, this finding does not guarantee that such an outcome is sustainable over the very long term. Analysis of the growth rate of the local sheep breeds population and cross-breed sheep population shows that the trend is overwhelmingly in favour of cross-breeds, thus supporting concerns for a free market mechanism, intrinsically driving the extinction of local sheep breeds, an invaluable genetic resource.     

Debt, debt structure and corporate performance after unsuccessful takeovers: evidence from targets that remain independent

Significant increases in the level of target leverage have been previously documented following unsuccessful takeover attempts. This increased leverage may signal managerial commitment to improved performance, suggesting that corporate performance and leverage should be positively related. If, however, the increased leverage leads to further managerial entrenchment, then corporate performance and leverage should be negatively related. In this paper, we reexamine both motivations for the observed increase in leverage. Furthermore, we argue that changes in the composition of debt are also important, besides changes in the level of leverage. In particular, bank debt has frequently been assigned a proactive, beneficial monitoring role in the literature. Besides confirming the increase in the level of leverage, we also document increases in bank debt surrounding cancelled takeovers. As a result, we find a more complex relation between corporate performance and debt use: Overall, the relation between corporate performance and leverage is negative, as predicted by a dominant entrenchment effect. However, increases in bank debt reduce the adverse effect of the increase in the level of leverage.     

Performance measurement manipulation: cherry-picking what to correct

A common feature of managerial and financial reporting is an iterative process wherein various parties selectively correct particular measurements by challenging them and subjecting them to increased scrutiny. We model this feature by adding an agent appeal stage to the standard moral hazard model and show that it can be optimal to allow the agent to decide which performance measures to appeal, despite the agent’s incentive to cherry-pick. In the presence of measurement errors, the agent is incentivized by increased opportunities for cherry-picking that arise if he chooses the “right” vs. the “wrong” acts.

An approach to detecting plagiarism in spreadsheet assignments: A digital answer to digital cheating

Accounting instructors often experience frustration when confronted by plagiarism in student assignments. Also, they face difficulty verifying and proving cases of plagiarism. Students have increasingly found it easier to plagiarize assignments because of digitization in education. Instructors face an important pedagogical challenge due to digitization based plagiarism. Digitization, however, provides instructors with tools to address this issue. This paper showcases three tried and tested methods built into spreadsheet software to identify and detect plagiarism in spreadsheet based assignments. The first method is a manual method of hiding unique markers in files sent to students. The second method involves hiding a formula that can track plagiarism in more detail. The third method uses a program code to track issues related to authorship of assignments. These methods along with a compiled list of strategies discussed in this paper can help reduce plagiarism.     

危机迫使中国向内看

中国是否能够与美国、德国在出口市场上竞争并不是很重要，问题是，中国要在与美国、德国在中国国内市场展开竞争时，具有竞争力。