A buyer's perspective on collaborative versus transactional relationships

This research examines collaborative and transactional relationships in buying firms to determine whether collaborative relationships offer greater benefits than transactional relationships, and to ascertain which relational factors drive satisfaction and performance for both collaborative and transactional relationship types. Factor analysis, t-tests and step-wise regression were used to analyze data from a survey of buying firms. Results show that collaborative relationships offer higher levels of satisfaction and performance than transactional relationships. Satisfaction factored into two separate constructs: satisfaction with the relationship and satisfaction with the results. Of the relational factors examined, trust is the most important predictor of performance and satisfaction with the relationship regardless of the type of relationship examined.     

How well do urban growth boundaries contain development? Results for Oregon using a difference-in-difference estimator

Urban containment policies, including urban growth boundaries (UGBs), are a common tool used by city planners to promote compact development. We analyze how well UGBs do in containing development using fine-scale GIS data on cities in Oregon. Earlier studies on UGBs yield mixed results, with some authors finding no effects of UGBs on housing market variables and urbanization rates and others finding significant effects. A challenge in measuring these effects is that the location of the UGB is unlikely to be an exogenous determinant of a land parcel's value for development. The panel structure of our dataset allows us to estimate the UGB's effect on the probability of development using a difference-in-difference estimator applied to a narrow band of plots along each city's UGB. This estimator controls for time-invariant unobservable variables and common temporal effects among plots, thereby mitigating the potential for biased estimates due to the endogeneity of the UGB's location. We also pursue a novel approach to controlling for time-varying factors that exploits our fine-scale data. We find that UGBs contain development in many of the Oregon cities we examine, although there are some cities in which development rates are the same inside and outside of the UGB. Our results reveal that, in most cities, the effect of the UGB is small relative to pre-existing differences in development probabilities. This suggests that it may be difficult to identify UGB effects with cross-sectional data, the approach commonly taken in previous studies.     

Verteilungswirkungen des EEG

The Renewal Energies Act has so far been one of the cornerstones of the energy revolution. As a result of the Act the production of electricity from renewable sources has been considerably increased. As the most expensive forms of renewable energies have grown fastest, average costs have not shrunk but have risen significantly. The ongoing growth led to increasing subsidies for renewable energies and growing costs for electricity consumers in business and private households. It would be insufficient to look at absolute cost developments only, as distribution effects may be critical. As electricity consumption only slightly depends on household income, higher income leads to lower significance of electricity costs. Therefore, low income households bear a relatively higher burden of costs for renewable energies. Furthermore, wealthy households could benefit from the subsidies as they can invest in renewable energy systems.     

Household‐level Impacts of Dairy Cow Ownership in Coastal Kenya

This study uses heteroskedastic Tobit and Censored Least Absolute Deviations models to examine the impacts of dairy cow ownership on selected outcomes for a sample of 184 households in coastal Kenya. The outcomes examined include gross household cash income, gross non‐agricultural income, consumption of dairy products, time allocated to cattle‐related tasks, number of labourers hired and total wage payments to hired labourers. The number of dairy cows owned has a large and statistically significant impact on household cash income; each cow owned increased income by at least 53% of the mean total income of households without dairy cows. Dairy cow ownership also increases consumption of dairy products by 1.0 litre per week, even though most of the increase in milk production is sold. The number of dairy cows has no significant effect on total labour for cattle‐related tasks. However, in contrast to previous studies, labour allocation to cattle by household members decreases and labour requirements for dairy cows are met primarily by an increase in hired labour. Dairy cow ownership results in relatively modest increases in payments to hired labourers and the number of hired labourers employed. The large positive impacts on income and the substitution of hired for household labour in cattle care suggest that intensification of smallholder dairying can be beneficial as a development strategy in the region if disease and feed constraints are addressed.     

THE IMPACT OF FUNDHOLDING ON PRIMARY HEALTH CARE: ACCOUNTS FROM SCOTTISH GPS

At the inception of the internal market in health care GP fundholding was seen rather as a 'sidesho' to the main reforms. But as the reforms have worked through, GP fundholding has emerged as pivotal to the purchaserlprovider agenda and the changes now associated with GP fundholding will be major issues in directing future health care policy initiatives. Drawing on empirical data from three Scottish regions, this paper argues that fundholding is now significant because GPs perceive benefits for primary health care. The paper uses the data collected from the case studies in the regions to assess these gains on two levels: the 'micro' impact of fundholding on primary health care processes and the 'macro' issues raised for health care policy by involving GPs more closely in resource management. Some GPs wish to use resource management as a vehicle for enhancing equity within the NHS, others are more concerned to manage resources so as to expand their practices into sites which combine primary, secondary and community health care, still others envisage developing the market to include monetary rewards for 'efficient' practices.     

The Licensing of Barbers in the USA

Barbering is one of the earliest professions to be licensed in the USA. This article discusses the origins of barber licensing, as well as its current status and scope, and then estimates the effects that such licensing has had on barbers' earnings. To estimate these effects we use micro‐level data from the 2000 US Census along with several measures of the strictness of state licensing of barbers. Our results suggest that certain licensing provisions may have increased barber earnings by between 11 and 22 per cent. The magnitude of our estimates is somewhat higher than those found in studies examining the effects of licensing in similar professions.     

Discount rate changes and the foreign exchange market

Changes in the discount rate can have associated announcement effects on the foreign exchange value of the dollar only if these changes are not anticipated by the market. This paper provides evidence to support this contention. Specifically, discount rate changes made for reasons other than technical adjustments have not been anticipated fully and, consequently, their announcements have had a significant impact on the dollar's exchange rate. Furthermore, results are obtained that support the hypothesis that unanticipated discount rate changes alter inflationary expectations.     

MONEY,OUTPUT AND INFLATION IN AFRICAN ECONOMIES1

This paper examines the long‐run money‐inflation relation for 36 African countries using cross‐section and panel data analysis. The focus is on the recent claim by De Grauwe and Polan that the common finding in multi‐country studies of a strong positive link typically reflects the presence of high‐inflation countries in the sample and on Nelson's criticisms of the data and methodology employed in that study. Adjusting the De Grauwe and Polan methodology to take account of many of Nelson's criticisms, I confirm a weak long‐run relation between money growth and inflation for countries when money growth and inflation are below 10%, but a strong relation when money growth and inflation move much above that number. This result is not dependent on the inclusion of high inflation countries in the cross‐section and panel data samples.