The Potential Environmental Benefits of Co‐Operative Businesses Within the Climate Change Agenda

The economic benefits of agricultural co‐operatives are well rehearsed and have received significant attention in the literature, especially in regard to the resource efficiencies flowing from collective action that might be absent from investor‐owned firms. This article provides evidence to show how these resource efficiencies might also manifest themselves as environmental advantages, which may not be available through investor‐owned firms due to the different purpose of, and motivation for, business activity. Specifically, the article explores how co‐operative businesses may deliver climate change benefits by examining case studies of alternative co‐operative functions that provide a mix of qualitative and quantitative evidence. Results show that, where co‐operative businesses achieve efficiencies through economies of scale, knowledge and skills transfer, sharing of risks and other means, this can also lead to coincidental reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that may not be achieved if investor‐owned activity prevails. Whilst coincidental at present, the future exploitation of this phenomenon could lead to valuable market advantage or aid sustainable development policy. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Managerialisation processes and performance in arts organisations: the Archaelogical Museum of Bologna

The extension of management discourse to public-sector entities in Italy comes up against a particularly interesting case in museums and art organisations. Here more than anywhere else, perhaps, the rhetoric of managerialisation faces serious problems in understanding the nature of such anomalous organisations, and defining frameworks for representing their performances. In such a context management knowledge often leads to radical conflicts with well established professional discourses (museology, museography, history of art, etc.). Rather than a simplistic, pre-defined and ready-to-use exercise in “performance valuation”, the article suggests a more modest approach, processual in nature, whereby performance representation is open to dialogue with the basic features of the substantive culture of the professionals and the central role they still occupy in the management of these kinds of organisation.     

试论“治未病”理论思想的内涵及其价值导向

"治未病"思想是中医学的精华,通过对"治未病"内涵和概念的梳理,提出应根据临床实践需要将其分为三个阶段:未病先防、已病防变、瘥后防复;基于"治未病"理论的基础,阐述了"治未病"思想的价值导向是促进卫生资源趋向公平性和可及性,卫生部门应充分发挥"治未病"思想在中医预防保健服务体系构建中的指导作用,提升其在公共卫生服务体系和初级卫生保健的贡献率。     

Spillovers among CDS indexes in the US financial sector

By employing the robust cross-correlation function approach proposed by Hong (2001), and conducting pre-tests for structural breaks in the variances as well as removing the causality-in-mean effects in the causality-in-variance tests, we investigate volatility and mean transmissions between the credit default swaps (CDS) indexes of three US financial sectors. We use daily series on five-year banking, insurance, and financial services sector CDS indexes at the sector level from January 2004 to December 2011. We find evidence of significant causality-in-mean effects running from the banking sector to the insurance and financial services sector CDS indexes and from the financial services to the insurance sector CDS indexes, suggesting the leading role of the banking and financial services sectors in terms of price discovery. Moreover, we find significant causality-in-variance effects from the financial services sector CDS index to that of the banking sector, implying the existence of information transmission and contagion from the former, the least regulated of the three. The implications of these findings on traders and policymakers are also provided.     

新时期公共部门人力资源开发与管理探析

文中针对现阶段我国公共部门人力资源管理中存在的主要问题,引入战略人力资源管理理念,提出了更新公共部门人力资源开发观念、建立人力资源管理体系、健全职位分类制度、加强培训教育等对策建议。     

Tax collection,the informal sector,and productivity

An important determinant of informality in a country is its tax enforcement capacity, which some authors argue further distorts the decisions of firms and creates inefficiency. In this paper, I assess the quantitative effect of incomplete tax enforcement on aggregate output and productivity using a dynamic general equilibrium framework. I calibrate the model using data for Mexico, where the informal sector is large. I then investigate the effects of improving enforcement. I find that under complete enforcement, Mexico's labor productivity and output would be 19% higher under perfect competition and 34% higher under monopolistic competition. The source of this gain is the removal of the distortions induced by incomplete enforcement of taxes. These distortions affect the economy in three ways: by reducing the capital–labor ratios of informal establishments; by allowing low-productive entrepreneurs to enter; and by misallocating resources towards low-productive establishments. As a result, TFP and capital accumulation are reduced, and hence output. I decompose the gains following the guidelines of five leading papers in the literature of resource misallocation across plants. I isolate the effects of pure factor misallocation, distorted occupational choices, capital accumulation, and complementarities. I also study marginal improvements in enforcement and find that there is an inverted-U relationship between the size of the informal sector and output. This reflects the fact that improving enforcement entails a tradeoff: more taxes vs. fewer distortions.     

Is there a Laffer curve between aggregate output and public sector employment?

This paper develops a model of the relationship between public sector employment, total output and aggregate real demand in market prices, where public employment has a positive productivity effect on private output. Public employment crowds out private employment and output because its increase induces higher wages and taxes. The valuation of government output is also taken into account. While public employment affects total output and aggregate real demand in an a priori ambiguous way, numerical simulations suggest that the relationship may be nonlinear; positive, when public sector is “small” and negative, when it is “large”. Using the annual data from 22 OECD countries over the period 1960–1996 and estimating and testing for threshold models and more commonly used specifications with multiplicative interaction terms give support to this nonlinearity hypothesis between public employment and private sector output. First version received: October 1996/Final version received: April 2000     

A Daunting Task in Asia

Abstract

This article deals with the question of how to transform the public sector in Asia towards transparency and accountability. What are the main challenges and constraints in promoting transparency and accountability? What kind of strategies can we suggest to enhance and sustain transparency and accountability? It will start with the introduction, including environmental changes in public affairs, and a brief overview of transparency and accountability. Then it will look at what major challenges and constraints there are in enhancing transparency and accountability. This will be followed by a discussion of key strategies for the transformation and sustainability of transparency and accountability for further development in the Asian public sector.     

Pitfalls and Challenges for Trust and Effectiveness in Collaborative Networks

Abstract

Collaborative networks in the public and non-profit sector face challenges that are typical for their institutional context. The typical characteristics that might impede the functioning of networks and, in particular, the development of trust and network effectiveness, are related to type of instigation, network flexibility, and power in the form of unbalanced influence and the vertical character of networks. In a sample of 52 networks, the effects of network flexibility, mandatory and vertical networks, and influence on trust and network effectiveness were studied. Findings indicated that particularly flexibility in networks was important and that cognition-based trust played a central role in obtaining effective networks.     

Influence of the sector and the environment on human resource practices' effectiveness

The aim of this work is to examine the effect that human resource practice has on performance. From a database made up of 250 companies in Spain and by means of a regression analysis, we test empirically whether human resource practices generate positive results under any circumstance or if their effectiveness depends on certain contexts. In this respect, focusing the study on the activity sector and the environment, we analyse whether high levels of competition in the environment and service companies constitute more attractive contexts for the adoption of high involvement practices.