Continuous enough

In this paper we give a global condition on the cost function which is necessary and sufficient for continuity of the corresponding production function. A cost function satisfying this condition is ‘continuous enough’ in the sense discussed by Diewert (1974).     

The unification of Ronald W. Shephard's duality theory

Ronald W. Shephard developed four fundamental duality theorems. They relate the following four pairs of representations of the technology: cost function-input distance function, revenue function-output distance function, indirect cost function-indirect input distance function, and indirect revenue function-indirect output distance function. In this paper we show that all eight of these representations are equivalent. The implication of this equivalence is that there are twenty-four duality theorems and four inverse relationships involving Shephard's eight representations of technology.     

Verantwortungsvoller Nachtdienst

Zusammenfassung  Pflegekr?fte tragen die volle Verantwortung — Im Nachtdienst konzentriert sich die Verantwortung für die Patienten- oder Bewohnersicherheit auf eine Pflegekraft. Zwischenf?lle werden arbeitsrechtlich, strafrechtlich und zivilrechtlich bewertet.     

Halving Poverty by Doubling Aid: Is There Reason for Optimism?

This paper criticises the World Bank as overly optimistic with respect to its ability to fine-tune development aid and to focus it on countries with ‘good’ policies rather than on countries with ‘poor’ policies in order to raise its effectiveness. It is shown that recipient regions showed very different patterns of aid inflows and economic growth in the past and that aid flows yielded the highest correlation to growth when their magnitudes shrank. It is furthermore argued that categorising countries by quality of domestic policies is not only questionable at a given point of time especially in countries with failing governmental institutions and open borders as in many African countries. It suffers also from incentive problems so that countries receiving more aid can become victims of changes in their domestic policies which are more permissive and etatist to the disadvantage of private agents. The paper instead pleads for a shift to aid policies decoupled from country-specifics and more oriented to fundamental ‘beyond border’ problems of the well-being of the poor. An international endowment fund under supranational law should finance research and implementation of research findings related to common international goods as it was suggested by Sachs concerning aids and tropical disease research.     

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An empirical evaluation of the rationality of eurocurrency market expectations

This paper is concerned with testing the rationality of the Eurocurrency market's expectations of future spot rates. Whereas most previous studies have concentrated on analyzing spot rates, we develop and test an observable expectations series. The results show that although two of the three expectations series examined are unbiased, all three series ignore information readily obtainable from past spot rates.     

Shephard's lemma and rate of return regulation

By counter example this paper shows that in general, Shephard's lemma cannot be used for the usual formulation of the rate of return regulated cost function. A solution to the problem is supplied.