State‐owned Enterprises: NWSC's Turnaround in Uganda

Abstract: Oversight agencies in the water sector emphasize performance monitoring based on outputs, such as customers served, volume delivered, and service quality. However, bureaucratic tendencies can curtail operational innovation and creativity. In situations where managers lack full operating knowledge and capacities, proactive and consultative monitoring and regulation can yield benefits. This study reviews the results of Uganda's National Water and Sewerage Corporation's (NWSC) approach to performance monitoring (and ‘self‐regulation’). The purpose of this study is to outline corrective actions undertaken by the NWSC Management and Staff to turn around performance, the sequencing of those steps, and the outcomes from this reform program. The NWSC focuses on promoting improvements in technical processes and input selection. Improvements in service quality and network expansion resulted from aligning performance improvement initiatives with the organization's financial performance and team development. The program's success required managing organizational rigidities and moving towards full cost‐recovery. In particular, organizational incentives and information flows encouraged managers to reduce rules and procedures that hindered strong performance. African proverbs are interspersed throughout the article to underscore key themes and lessons for those designing, implementing, and evaluating infrastructure sector reform initiatives.     

The Delphi method, impeachment and terrorism: Accuracies of short-range forecasts for volatile world events

Two experiments examined the effects of iterated polling and feedback on prediction accuracy for volatile world events using the Delphi paradigm. In both experiments, participants predicted rapidly changing geopolitical events. The first experiment occurred during the litigation surrounding the Clinton/Lewinsky affair in 1998. Results indicated that feedback improved individual and group accuracy for predictions of whether an event would occur. These types of predictions derived from group consensus were approximately 90% accurate, which was significantly higher than the average individual participant's accuracy. Neither polling nor feedback had much effect on time course predictions. The second experiment occurred during the American military action against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001. In Experiment 2, participants were polled three times to determine if increasing the number of iterated polls would improve Delphi accuracy. The results showed that accuracy improved from the first to the second poll but not from the second to the third. The groups predicted whether these scenarios would occur with approximately 75% accuracy, which was significantly higher than the accuracy of any individual participant. Once again, the Delphi procedure did not enhance time course predictions in Experiment 2.     

Dual Cities? Sectoral Shifts and Metropolitan Income Inequality, 1980–90

The sectoral shift from manufacturing to services is one of several potential explanations for increasing income inequality in the United States. This article reframes national-level explanations of rising inequality at the level of urban labour markets and assesses their relative contributions to levels and trends in metropolitan income inequality. We find that sectoral shifts, especially the rates of deindustrialisation and employment growth in personal services, significantly affect changes in Gini indices for the largest constant-boundary MSAs between 1980 and 1990. In addition, rising metropolitan inequality is associated with the trend towards self-employment and such supply-side factors as local education levels, changing family structure and immigration. The study provides mixed support for the mismatch and global cities hypotheses.     

Estimating Quality‐adjusted Price Changes: Method and Application to VCRs

This paper uses scanner data to generate estimates of quality‐adjusted price changes for video‐recorders. We use hedonic regressions to derive estimates of the changing worth of each quality component. These are then applied to weighted changes in the mix of quality attributes of products to derive estimates of quality‐adjusted price (QAP) changes. The data source used is electronic‐point‐of‐sale (EPOS) scanner data that are available for a wide range of goods. This study provides an example of how such methods can be more widely applied. The estimates of QAP changes correspond to constant‐utility, (hedonic) cost‐of‐living indexes defined in economic theory as the ratio of expenditure functions at constant utility allowing for changing prices and characteristics of goods. This method is proposed as an improvement on the existing direct method , which takes its estimates directly from the coefficients associated with 'time dummies' in a hedonic regression. We finally undertake a matching process, akin to that used by statistical offices, and compare the results. Direct comparisons with RPI estimates and these hedonic approaches are not easy since the approaches use quite different data sets. Our replication of a procedure akin to that used for the RPI on the scanner data set provides insights into sources of potential bias.     

The lag relationship between wholesale and consumer prices: An application of the Hatanaka-Wallace procedure

This paper examines the lag distribution relating wholesale to consumer price changes. Sims' causality test indicates a one-sided lag structure. Following Hatanaka and Wallace, parameters of the lag distribution which can be estimated with relatively high precision are emphasized. Thus, our concern is with the sum of coefficients and the first four moments of the distribution. Short-run effects are estimated from lag moments using Pearson's method for equating moments. As a smoothness prior, a Beta distribution in the lag weights is suggested. Tests for bias due to missing components in the wholesale price index indicate little is lost because of misspecification.     

R&D strategies and variable demand

This paper looks at some of the factors imposing on the resourcing of R&D in the face of fluctuating demand. R&D has various features that differentiate it from other aspects of corporate activity and consequently managerial strategies for dealing with R&D may vary substantially. The implications for R&D strategies and the acquisition of technology are considered under different demand conditions. Various alternative strategies are developed including contracting out, technology licensing and the maintenance of an in-house facility through labour hoarding. New and existing empirical estimates are used to support the arguments and explain corporate strategy in this area.     

The measurement of the gains or losses to an enterprise through relative price changes: The terms-of-trade effect and real income

This paper provides a framework for measuring the terms-of-trade effect for an enterprise. This effect is the impact on the organization of changes in input to output prices as well as in the prices of goods and service upon which the income is utilized. The measurement of the effect is outlined with illustrative data and applied to the German Telecom sector, which has suffered particularly badly through adverse relative price changes. The case study of the German Telecom sector is also used to introduce the concept of real income. The framework advocated is argued to be particularly useful, since it allows not only the effects ex post of relative price movements to be evaluated, but also the effects ex ante of particular spending scenarios to be simulated (for example, investment). As such, it should be a useful addition to the ‘toolbag’ of managerial economists.     

Measurement of Political Effects in the United States Economy: A Study of the 1992 Presidential Election

This paper analyzes the link between the 1992 United States presidential election outcome and a collection of American economic sectors. Based on data from the 1992 Iowa Political Stock Market and campaign-period stock portfolio behavior, we identify 15 economic sectors, of 74 examined, whose profits varied in a statistically significant manner with movements in Iowa Market-based measures of presidential candidate standing. And, in light of 1992 campaign rhetoric pertaining to defense policy and environmental issues, we build on this finding with an analysis of selected defense firms and firms known to be toxic waste emitters.