An integrative model of e-learning use: Leveraging theory to understand and increase usage

Employees are increasingly using technology to access content for learning, and theory development has been outpaced by practice. Drawing on a well validated theory of behavior change (the Transtheoretical Model of Change), as well as theories on technology acceptance and employee development, this paper offers an integrative model of factors that influence employee use of e-learning as well as practical recommendations for how use might be increased. Recommendations for future research on e-learning are also offered.     

The analytics of search with posted prices

Summary. This paper investigates the characteristics of the optimal posted price in the standard sequential search paradigm. Much of the intuition gleaned from the extensive sequential search literature in which the seller adopts a reservation price does not carry over to the posted price setting. For example, an increase in buyer valuations can lead to a reduction in the optimal posted price. We do, however, provide sufficient conditions on the hazard rate function h which ensure that an increase in demand induces an increase in the optimal posted price. As exhibited herein, the analysis of the posted price model depends critically upon analytical properties of h. Amongst the issues treated are the elasticity of demand, finite horizon, sale of multiple units, and competitive equilibrium. Received: October 21, 1999; revised version: March 7, 2000     

Time Deformation in UK Consumers' Expenditure

Cook, Holly and Turner recently developed a hypothesis of a positive relationship between the durability of consumers' expenditure and the asymmetric behaviour it exhibits. Supportive evidence was found by applying Sichel's tests of business cycle asymmetry to the component series of UK consumers' expenditure, which represent goods of differing durability. In this paper the relationship is re‐examined using the original data, by implementing Stock's diagnostic tests of time deformation. The results provide further support for the durability–asymmetry hypothesis.     

Studying (Small) businesses with the Michigan Employment Security Commission longitudinal data base

This paper addresses the usefulness of a longitudinal data file constructed from records on employers from the Michigan Employment Security Commission. We describe the main features of the data file, which includes quarterly (and in some cases, monthly) data from the third quarter of 1978 through the first quarter of 1983, plus the fourth quarters of 1983–87. We then illustrate the uses of the data with two examples: (1) studying changes in the Michigan economy, in particular the early growth and survival of new units of different sizes; and (2) studying the behavior of wages and employment following changes in ownership.Judith Connor and Steven Heeringa are primarily responsible for Section II and the Appendix, John Jackson for Section III, and Charles Brown for Section IV.     

When adding a fuel efficient car increases an automaker's CAFE penalty

We derive the conditions that cause an automaker's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) fine to increase when it sells an additional, fuel efficient car. Raising the CAFE standards would broaden the range of fuel economies that produce this effect. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Peasant communes and factor markets in late nineteenth-century Russia

The peasant land commune was the emblematic institutional feature of agrarian Russian society before the Revolution of 1917. Economic historians have long blamed the commune for restricting household behavior in ways that contributed to Russia's economic “backwardness” by the late 19th century. Drawing on new household-level data collected from archival sources in Moscow province, this article provides the first microeconomic analysis of local factor markets and household behavior within the institutional context of the Russian peasant commune. The empirical evidence indicates that peasant households did have substantial flexibility when it came to allocating their land and labor holdings. In response to mortality shocks or lags in the communal adjustment of land, households engaged in land rentals and off-farm labor market transactions to improve upon suboptimal factor endowments. Although these findings do not imply that the resulting allocation of resources was fully efficient, they do illustrate how peasants made rational factor market transactions in a seemingly inhospitable institutional environment.     

THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL CAPITAL IN PRODUCTION

It is increasingly acknowledged that the financial structure of a firm is an important determinant of its production costs. This paper argues that the use of a firm's liabilities should be seen as a separate input in the production process. At the same time, the input of non-financial assets is limited to the value that is used up during the reference period. The paper elaborates on these ideas and shows their use in empirical work. It is concluded that the approach set out in this paper establishes a much closer relationship of general economic accounting and analysis to business economics.     

Ex ante analysis of the benefits of transgenic drought tolerance research on cereal crops in low-income countries

This article develops a framework to examine the ex ante benefits of transgenic research on drought in eight low-income countries, including the benefits to producers and consumers from farm income stabilization and the potential magnitude of private sector profits from intellectual property rights (IPRs). The framework employs country-specific agroecological–drought risk zones and considers both yield increases and yield variance reductions when estimating producer and consumer benefits from research. Benefits from yield variance reductions are shown to be an important component of aggregate drought research benefits, representing 40% of total benefits across the eight countries. Further, estimated annual benefits of US$178 million to the private sector suggest that significant incentives exist for participation in transgenic drought tolerance research.