Insuring Eggs in Baskets: Should the Government Insure Individual Risks?

The vast majority of crop and revenue insurance policies sold in North America are single‐crop policies that insure against low yields or low revenues for each crop grown on a particular farm. This practice of insuring one crop at a time runs counter to the traditional risk management practice of diversifying across several enterprises to avoid putting all of one's eggs in a single basket. This paper examines the construction of a whole‐farm crop revenue insurance program to include livestock price risk. The results show that at coverage levels of 95% or lower, the fair insurance premiums for this product on a well‐diversified Iowa farm are far lower than the fair premiums for the corn crop alone on the same farm. The calculation of premium rates for the whole‐farm insurance product is derived from a method for imposing correlations first proposed by Iman and Conover in 1982. The potential income transfer from crop insurance is also examined. We find that the income transfer due to the subsidization of single‐commodity policies is greater than the total premium for whole‐farm policies. La grande majorité de polices d'assurances de récolte et de revenu agricole vendues en Amérique du nord sont des polices de récolte individuelle qui assurent contre des rendements faibles ou bas revenu pour chaque récolte cultivée par une ferme particulière. Cette pratique de n'assurer une récolte à la fois fonctionne à l'opposé de la pratique traditionnelle de gestion des risques par la diversification à travers plusieurs entreprises pour éviter de mettre tous ses oeufs dans un seul panier. Cet article examine la construction d'un programme d'assurance agricole pour l'ensemble des récoltes produites par une ferme y compris le bétail évalue le risque. Les résultats montrent qu'aux niveaux d'assurance plus petits ou égaux à 95 pourcents, les primes d'assurance justes pour ce type de police pour une ferme bien diversifiée de l'Iowa sont bien inférieures aux primes justes pour une police de simple couvrant le maïs et ce pour la même ferme. Le calcul des taux de prime pour une police couvrant l'ensemble des récoltes est dérivé d'une méthode pour imposer des corrélations originalement proposée par Iman et Conover en 1982. Le transfert potentiel de revenu à partir de l'assurance de récolte agricole est également examiné. Nous trouvons que le transfert de revenu dûà la subvention des polices pour récolte singulière est plus grand que la prime entière pour une police couvrant l'ensemble des récoltes.     

Welfare Impacts of Cross-Country Spillovers in Agricultural Research

The welfare implications of intellectual property protection (IPP) for private sector agricultural research are analyzed, focusing on the realistic cases where countries provide different IPP levels, technology spills over across countries, and the public sector is involved in research. A model is developed to determine who benefits from, and who should pay for, the associated research. The article contains some interesting results on the implications of a harmonization of IPP policies through multilateral agreements or via technology that allows research firms to prevent the copying of plants and animals that express traits that have emerged from their research.     

Imbrications of institutional logics: the case of an e‐government initiative in Greece

This paper examines critically whether e‐government initiatives can be conceived of as representing a shift from a bureaucratic to a citizen‐centric institutional logic. We draw upon a longitudinal study of a Greek e‐government initiative that introduced one‐stop shops for the delivery of government services. Based on institutional theory, we provide a framework that illustrates the domains of institutional change that accompany e‐government projects and show how such institutional change can be understood as complex imbrications of contrasting institutional logics rather than one institutional logic displacing another. We argue that imbricated logics may have many unintended consequences which are not simply the outcome of either of the logics but are emergent from the imbrication.     

Impacts of recreational diving on hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) behaviour in a marine protected area

The hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) is a critically endangered species encountered by recreational divers in marine protected areas (MPAs) circumtropically. Few studies, however, have examined the impacts of recreational diving on hawksbill behaviours. In 2014, we collected turtle sightings surveys and dive logs from 14 dive operations, and conducted in-water observations of 61 juvenile hawksbill turtles in Roatán, Honduras, to determine if differences in dive site use and diver behaviours affected sea turtle behaviours in the Roatán Marine Park. Sightings distributions did not vary with diving pressure during an 82-day study period. We found the amount of time turtles spent eating, investigating and breathing decreased when approached by divers. Our results suggest diver interactions may negatively impact sea turtle behaviours, however it is unknown if recreational diving has a cumulative effect on turtles over time. We recommend that MPA managers should implement monitoring programmes that assess the impacts of tourism on natural resources. We have established monitoring of hawksbills as representatives of the marine habitat in an MPA, which has the potential to be heavily impacted by dive tourism, and provide recommendations for continued monitoring of the resource.     

Taking worker productivity to a new level? Electronic Monitoring in homecare—the (re)production of unpaid labour

This article explores the use of Electronic Monitoring (EM) in homecare and its impact on the ratio of paid to unpaid working time. It argues that whilst Zero Hours Contracts (ZHCs) blur the distinction between paid and unpaid labour, the introduction of EM can formalise and regulate the demarcation between the two. In the context of local authority commissioning and constrained budgets, the combination of EM and ZHC's may excise so‐called ‘unproductive’ but available labour from homecare. In particular, the minute‐by‐minute commissioning of care that EM facilitates means the cost of homecare is anchored in the time that worker's spend in client's houses, squeezing out paid travel, time between visits, training and supervision. Paid working time is minimised whilst maximising the use of unpaid time with resulting intensification of care labour.     

LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION, RACE AND HUMAN CAPITAL: INFLUENCE ON EARNINGS DISTRIBUTIONS ACROSS STATES

In this paper we analyze the level of income inequality across states in 1970 and 1980 for several demographic groups. Furthermore, we examine the impact of labor force participation (LFP), education and other variables on inequality. We find that for tshe whole population, states with high LFP by females are states with low income inequality. The same holds true for states with high LFP for men. When we disaggregate by race, the results are quite consistent for whites, but not for blacks. States with relatively high education levels are associated with high inequality levels for the white cohort and the whole population, but there appears to be no similar association between education and inequality across states for blacks.     

Cognitive Styles Of Experienced Auditors In The Netherlands

Cognitive styles of decision makers have been studied by a number of researchers over a period of years. Previous research has investigated cognitive styles in relation to information systems design and decision-making variables generally. Studies of cognitive styles in relation to auditor specific decision-making variables have been less common.This paper investigates cognitive styles of practicing auditors in The Netherlands using two well-known psychometric instruments: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the MacDonald AT-20 Tolerance for Ambiguity instrument (AT-20). The AT-20 has been used previously to investigate auditor individual differences in cognitive styles in relation to audit decision-making tasks (Pincus 1990). The MBTI has not been previously used to investigate auditor cognitive styles. The study described in this paper involved subjects from three auditing firms in The Netherlands. Subjects were presented with an audit case and asked to come to a decision about materiality. Information in the form of financial statements and other financial information was presented to the subjects via a computer program. The subjects selected the information they wanted to view by choosing an item on a menu. The sequence in which they selected information and the amount of time expended in viewing each page of information were recorded by the computer program. After the subjects finished the case, they were asked to complete the two cognitive style instruments (i.e. MBTI and AT-20).Results indicate that there is a preference for Sensing among subjects as measured by the MBTI. This finding is consistent with previous research using the MBTI which indicates that accountants and auditors generally have a preference for the Sensing type of information acquisition. Some differences between auditing firms were observed in regard to cognitive styles and information search variables.     

The effects of power relationships: knowledge,practice and a new form of regulatory capture*

Abstract

In the wake of disasters, criticism tends to target regulatory failures and regulatory capture. In this status quo, the roles of regulators are black-boxed and criticism fails to explore what has been happening within and around regulatory institutions. This paper explores how relationships between regulators of hazardous industry and those who interact with them affect regulatory practice. Actor-network theory was utilised to generate findings drawn from a study of the Australian pipeline industry in order to reveal perspectives and the approaches of regulators in regulating pipeline risks. The findings indicate that pipeline regulators have a particular logic in practicing risk analysis. This paper argues that such a logic can be theorised as a new form of regulatory capture that limits the way regulators regulate risks and constrains the potential of regulatory outcomes. It is urged that a new form of logics of practice needs to be developed so as to improve the process of risk regulation in preventing catastrophic accidents.