Stuck in the middle: Impacts of grade configuration in public schools

We examine the implications of separating students of different grade levels across schools for the purposes of educational production. Specifically, we find that moving students from elementary to middle school in 6th or 7th grade causes significant drops in academic achievement. These effects are large (about 0.15 standard deviations), present for both math and English, and persist through grade 8, the last year for which we have achievement data. The effects are similar for boys and girls, but stronger for students with low levels of initial achievement. We instrument for middle school attendance using the grade range of the school students attended in grade 3, and employ specifications that control for student fixed effects. This leaves only one potential source of bias–correlation between grade range of a student's grade 3 school and unobservable characteristics that cause decreases in achievement precisely when students are due to switch schools–which we view as highly unlikely. We find little evidence that placing public school students into middle schools during adolescence is cost-effective.     

Benchmarking Risk Management Within the International Water Utility Sector. Part I: Design of a Capability Maturity Methodology

Risk management in the water utility sector is becoming increasingly explicit. However, due to the novelty and complexity of the discipline, utilities are encountering difficulties in defining and institutionalising their risk management processes. In response, the authors have developed a sector specific capability maturity methodology for benchmarking and improving risk management. The research, conducted in consultation with water utility practitioners, has distilled risk management into a coherent, process‐based framework. We identified eleven risk management processes, and eight key attributes with characterise the extent to which these processes are defined, controlled and institutionalised. Implementation of the model should enable utilities to more effectively employ their portfolio of risk analysis techniques for optimal, credible and defensible decision making.     

The cluster approach in the innovation development strategy of foreign countries

Foreign experience in carrying out cluster policy and the scales of distribution and the variety of cluster structure types abroad are considered and generalized. The main attention is given to innovation directivity as the key factor of increasing regional and national economic competitiveness. The important role of the state in formation of effective cluster policy providing substantial improvement in the business climate and stimulating the priority development of high-tech fields is placed in strong relief. The next issue of the journal will contain an article about the situation in Russia (Ed.).     

Consumption in Contemporary Capitalism: The Backward Art of Living

Western economies have undergone a significant transformation over the last half a century as they have moved away from a commitment to full employment, going from activist fiscal policy to its abandonment with the adoption of budgetary austerity. This is not because of any technical or physical incapacity to achieve full employment. Analyzing the broad macroeconomic experience of Canada and the United States in the post-WWII era, the article finds that this growing unemployment has essentially resulted from a deliberate policy choice not to stimulate sufficiently demand via fiscal measures. Learning from the experience of the Great Depression, Michal Kalecki had offered an explanation for this type of policy response in favor of rising long-term unemployment. This article recognizes the relevance and appropriateness of Kalecki's analysis and seeks to determine whether the Minskian institutional proposal for achieving effective full employment (via government as the employer of last resort) would withstand an original Kaleckian critique.     

The Impact of Program Environment on Recall of Humorous Television Commercials

This study investigated the possible effect of television program types on the recall performance of humorous television commercials. An experimental design was developed to test the relative performance of the same humorous and non-humorous ads in three different contextual environments—situation comedy, action/adventure, and documentary. The findings indicate that the recall performance of commercials and of the product or service promoted are both affected by the program environment within which the ads appear.     

Network science: A Review Focused on Tourism

This paper presents a review of the methods of the science of networks with an application to the field of tourism studies. The basic definitions and computational techniques are described and a case study (Elba, Italy) used to illustrate the effect of network typology on information diffusion. A static structural characterization of the network formed by destination stakeholders is derived from stakeholder interviews and website link analysis. This is followed by a dynamic analysis of the information diffusion process within the case destination demonstrating that stakeholder cohesion and adaptive capacity have a positive effect on information diffusion. The outcomes and the implications of this analysis for improving destination management are discussed.     

How Biased are Current Measures of Asian Output Growth and Price Change?

“Rational economic agents” making optimal choices, such as shifting to less expensive products, is a fundamental paradigm for theoretical and applied economics. This requires accurate and unbiased economic information on prices. Since the mid-1990s, several nations have switched to estimation methods for price indices that improve the accounting for the shifting basket of new goods and services produced in the economy. This change required the adoption of “ideal” measures of growth and price change. Nevertheless, many Asian nations continue to prepare non-ideal measures of growth and price change. This paper assesses the bias in current Asian measures of growth and price change and explores how such bias can lead to poor investor and policymaker decisions.     

ON THE ROBUSTNESS OF RANGE‐BASED VOLATILITY ESTIMATORS

We empirically examine Parkinson's range‐based volatility estimate in the federal funds market, which is unique because institutional regulations create a predictable pattern in interday volatility. We find that range‐based volatility estimates and standard deviations produce the expected volatility pattern. We also find that at trading pressure points where microstructure noise should be greatest, range‐based estimates are less than the standard deviations. Thus, we support the argument that range‐based volatility estimates remove the upward bias created by microstructure noise. We find that the Parkinson method is the most efficient range‐based volatility measure among a set of alternates in this market.