Use it or lose it

We examine the optimality of budget policies imposed by a funding authority on a bureaucrat who operates under a fixed budget. In particular, we study a “use‐it‐or‐lose‐it” (UILI) policy under which the bureaucrat has to return any unspent budget without being able to “roll over” any part to the next period. Instead of returning the unspent budget, the bureaucrat can go on a spending spree and engage in policy drift, which is inversely related to his motivation. The bureaucrat's motivation represents how well matched he is with the bureaucracy's mission. We show that a UILI policy is complementary to motivation as it has stronger ex ante positive incentive effects on more motivated bureaucrats. Such ex ante positive effects can overcome the ex post inefficiency of the policy and make a UILI policy optimal when the bureaucrat is well matched with the bureaucracy's mission or when its budget is large.     

Globalization and the dynamics of cultural identity

This paper presents a simple model where micro-founded dynamics of cultural identity are endogenous and interact with an international trade equilibrium. This process generates a strong home bias under autarky. We then show that goods market integration causes a phenomenon of cultural divergence, whereby the distributions of cultures become more dissimilar across countries and one of the cultures that existed under autarky ultimately disappears. By way of contrast, we show that social integration causes cultural convergence and can counterbalance the effects of goods market integration.     

The theory of optimum currency areas,trade adjustment,and trade

This article seeks to provide a closer integration of the theory of optimum currency areas with the theory of international trade. A currency area is treated as a continuous variable ranging from zero to one: zero if there is no enlargement, and some positive value otherwise, corresponding exactly to the percentge of trade in the enlarged area. The benefits of widening a currency area are then regarded, in terms of conventional trade theory, as equivalent to a reduction in transportation cost. The costs of widening a currency area are seen, instead, with reference to open economy macroeconomics, as a drop in the speed of adjustment of the terms of trade to their long-run equilibrium level. On this basis, it is shown that the marginal benefits of enlarging a currency area fall, the marginal costs rise, and an optimum size arises. But this size depends heavily on the optimal composition of the members.CEPR     

Mediation of artefacts,tools and technical objects: an international and french perspective

In this article we present a review of literature on the concept of Artefact, Tool and Technical Object in the light of in sociocultural approach. Particular attention is given to present and discuss the French research tradition on the Technical Object and Technological education. The aim is to give a broad perspective to explore the mediation between the individual and their environment.     

Shaping the landscape: Agricultural policies and local biodiversity schemes

This paper analyses the potential effect of local agro-environmental policies in promoting multifunctionality in a rural landscape, with a two-scale modelling framework: a regional scale for food demand and a local scale for the forces driving land use. The framework has been designed in four steps. First, the relative influence of the driving factors on the current land use pattern has been analysed. Two scenarios are designed that vary the external demand for the total land use, and alter more or less quickly the specific location factors that drive the landscape pattern. The first scenario considers trends in the external and internal driving forces. The second relies both on totally decoupled farm subsidies and unregulated housing growth. In both scenarios a local agro-environmental policy is introduced and we compare its consequences with the previous scenario's landscape pattern. The third step consists of a modelling exercise that analyses the likely outcome of each scenario on the development of land use patterns on a local scale. Last, these landscape patterns have been translated into ecological indexes that assess the effect of the policy options on the multifunctionality of the local landscape.     

A six-stage model of the buying process for ERP software

This paper presents a model of the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software acquisition process that reflects the findings from the four cases examined in this study. This ERP acquisition process model includes six distinctive, yet interrelated, processes (planning, information search, selection, evaluation, choice, and negotiations). This paper depicts the principal processes and many of the constituent activities, issues, dynamics, and complexities that pertain to the acquisition of ERP software. The results from this study contribute to the identification of processes that are part of this type of acquisition. Further, this model also suggests complexities that are worthy of further investigation, in and of themselves, if for no other reason than that they could prove the limit of generalizability of the model.     

How location and ethnicity affect ethnic entrepreneurs in three Canadian cities

Few studies on the entrepreneurial contributions of immigrant and/or ethnic entrepreneurs have been carried out in Canada. This article presents results from a cross‐Canadian project. Data were collected from 718 entrepreneurs in three cities. Analysis of the socio‐demographic profile suggests that ethnic entrepreneurs pursue different paths of integration. Firm characteristics suggest that similar support programs are needed for ethnic firms as for all small firms. Also, our analysis suggests that there is no need for new support programs for ethnic firms, except to help them better integrate. Lastly, the use that these entrepreneurs make of social capital only partially confirms the literature. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.