Profiles of nurses professionally involved in public policy

A widely acclaimed goal of the nursing profession is to increase the number of nurses involved in shaping U.S. health policy. This study describes 33 nurses holding positions in regulatory agencies, state legislatures, and congressional offices.     

Estimation Risk and Adaptive Behavior in the Pricing of Options

We consider the effects of uncertainty in the statistical parameters of the Gaussian process in the context of the Black-Scholes option pricing model. With continuous time observation of returns, uncertainty about the variance disappears over any finite time interval, but uncertainty about the mean diminishes at the rate of 1/τ, where T is the length of the time interval of observation. In a market in which participants base their portfolio decisions on the predictive distribution of returns, option prices will be higher than in a market in which uncertainty in the mean is ignored. Even though the mean parameter, μ, is itself irrelevant in the Black-Scholes model, uncertainty about μ affects option values under our behavioral assumptions.     

The missing link: a political hot potato

The Maitland Commission's report, The Missing Link, contains a cascade of recommendations - political, financial, institutional and operational. But, by setting a timetable for implementation of its recommendations before the next ITU Plenipotentiary the Commission has ensured that The Missing Link will be a political hot potato for the rest of the decade.     

Regional Assistance by Tax Reform

In late November the Government announced a new package of regional assistance, which closely followed the lines indicated in the December 1983 White Paper and included a reduction of $300 million in expenditure and a stronger emphasis on selectivity and cost-effectiveness in job-creation. Dr Bracewell-Milnes argues that by free-market standards the new form of assistance will on balance be worse than the old at any given amount of expenditure. Regional subsidies ought to have been replaced by regional tax-cuts.     

The Market, Liberty and the Regulatory State

A successful market economy offers the greatest extent of liberty consistent with reasonable security. But in recen times, the legal system has been used to 'improve' on competition and to impose impossibly high safety standards. This will lead to long-term damage to liberty and prosperity.     

No Efficiency without Profit

In Economic Affairs July–September 1985 Peter Kellner argued that socialism was better than capitalism in using markets. Professors Norman Barry (pictured on p. 9), of the University of Buckingham, and David Myddleton (right), of the Cranfield School of Management, offer two contrasting defences of capitalism to reject Mr Kellner.     

No 'Just' Distribution of Property Rights

Professor Barry questions the claim of Samuel Brittan that market liberalism lacks a theory of property distribution. He re-asserts the argument against egalitarianism most forcefully stated by F. A. Hayek (seen here after being made a Companion of Honour by the Queen last autumn).