Determinants of Canadian bilateral aid allocations: humanitarian,commercial or political?

Abstract.  In this paper we examine the determinants of the allocation of Canadian bilateral aid over the period 1984–2000. We draw on models of donor behaviour that allow us to incorporate humanitarian, commercial and political considerations – the 'trinity of mixed motives'– that affect Canadian aid. We find that allocations are moderately altruistic. Recipient country human rights and membership in the Commonwealth and La Francophonie also affect aid flows. Most strikingly, our results suggest that Canadian aid flows became less altruistic over this period and commercial motives became increasingly important. JEL Classification: H50, O10     

WINDOW ON EASTERN EUROPE: Ethical Perceptions of Polish Business Students

An experienced educationalist comments on the views of top Polish business students on ethics in public life, government and business in modern Poland. The author is Wicklander Professor of Professional Ethics at DePaul University, Chicago, and also served recently as Visiting Fulbright Professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. He is currently President of the Society of Business Ethics in the USA.     

What Do Bettors Want? Determinants of Pari‐Mutuel Betting Preference

A bstract .   This paper is an analysis of the demand for thoroughbred racetrack wagers, examining evidence that would support the existence of two types of bettors: the risk-averse informed bettor versus the uninformed bettor. Looking at 12 major racetracks over the fall of 2002, we undertake an empirical examination of the determinants of bettors' preferences for particular wagers on specific races. The goal is to try to determine what individual aspects of a race (conditions, surface, participants, etc.) will encourage increased wagering dollars. With the advent of simulcasting, the competition for the wagering dollar is fierce, as the bettor can choose from more than 100 races daily, each race offering numerous betting options. We find for most wagers that higher quality participants, larger and more competitive fields, and turf races increase betting volume while higher pari-mutuel takeout, poor track conditions, and other races run concurrently reduce volume. However, more competitive fields reduce betting volume in the show and trifecta pools. Optimal field size is determined to be between 10 and 12 betting interests. Overall, we find support for the existence of a significant share of risk-averse informed bettors.     

A resilience-based framework for evaluating adaptive co-management: Linking ecology, economics and society in a complex world

Adaptive co-management brings together collaborative and adaptive approaches in pursuit of sustainable resource use and social-ecological resilience. Enthusiasm for this management approach, however, is countered by recent critiques regarding outcomes. A lack of evidence from consistent evaluation of adaptive co-management further exacerbates this situation. This paper revisits the issue of evaluation in natural resource management and recasts it in light of complex adaptive systems thinking. An evaluative framework for adaptive co-management is developed which directs attention toward three broad components: ecosystem conditions, livelihood outcomes and process and institutional conditions. Scale-specific parameters are offered for each component to facilitate systematic learning from experience and encourage cross-site comparisons. Conclusions highlight the importance of systematically incorporating evaluation into the adaptive co-management process and recognize the challenge for resource agencies and researchers to shift from a conventional to a complex adaptive system perspective.     

Medical insurance with rank-dependent utility

Summary. A well-known result in the medical insurance literature is that zero co-insurance is never second-best for insurance contracts subject to moral hazard. We replace the usual expected utility assumption with a version of the rank-dependent utility (RDU) model that has greater experimental support. When consumers exhibit such preferences, we show that zero co-insurance may in fact be optimal, especially for low-risk consumers. Indeed, it is even possible that the first-best and second-best contracts are identical. In this case, there is no “market failure”, despite the informational asymmetry. We argue that these RDU results are in better accord with the empirical evidence from US health insurance markets. Received: February 26, 2001; revised version: October 4, 2002 RID="*" ID="*"The authors would particularly like to thank Simon Grant, John Quiggin, Peter Wakker and an anonymous referee for valuable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. The paper has also benefitted from the input of seminar audiences at The Australian National University, University of Auckland, University of Melbourne and University of Sydney. Ryan also gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the ARC, through Grant number A000000055. Correspondence to:R. Vaithianathan     

Agency Structure and Firm Culture: OSHA, EPA, and the Steel Industry

We compare models of Occupational Safety and Health Administration(OSHA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforcementand compliance for steel plants during the 1980s. We find thatOSHA and EPA respond similarly to plant-level compliance andmeasures of hazardousness, but differently to firm-level complianceand risks of plant closing, and we relate the differences tothe agencies' differing organizational structures. Plant-levelcompliance is affected by enforcement pressure, compliance costs,and the firm's overall compliance behavior in similar ways forthe two regulatory areas, but environmental compliance was alsosensitive to plant size and risk of closing. Finally, we findthat the likelihood that a plant was in compliance with oneagency seemed at most weakly related to whether it was in compliancewith the other, but that plants likely to receive enforcementattention from one agency were also more likely to receive enforcementattention from the other agency.     

Enhanced ABC costing for hospitals: directed expense costing

Space limitations do not allow a complete discussion of all the topics and many of the obvious questions that the preceding brief introduction to directed expense costing probably raised in the reader's mind. These include how errors in accounting practices like posting expenses to the wrong period are handled; and how the system automatically adjusts costs for expenses benefiting several periods but posted to the acquisition month. As was mentioned above, underlying this overtly simple costing method are a number of sophisticated and sometimes complex processes that are hidden from the normal user and designed to automatically protect the integrity and accuracy of the costing process. From a user's viewpoint, the system is straightforward, understandable, and easy to use and audit. From a software development perspective, it is not quite that effortless. By using a system that is understood by all users at all levels, these users can now communicate with each other in a new and effective way. This new communication channel only occurs after each user is satisfied as to the overall costing quality achieved by the process. However, not all managers or physicians are always happy that the institution is using this "understandable" cost accounting system. During one of the weekly meetings of a hospital's administrative council, complaints from several powerful department heads concerning the impact that the use of cost data was having on them were brought up for discussion. In defending the continued use of the system, one vice president stated to the group that cost accounting does not get any easier than this, or any less expensive, or any more accurate. The directed expense process works and works very well. Our department heads and physicians will have to come to grips with the accountably it provides us to assess their value to the hospital.