Awareness and perceptions of the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing's Future: views from nursing students, RNs, and CNOs

Johnson & Johnson launched the Campaign in February 2002. Data from surveys of nursing students, RNs, and CNOs reflect a high level of awareness of several key elements of the Campaign--advertisements, recruitment materials, the discovernursing.com Web site, and regional "Promise of Nursing" fundraising events. The J & J Campaign for Nursing's Future represents the largest involvement of the private corporate sector, and through this initiative we are learning new and innovative ways to examine the challenges confronting the nursing workforce and develop actions to help resolve them.     

Financial price fluctuations in a stock market model with many interacting agents

Summary. We consider a financial market model with a large number of interacting agents. Investors are heterogeneous in their expectations about the future evolution of an asset price process. Their current expectation is based on the previous states of their neighbors and on a random signal about the mood of the market. We analyze the asymptotics of both aggregate behavior and asset prices. We give sufficient conditions for the distribution of equilibrium prices to converge to a unique equilibrium, and provide a microeconomic foundation for the use of diffusion models in the analysis of financial price fluctuations.Received: 16 April 2003, Revised: 1 March 2004, JEL Classification Numbers: D40, D84, G10.I thank Peter Bank, Dirk Becherer, Hans Föllmer, Peter Leukert, José Scheinkman, Alexander Schied, Ching-Tang Wu, and seminar participants at various institutions for many suggestions and discussions. Thanks are due to two anonymous referees and the editor, C.D. Aliprantis, for valuable comments which helped to improve the presentation of the results. Financial support of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft via SFB 373, Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and DFG Research Center Mathematics for Key Technologies (FZT 86) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Accounting for Growth and Output Gaps: Evidence from New Zealand

We evaluate New Zealand's macroeconomic performance over the 1967–1996 period, which witnessed numerous economic reforms. Using both index–number and econometric techniques, we decompose nominal GDP growth and the output gap into contributions from price level changes, productivity growth and changes in factor utilisation. Changes in domestic prices accounted for four–fifths of the growth in nominal GDP, while capital accumulation and employment growth were the most important factors determining real–output growth. Deviations in the domestic price level around its long–run trend contributed most heavily to changes in the nominal output gap. The real gap was influenced in any year variously by deviations of the terms of trade and labour input from their long–run trends, as well as by productivity shocks.     

EC Agricultural reform ad infinitum?

After protracted negotiations, the EC Ministers of Agriculture agreed on a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy on July 1st. Will this reform solve the fundamental problems plaguing the common agricultural market? Is it compatible with the GATT?     

Capitalizing on capabilities

By making the most of organizational capabilities--employees' collective skills and fields of expertise--you can dramatically improve your company's market value. Although there is no magic list of proficiencies that every organization needs in order to succeed, the authors identify 11 intangible assets that well-managed companies tend to have: talent, speed, shared mind-set and coherent brand identity, accountability, collaboration, learning, leadership, customer connectivity, strategic unity, innovation, and efficiency. Such companies typically excel in only three of these capabilities while maintaining industry parity in the other areas. Organizations that fall below the norm in any of the 11 are likely candidates for dysfunction and competitive disadvantage. So you can determine how your company fares in these categories (or others, if the generic list doesn't suit your needs), the authors explain how to conduct a "capabilities audit," describing in particular the experiences and findings of two companies that recently performed such audits. In addition to highlighting which intangible assets are most important given the organization's history and strategy, this exercise will gauge how well your company delivers on its capabilities and will guide you in developing an action plan for improvement. A capabilities audit can work for an entire organization, a business unit, or a region--indeed, for any part of a company that has a strategy to generate financial or customer-related results. It enables executives to assess overall company strengths and weaknesses, senior leaders to define strategy, midlevel managers to execute strategy, and frontline leaders to achieve tactical results. In short, it helps turn intangible assets into concrete strengths.     

Governance of the Common Agricultural Policy in the New Member States

Governance of the Common Agricultural Policy in the New Member States The Enlargement of the EU will have significant implications for the governance of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The evolution of the CAP has led to permanent increases in the intensity of regulation, although rates of external protection have declined. Past experience - mainly revealed by the European Court of Auditors - has evidenced many irregularities and even fraud as by-products of the CAR Governance problems are due to badly designed policies, which demand control at the individual farm level. In consequence, incentives might arise for member countries, for administrative regions – which are supposed to implement the policies at the local level – and for individual farms to breach the rules. These problems are likely to increase in the enlarged EU. Recent attempts to measure standards of governance reveal that the average score for the enlarged Union will be lower than it was in the old EU-15. Perceptions of the control of corruption and of the effectiveness of government differ most between old and New Member States. The latter have weaker administrative capacities and are therefore more susceptible to fraud than the old EU. Adequate policy reaction should lead to fundamental changes in the CAP towards less challenging policy measures in terms of governance. Politique agricole commune et gouvernances dans les nouveaux Etats members L'élargissement de l'UE ne sera pas sans conséquences pour la gouvernance de la politique agricole commune (PAC). Méme avec un taux de protection externe en déclin, l'évolution de la PAC s'est traduite par un accroissement constant de la réglernentation. L'éxperience montre que l'un des sous-produits de la PAC se trouve être l'existence de nombreuses irrégularités et de fraudes - la plupart du temps révélées par la Cour des comptes européenne -. Ces problemes sont la conséquence de politiques mal conçues, qui requiérent des contrôles individuels au niveau de chaque exploitation. La conséquence en est que les pays membres, les régions (qui sont supposeées appliquer la PAC au niveau local) et les agriculteurs individuels ont intérêt a enfreindre les régies. Ces difficultés ont toutes les chances de s'aggraver dans l'Europe élargie. Les essais récemment effectués pour mesurer la capacityé de gouvernance ont montré que le score moyen en la matiére pour l'Europe élargie sera inférieur à ce qu'il était dans l'Europe à 15- Dans les anciens Etats membres, la culture en matiére d'efficacité administrative et de lutte contre la corruption est bien différente de ce qu'elle est dans les nouveaux pays. Ces derniers ont moins de capacityé administrative et sont done plus vulnérables à la fraude que l'ancienne UE. La réaction politique la plus adéquate devrait être une modification radicale de la PAC, pour réduire ses exigences en termes de bonne gouvernance. Durchfuhrung der Gemeinsamen Agrarpolitjk in den neuen Mitgliedstaaten Die EU-Erweiterung wird sich bedeutend auf die Durchführung der Gemeinsamen Agrarpolitik (GAP) auswirken. Die Entwicklung der GAP führte zu einem stetigen Anstieg der Verordnungsintensität, obwohl die externen Protektionsraten zurückgegangen sind. Die Erfahrungen aus der Vergangenheit haben zahlreiche Unregelmäßigkeiten und sogar Betrug als Nebenprodukte der GAP nachgewiesen, was hauptsächlich vom Europäischen Rechnungshof aufgedeckt wurde. Probleme bei der Governance sind auf schlecht konzipierte Politikmaßnahmen zurückzuführen, welche eine Kontrolle auf der Ebene des einzelnen Landwirtschaftsbetriebs erfordern. Für Mitgliedstaaten, für Verwaltungsregionen, deren Aufgabe es ist, die Politikmaßnahmen auf lokaler Ebene zu implementieren, und für einzelne Landwirtschaftsbetriebe könnte sich daher der Anreiz ergeben, gegen die Regeln zu verstoßen. Diese Probleme werden in der erweiterten EU wahrscheinlich zunehmen. Neuere Ansätze, die Standards im Bereich der Durchführung zu messen, ergaben, dass das durchschnittliche Ergebnis für die erweiterte EU unter dem Ergebnis fur die alte EU 15 liegt. Im Hinblick auf die Korruptionskontrolle und die Regierungseffektivität ergaben sich fur die alten und die neuen Mitgliedstaaten sehr unterschiedliche Beobachtungen. Die neuen Mitgliedstaaten weisen schwächere Kapazitäten in der Verwaltung auf und sind daher anfälliger für Betrug als die alte EU. Die Politik sollte angemessen darauf reagieren und grundlegende Änderungen in der GAP vornehmen hin zu Politikmaßnahmen, die in Sachen Durchführung geringere Herausforderungen darstellen.