Dreaming and Doing at Georgia HBCUs: Continued Relevancy in ‘Post-Racial’ America

Since their inception 150 years ago, Georgia’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have provided African American students with the best mechanism, and for some, the only opportunity to receive a collegiate education. Justifications for and against the continued relevance of HBCUs in Georgia have been raised and argued since the Brown decision in 1954 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. More than 50 years after these monumental decisions Georgia’s HBCUs remain relatively segregated, with lower endowments, budgets, graduation rates and higher cohort default rates than the state’s Predominantly White Colleges and Universities (PWCU). In defiance of political tactics to close and merge them, and despite the confluence of lower average admission requirements, less funding for institutional scholarships, limited technological resources and smaller operating budgets, Georgia’s HBCUs have persevered in providing higher educational opportunities not only for African Americans, but for students of all races. This entry focuses on HBCUs in the State of Georgia and adds to the literature on their history, purpose, effectiveness and continued relevancy.     

Surpluses in Disequilibrium Urban Land Markets

It is unlikely that urban land markets are in equilibrium. If land markets are out of equilibrium, zones within an urban area would have residential location surpluses. This paper shows how to derive and estimate an index of income surplus by residential zone. The procedure is applied to the Baltimore Metropolitan Area for 1978. Households should be at attracted to zones with high surpluses. A comparison of the estimated location surpluses and growth rates for the Baltimore area show this correspondence.     

The evolution of preferences and competition: a rationalization of Veblen's theory of invidious comparisons

Abstract. We examine how preferences evolve by natural selection in a competitive environment similar to that characterizing much of our evolutionary past. We find that the evolutionarily stable preferences in this context exhibit a concern not only for absolute payoffs but also for relative payoffs, and that this intensifies the degree of competition relative to what obtains when players consider only absolute payoffs. We argue that this has consequences for the equilibrium population size. We argue that the premise of this analysis is consistent with the available anthropological evidence, and that the prediction is broadly consistent with the findings of experimental game theory. JEL Classification: C70 Evolution des préférences et concurrence: une rationalisation de la théorie des comparaisons désobligeantes de Veblen. Les auteurs examinent comment les préférences évoluent par sélection naturelle dans un environnement concurrentiel qui ressemble à celui qui a caractérisé notre passéévolutionnaire, c’est‐à‐dire, un environnement de chasseurs et de cueilleurs. On découvre que les préférences évolutionnairement stables dans ce contexte révèlent un intérêt non seulement pour les résultats en termes absolus mais aussi pour les résultats en termes relatifs, et que cela intensifie le degré de concurrence par rapport à ce qui se passerait si les joueurs prenaient en compte seulement les résultats en termes absolus. En travaillant contre l’espèce si l’on peut dire, la sélection naturelle des préférences réduit les niveaux d’équilibre des populations en deçà de ce qui aurait prévalu si les préférences n’avaient pas évolué. Le postulat de base sur lequel cette analyse se fonde est compatible avec les résultats des travaux anthropologiques et les prédictions sont compatibles avec les résultats des travaux en théorie des jeux expérimentale.     

Local competition for telephone services

A policy discussion and overview of the development and scope of local exchange competition in U.S. Telecommunications markets is presented. The primary focus is on access and cable competition. In the future, we will see policies which encourage cable to enter telephone services, telephone companies to develop a video dialtone, and transportation networks which allow interexchange carriers to bypass the access charges of the local network. Regulatory policy needs to manage these competitive changes so that there is parity between the various service providers.     

Peer Ostracism as a Sanction Against Wrongdoers and Whistleblowers

Journal of Business Ethics - Retaliation against whistleblowers is a well-recognized problem, yet there is little explanation for why uninvolved peers choose to retaliate through ostracism. We...     

A Study of The Link Between a Corporation's Financial Performance and Its Commitment to Ethics

A number of studies have tested the relationship between a corporation's social and ethical performance and its financial performance. In contrast, this is the first study to demonstrate a link between overall financial performance and an emphasis on ethics as an aspect of corporate governance. It identifies the 26.8 percent of the 500 largest U.S. public corporations that, in their annual report to shareholders, commit to ethical behavior toward their stakeholders or emphasize compliance with their code of conduct. The financial performance of these corporations ranks higher than that of those who do not at a significance level of p = < 0.005, using the 1997 Business Week ranking which averages eight publicly-reported measures of historical financial performance. These findings should motivate more corporations to utilize the principles of Social and Ethical Accounting, Auditing and Reporting (SEAAR).     

DO ELECTRONIC LOGBOOKS CONTRIBUTE TO MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY PERFORMANCE?

Within the U.S. Department of Transportation and among U.S. motor carriers, there has been increased interest in the potential benefits of electronic logbooks to improve the safety of trucking operations. This paper investigates the specific contribution of electronic logbooks to improving firm safety performance (as measured by the number of crashes and hours of service violations). The models presented demonstrate that electronic logbooks contribute positively to crash reduction and to decreases in hours of service violations, particularly among carriers with poor overall safety records. Moreover, hours of service violations fully mediate the relationship between electronic logbook use and number of crashes. These results have policy significance as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed a rule that would require the use of electronic logbooks for some carriers.