GOVERNMENT SPENDING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: Trends, Causes, and Consequences

Throughout the twentieth century governments have been spendingever larger proportions of national income. Three issues arisein discussions about the growth of such spending as it pertainsto developing countries: How does it compare with expenditurein industrial nations? What explains the growth in spendingby developing country governments? And what are the effectson economic growth? Government expenditure as a share of GDPin low- and middle-income countries, on average, is lower thancomparable shares in industrial market economies and, with fewexceptions, is growing. Many factors, including ideology, demographics,a positive income elasticity for public goods, the rising costof public goods relative to private goods, and perhaps developmenttheory and practice, explain this growth. As for the relationshipbetween government expenditure and economic growth, the empiricalevidence does not reveal any strong correlation. The size ofgovernment may engender strong ideological debate, but the positionthat the aggregate level of government expenditure is a significantdeterminant of growth rates receives little support.      

Chemical market research: Passive and dynamic functions

In this article Mr. A. L. Waddams, Chairman of the EVAF European Chemical Marketing Research Association, presents his thoughts on the different ways in which market research can be utilized to advance a complex project. Two main interactions, between market research and the project, are considered: the first where the findings of the market researchers are “fed-in” and the project then proceeds without further collaboration from the market research team; and a second where market researchers carry some responsibility for furthering a project, in the light of the understanding they have gained from carrying out the research. Mr. Waddams coins the phrases “passive function” and “dynamic function”, respectively, for these different rôles of market research.     

Baseline budgeting for continuous improvement.

This article is designed to introduce the techniques used to convert traditionally maintained department budgets to baseline budgets. This entails identifying key activities, evaluating for value-added, and implementing continuous improvement opportunities. Baseline Budgeting for Continuous Improvement was created as a result of a newly named company president's request to implement zero-based budgeting. The president was frustrated with the mind-set of the organization, namely, "Next year's budget should be 10 to 15 percent more than this year's spending." Zero-based budgeting was not the answer, but combining the principles of activity-based costing and the Just-in-Time philosophy of eliminating waste and continuous improvement did provide a solution to the problem.     

Customer service skills for survival

As APICS practitioners, we all must share a common goal. How can we contribute to our company's success? Success can be measured in positive terms of market share, growth, profitability, return on investment, or some combination thereof. Each company must establish its own definition of success. For the purposes of this article, success will be equated to one word that we can all readily identify with: survival. What skills do we need to survive in the marketplace of the next millennium?     

Organigraphs: drawing how companies really work

Walk into any organization and you will get a snapshot of the company in action--people and products moving every which way. But ask for a picture of the company and you will be given the org chart, with its orderly little boxes showing just the names and titles of managers. Now there's a more revealing way to depict the people and operations within an organization--an approach called the organigraph. The organigraph is not a chart. It's a map that offers an overview of the company's functions and the ways that people organize themselves at work. Perhaps most important, an organigraph can help managers see untapped competitive opportunities. Drawing on the organigraphs they created for about a dozen companies, authors Mintzberg and Van der Heyden illustrate just how valuable a tool the organigraph is. For instance, one they created for Electrocomponents, a British distributor of electrical and mechanical items, led managers to a better understanding of the company's real expertise--business-to-business relationships. As a result of that insight, the company wisely decided to expand in Asia and to increase its Internet business. As one manager says, "It allowed the company to see all sorts of new possibilities." With traditional hierarchies vanishing and newfangled--and often quite complex--organizational forms taking their place, people are struggling to understand how their companies work. What parts connect to one another? How should processes and people come together? Whose ideas have to flow where? With their flexibility and realism, organigraphs give managers a new way to answer those questions.     

Managed care, consolidation among health care providers, and health care: evidence from mammography

We discuss the effects of managed care on the structure of the health care delivery system, focusing on managed-care-induced consolidation among health care providers. We empirically investigate the relationship between HMO market share and mammography providers. We find evidence of consolidation: increases in HMO activity are associated with reductions in the number of mammography providers and with increases in the number of services produced by remaining providers. We also find that increases in HMO market share are associated with reductions in costs for mammography and with increases in waiting times for appointments, but not with worse health outcomes.     

Market Power,Efficiency and the Dispersion of Systematic Risk

A number of studies have used the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) to integrate product market and financial theories of the firm. We reexamine the relationship between product market structure and systematic risk at the firm and industry level. We show that theory yields no testable implications at the firm level. We show, however, that there is a relationship between the intraindustry dispersion of systematic risk and industry concentration which depends on the causes and consequences of concentration. Estimates of the relationship between the intraindustry variance of and concentration for a 1987 cross-section of U.S. industries suggest that concentration allows larger firms to exercise market power.     

Evaluating cost center productivity

The monthly and yearly productivity summaries were developed and applied to a computer spreadsheet to aid the nurse manager in better understanding and communicating budget issues for diverse ambulatory care departments. A computerized spreadsheet using a commercially available personal computer program, such as Lotus, Quattro Pro, or Excel, can be used to more quickly and accurately track and summarize monthly budget reports. The data can be entered into the spreadsheet either manually or imported by query from the financial mainframe system. Contact your agency's finance or information department for information on how to accomplish this. Periodically acuity and resources should be measured and compared with quality monitors to maintain standards. For the past 10 years, our facility has successfully used this tool to make more informed decisions by identifying trouble spots early, and taking corrective action to avoid crisis management.