How Should An Accumulative Toxic Substance be Banned?

The harmful effects on human health or ecosystems of many toxic substances depend on their cumulative concentration in the carrying medium (water, soil, or air), not just on the annual deposition rates of the substances. Accumulative toxic substances pose challenges to regulatory policy that are not faced when controlling pollutants whose damaging effects are though to depend primarily on annual emission flows. An increasingly common response is to phase out offending uses or production of the substance. In this paper we take as given the goal of phasing out an accumulative pollutant and examine different ways this could be done using a simple, partial-equilibrium dynamic model. We focus on phaseout measures in which the cumulative production and release of the offending substance over the transition period is fixed. Once this cumulative volume is reached, users must convert to a known but higher-cost substitute that is assumed to be benign. The key to the analysis is the observation that the quota on cumulative production makes production of the toxic substance during the transition analogous to extraction of an exhaustible resource with a higher-cost, nonexhaustible ‘backstop’ technology. Using this framework, we first describe the cost-effective outcome when the ‘sunset’ date is chosen to maximize product market surplus subject to the cumulative production constraint. This outcome is compared to one in which the regulator fixes the sunset date, and one in which the regulator limits annual production as well as cumulative production out of concern for acute exposure effects. Finally, we discuss the kinds of market-based policy instruments that would be appropriate for supporting a cost-effective outcome.     

Corporate social monitoring in South Africa: A decade of achievement,an uncertain future

Corporate social monitoring has reached its most systematic form and has had the most practical impact with regard to companies doing business in South Africa. The Sullivan Principles have guided the monitoring system for U.S. companies, of which about 166 remain in South Africa and about 140 have withdrawn. However, corporate social monitoring in South Africa is currently subject to certain tensions. The Rev. Sullivan has called for the withdrawal of U.S. companies, and has himself withdrawn from the monitoring effort.This paper discusses the economic climate for U.S. business in South Africa both historically and currently, the conflicting pressures experienced by U.S. companies remaining there, and the effectiveness of strategies aimed to create pressure for companies to withdraw, including divestment resolutions, purchasing restrictions, and sanctions.Current attempts to retain a form of corporate social monitoring are described. The potential politicization of the system is discussed, with particular attention paid to the formation of a new structure which could come to provide the moral leadership formerly provided by the Rev. Sullivan. However, corporate social monitoring could become confused with an anti-sanctions lobbying effort on the part of corporations, and would lose credibility if this were to occur.Karen Paul is an Associate Professor of Management at Rochester Institute of Technology. The research for her article was completed while she was 1987–88 Peace Fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, and was also supported by a Fulbright Senior Research Grant.     

Procedural Fairness, Return to Work, and the Decision to Dispute in Workers' Compensation

This study investigates how injured workers evaluate the fairness of the workers' compensation claims process and how that evaluation affects the decision to formally dispute their claim. Survey and administrative data are used to test a model where individuals are hypothesized to base their overall impression of the fairness of the process based on dimensions of procedural justice criteria. They are then hypothesized to decide whether to formally dispute the claim based on a combination of procedural fairness concerns and whether or not they returned to work with the same employer. The implications of the results for structuring the workers' compensation claims process are then discussed.     

Corporate giving in the USA: a model for meeting Russia's expanding social needs?

In the USA, corporations make substantial contributions to public‐serving organisations with no expectation of financial gain. This paper explores the factors that have encouraged corporate giving in the USA and compares them to circumstances in the emerging capitalist economy of Russia. The outlook for the emergence of a corporate giving model in Russia similar to that of the USA is poor, but improving. To make it work, organisational recipients of corporate generosity need to trust their benefactors, and corporations need to believe that their contributions of surplus profits make good business sense. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Optimal Real Estate Portfolios

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid the problem of analyzing, evaluating and selecting real estate investments within the context of a portfolio. Most approaches simply attempt to adapt existing theory and models from the well-developed literature of securities investments. Most adaptations or extensions to real estate are not without serious problems, however, because of several fundamental difficulties relating to optimization technology inadequacies and a general lack of reliable and consistent market data.
This article deals with the major problems of utilizing some of the classic securities investment models for real estate. Further, a risk-return model is advanced which overcomes most of the fundamental problems outlined earlier in the article.     

Small sample behaviour of some nonparametric multi-sample location tests in the presence of dispersion differences

This paper describes the small and moderate sample behaviour of three studentized non-parametric statistics by Sen and a modified Wilcoxon statistic by Potthoff for testing the equality of location parameters in the presence of dispersion differences. Based on the agreement between the asymptotic and small sample distributions of the statistics as well as a comparison of their power under heteroscedasticity, the studentized Wilcoxon and the studentized Brown and Mood tests arc preferred in the two-sample and c-sample situations, respectively.