Exercising Property Rights to Pollute: Do Cancer Risks and Politics Affect Plant Emission Reductions?

This paper examines whether firms' decisions about reductions in toxic emissions depend on the magnitude of dangers arising from their pollution and on who bears pollutant risks. Controlling for the quantity of air toxics released in 1988, this article finds that plants whose emissions generated higher numbers of expected cancer cases did reduce their emissions more between 1988 and 1991. The nature of the community bearing the pollution risk also affected firm decisions. The higher the voter turnout in the area, a proxy for residents' likelihood of collective action, the greater the reductions in a plant's release of air carcinogens.     

Biotechnology: will it break the health care bank?

Pharmaceuticals traditionally have been viewed as a cost-effective component in medicine's technological armamentarium. The use of pharmaceuticals has been estimated to account for 6-8 percent of the nation's total expenditures on health care. The first wave of pharmaceuticals/biologicals that has been produced by the biotechnology industry has offered therapies that can provide much benefit to patients, but it has also raised concern about the cost of these new recombinant drugs. In addition to pricing, methods of promotion and modifications in the FDA approval process have raised concerns.     

Container Scheduling: Complexity and Algorithms

We consider the transport of containers through a fleet of ships. Each ship has a capacity constraint limiting the total number of containers it can carry and each ship visits a given set of ports following a predetermined route. Each container has a release date at its origination port, and a due date at its destination port. A container has a size 1 or size 2; size 1 represents a 1 TEU (20‐foot equivalent unit) and size 2 represents 2 TEUs. The delivery time of a container is defined as the time when the ship that carries the container arrives at its destination port. We consider the problem of minimizing the maximum tardiness over all containers. We consider three scenarios with regard to the routes of the ships, namely, the ships having (i) identical, (ii) nested, and (iii) arbitrary routes. For each scenario, we consider different settings for origination ports, release dates, sizes of containers, and number of ports; we determine the computational complexity of various cases. We also provide a simple heuristic for some cases, with its worst case analysis. Finally, we discuss the relationship of our problems with other scheduling problems that are known to be open.     

The max quasi-independent set problem

In this paper, we deal with the problem of finding quasi-independent sets in graphs. This problem is formally defined in three versions, which are shown to be polynomially equivalent. The one that looks most general, namely, f-max quasi-independent set, consists of, given a graph and a non-decreasing function f, finding a maximum size subset Q of the vertices of the graph, such that the number of edges in the induced subgraph is less than or equal to f(|Q|). For this problem, we show an exact solution method that runs within time O^*(2^{\fracd-27/23d+1n})O^{*}(2^{\frac{d-27/23}{d+1}n}) on graphs of average degree bounded by d. For the most specifically defined γ-max quasi-independent set and k-max quasi-independent set problems, several results on complexity and approximation are shown, and greedy algorithms are proposed, analyzed and tested.     

What lies ahead for medical management?

The consensus is that, in spite of a reluctance in Washington to undertake any drastic reform of the health care financing and delivery system, the changes that are already in place in individual organizations and that are in place or being contemplated at the state level are certain to make the health care system of tomorrow very different from that of today. Physician executives can play an important role in the transition that will be required, but they will have to use a flexible, especially nondogmatic approach if they wish to cope successfully in this increasingly whirling environment. For such physicians, the author says, the opportunities, though unknown, are enormous.     

Decisions to Outsource Information Systems Functions: Testing a Strategy-Theoretic Discrepancy Model

In recent years, the decision to outsource information systems (IS) functions has become a viable strategic alternative in managing the increasingly complex IS functions. In this study, the IS outsourcing phenomenon is conceptualized as a strategic decision in the organization. Drawing on resource-based theories, resource dependence theories, and other theories of strategic management, a discrepancy model of this decision is developed. Relationships between a number of strategy-theoretic factors and the IS outsourcing decision are hypothesized. These factors include IS resource performance discrepancies manifested in the form of gaps in information quality, IS support quality, IS cost effectiveness and financial performance, as well as the strategic orientation of the firm. Results of the study indicate that, while cost consideration and the firm's financial performance are not associated with the IS outsourcing decision, difficulties in providing good information outputs and IS support services are associated with the decision. Overall, the findings suggest that the current trend toward outsourcing represents a continuing evolution of the IS function as it attempts to fulfill its traditional mission of providing high quality information resource to the firm. When the performance of the delivered resource begins to slip in the current environment of rising expectation and technological complexity, outsourcing may become a strategic response of necessity. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the results for practicing managers and suggestions for future research.     

Technology transfer — and the U.S. space program

Using ten years of data in the structured technology transfer program of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a base, a rough model of the nature and significance of research and development and its movement as technology is presented. Painted in economic hues is the economic return of technology of 7·23 to 1 over an 18 year period, in technical terms—the nature of integrated circuit technology transfer and the public significance of technology transfer to the problems of rechargeable Cardiac Pacemakers. The distinction between natural technology diffusion and intended technology transfer is made to outline the movement of technology through the U.S. economy.     

New african American life tables from 1935–1940 to 1985–1990*

New life tables for African Americans are presented from 1935 through 1990. They are based on a historical series of vital statistics data on deaths that have been corrected for age misreporting, on reconstructed population counts that have been adjusted for census underenumeration, and on births that have been corrected for underregistration. The new life tables show rapid mortality declines for both African American males and females from 1935 to 1950, and relatively steady reductions thereafter for females. The smaller declines in male mortality in young adulthood and middle age since the 1950s have led to exceptionally high ratios of male to female mortality at these ages. Corrections for census undercounts lead to higher values of life expectancy than in official life tables, but to less improvement over time. Official estimates of life expectancy at age 65 appear to be about 10% too high around 1940 but only about 1.5% too high in the late 1980s.