The Value of Plains Cotton Cooperative Association

The Value of Plains Cotton Cooperative Association is a teaching case that allows students to consider the cooperative business model and the impact of this unique form of organization in agriculture. The Plains Cotton Cooperative Association (PCCA) , a highly successful, innovative, and dominant cotton cooperative, is considered in this case.
The general question is whether the cooperative form of organization is viable and relevant in the face of intensifying economic competition. Cotton producers and long-time co-op members must decide if they will remain loyal to the cooperative in light of recent negative publicity and disappointing returns from its marketing operations.     

Doha development agenda: implications for the US and world cotton markets

This study analyzed two scenarios that considered a reduction of the US aggregate measure of supports (AMS) payments by 60% over a five-year period. In the first scenario, which considered a unilateral action by the US, the targeted AMS payments reduction would require a 12% cut in the US target price and an 8% cut in the loan rate. This would lead to a 3% decline in US cotton production, a 3% rise in world cotton price, and a 26% decline in US cotton net farm income at the end of the implementation period. The second scenario analyzed the case in which the US AMS payments reduction is concomitant with multilateral tariff and subsidy eliminations from the rest of the world. Under this scenario, fewer cuts in the US loan rate and target price (i.e. 9 and 4%) were required to achieve the 60% AMS reduction because of market liberalization from the from the rest of the world. However, US cotton producers' net farm income still declined by 18%.     

The behavioural impact on trade unionists of the trade union legislation of the 1980s: a research note

This note is concerned with research conducted through a survey of trade union lay representatives to identify their perceptions of the current law and attitudes to compliance/non-compliance with it. Emphasis is placed on how any misconceptions could affect the conduct of an industrial dispute.     

Comparing alternative measures of household income: Evidence from the Khayelitsha/Mitchell's plain survey

Household income is widely used for economic and sociological analysis, yet little emphasis has been placed on the optimal way to gather household income data. The Khayelitsha/Mitchell's Plain Survey provides a unique opportunity to explore alternative ways of measuring household income. This study compares the estimates obtained from a household module with those obtained from detailed income data collected in the adult module of the survey. Estimates derived from individual income data tend to be higher and have greater variation than those obtained from the household module. This difference between income estimates has a material impact on the secondary analysis of income data. The Gini coefficient, a simple measure of income-inequality, is used in this study to illustrate how household income measured at the household level underestimates household income inequality.     

How Firms Make Capital Expenditure Decisions: Financial Signals, Internal Cash Flows, Income Taxes and the Tax Reform Act of 1986

This paper empirically assesses the determinants of future net capital expenditures for a broad cross-section of COMPUSTAT firms from 1973 to 1989. We explore three general categories of factors expected to affect investment: (1) external equity financing, (2) internally generated accounting information, and (3) tax incentives. We find that external financing and information plays a role in that both positive stock returns and equity issuances indicate future increases in investment. The results suggest that high stock prices not only lower the cost of capital, but also signal good investment opportunities. Accounting information about internal sources and uses of funds are also important in the investment decision. In particular, net income and depreciation are positive indicators of future investment while there is a tradeoff between the payment of dividends and investment. Further, positive changes in available cash liquidity also motivate future investment. While taxes are not important in the investment decision on average, we find that firms with previously higher income taxes invested substantially more in 1985 and 1986. This coincides with the repeal of the investment tax credit and the accelerated depreciation schedules in the Tax Reform Act of 1986. We view this as evidence that federal tax policy in the 1980's induced firms with high income tax obligations to accelerate capital expenditures just before the favorable tax treatment of capital expenditures was eliminated.     

The representation of shadow values in resource allocation teams

In problems of allocating infinitely many resources, which often arise in models with time or uncertainty, the dual space of the trade constraint contains many elements which may not be representable as a system of prices. Although this problem has been discussed in the efficiency price literature, such theorems may not be useful in models where there are many decision makers, each with different information. The appropriated representation theorems are provided. Similarity with theorems in the efficiency price literature is discussed and an extension of the approximation results found there is also presented.     

Strategic Decision Making for the Triple Bottom Line

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become a mandate for strategic managers and is often an important element of a differentiation strategy, but there is little research on how managers can make socially responsible decisions within the context of competitive strategy. In this study we explain how data envelopment analysis (DEA) results can be used to determine the trade‐offs inherent in managing the triple bottom line of profits, people and the planet. Once the trade‐offs are well understood, managers can implement sustainable competitive strategies that incorporate socially responsible decisions. Using public data from the electric power generation industry, we demonstrate how DEA can be utilized to determine the trade‐offs between efficiency, costs and pollution reduction, allowing managers to make and champion socially responsible decisions. We discuss the general applicability of our method for making strategic decisions incorporating the triple bottom line. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

The sensitivity to key data imputations of recent estimates of income poverty and inequality in South Africa

Existing literature using South African censuses reports an increase in both poverty and inequality over the 1996 to 2001 period. This paper assesses the robustness of these results to a number of weaknesses in the personal income variable. We use a sequential regression multiple imputation approach to impute missing values and to explicitly assess the influence of implausible income values and different rules used to convert income that is measured in bands into point incomes. Overall our results for 1996 and 2001 confirm the major findings from the existing literature while generating more reliable confidence intervals for the key parameters of interest than are available elsewhere.