Diversity,knowledge clusters,and job placement: Graduate economics teaching of core microeconomics

The authors present an empirical analysis of what is taught in core micro-economics at a set of top U.S. doctoral economics programs. Their aim is to evaluate the diversity across programs and assess whether there are distinct “schools of thought” in graduate economics education. Their empirical findings reveal substantial, in fact, surprising diversity in what is taught. Application of a clustering algorithm results in programs clustering into two main “schools of thought.” The authors also specify an econometric model of job placement. Their job placement results indicate that candidates are more likely to be hired at schools in the same cluster as their home program, even after controlling for other factors. The results inform debates about graduate education and the relevance of a “common core” curriculum.     

Location and service mix decisions for a managed health care network

For managers of managed health care organizations, the problem of designing a competitive multiple facility network cannot be solved by existing mathematical models. This paper thus presents a nonlinear integer model for determining a facilities design strategy that embodies the economic tradeoffs encompassed in a competitive strategy: minimizing cost and maximizing market share. The integrated location and service mix model determines the number, location and service offerings of facilities that maximize profitability in a two-level hierarchical referral delivery network where an organization's market share is represented by a multiplicative competitive interaction model. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed integrated model, a series of problems is solved by an interchange heuristic and compared to the solutions derived by a simpler approach that ignores market competition.     

Estimating a public school expenditure model under binding spending limitations

A model explaining desired expenditure on education is estimated for a sample of New Jersey school districts. Because the limit on annual increases in school spending is binding for a subsample of jurisdictions, the Tobit estimation procedure is used. We test for equality of the pre- and postlimitation structures and find substantial similarity. The cap on expenditure increases was part of a court-ordered reform of New Jersey school finance law. The results can be used to explain the failure of the existing school finance laws in lessening expenditure disparities at the lower end of the distribution.     

Organizational values,work norms,and relational role behaviours: an empirical retail assessment

We apply the relationship-marketing concept to a retail setting in order to determine if customer-contact employees' relational role behaviours (RRBs) (consisting of both trust-building and attachment behaviours) have organizationally influenced antecedents. Using organizational culture and value–norm–behaviour linkage, we posit that organizational values (consisting of customer orientation, employee orientation, and financial orientation) influence work norms for customer retention (solidarity and role integrity) and, ultimately, RRBs. Hypotheses and a model which illustrates the relationships between the constructs are presented. A study is conducted in a US regional drugstore chain (n=246). LISREL is used to analyse the results. Six out of eight hypotheses are supported. The findings are discussed as well as managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions.     

Balanced-budget rules and macroeconomic (in)stability

It has been shown that under perfect competition and constant returns-to-scale, a one-sector real business cycle model may exhibit indeterminacy and sunspots when income tax rates are determined by a balanced-budget rule with a pre-set level of government expenditures. This paper shows that indeterminacy disappears if the government finances endogenous public spending and transfers with fixed income tax rates. Under this type of balanced-budget formulation, the economy exhibits saddle-path stability and equilibrium uniqueness, regardless of the source of government revenue and/or the existence of lump-sum transfers.     

The status of biotehnology-based innovation

This paper contributes to the debate surrounding the question of whether biotechnology, particularly its applications in agricultural and food-related industries, should be regarded as revolutionary or evolutionary (with some reservations about the vaildity of teh question). The potential to create a revolutionary techno-economic paradigm shift does exist but it is currently systems. It is also important to consider the motivations underlying statements about the revolutionary/ evolutionary nature of biotechnology, as some such statements are intended to influence events rather than to reflect them. The impact of small firms on the direction and place of revolutionary change in these industries is likely to be marginal, unlike the situation in the early phases of teh electronics/IT revolution. At present the lack of integration of policy initiatives by national governments and the EC is a major factor discouraging the rapid implementation of change.     

FOCUS: Can Accountants Distinguish their Assets from their Morals?

Can the use of focus groups be helpful to get to the roots of ethical issues in the accounting profession? The activities of one such group at Cranfield throws considerable light on the pressures to which individual accountants can be subjected. Professor Vyakarnam has recently been appointed to the Chair of Enterprise at Nottingham Trent University. Sri Srikanthan is Senior Lecturer in the Finance and Accounting Department at Cranfield University School of Management, where Sharon Fitzsimons is Research Officer in the Economics Group.     

Strategies and Performance in the Thrift Industry: 1979–1987

From the late seventies until 1989, the regulatory environment of the thrift industry was changed from one that permitted little managerial discretion to one in which managers were allowed to choose from a wide variety of lending and borrowing activities. In this article, cluster analysis is used to separate thrifts into strategic groups based on the extent to which they utilized their new powers. Differences among the groups and the relationship between group membership and performance is tested over the period 1979–1987 using analysis of variance.     

Comparing EthicalIdeologies AcrossCultures

Using measures developed by Singhapakdi et al. (1996, Journal of Business ethics 15, 1131–1140) the perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility (PRESOR) is measured among MBA students in the United States, Malaysia and Ukraine revealing a stockholder view and two stakeholder views. Relativism and Idealism are also measured. The scores of MBA students are compared among each other and with those of the U.S. managers who were part of the original study. Managers' scores tend to be significantly higher on the Stockholder and Stakeholder II views, and much lower on Relativism than the MBA students. The Malaysian MBA students scored higher than did the American MBA students on Relativism, Idealism and the Stockholder view. The Ukrainian MBA students' scores on the three PRESOR factors are generally similar to those of the American MBAs, while they had the highest scores of any group on the Relativism scale. Overall, the patterns of responses, as much as the significant differences on specific scales, support the notion that culture, however defined, affects both values and ethics. Several directions for future research are identified.'     

Claims Auditing in Automobile Insurance: Fraud Detection and Deterrence Objectives

Research on insurer management of opportunism in claiming has developed in two parallel literatures. One is a theoretical literature on insurance contracting that yields predictions about the nature of optimal auditing strategies for the deterrence of fraud. The other is a literature based upon statistical analysis of claims that yields empirical strategies for the detection of fraudulent claims. This article links the two literatures by providing an empirical assessment of insurers’ auditing practices in relation to theoretical predictions. The analysis makes use of a data set on the disposition of more than 1,000 randomly selected automobile personal injury protection claims settled in the state of Massachusetts. The findings of the article are consistent with the use of rational auditing strategies by insurers and with the use of audits for both deterrence and detection.