Costs and distortion of U.S. regulation policy in intercoastal lumber shipping

This article quantitatively analyzes the various impacts of current U.S. coastal restrictions on the Northwest lumber industry. The history of U.S. maritime regulation is briefly reviewed and a simulation model is developed to measure its affect on lumber shipments and transport costs. The results of the model indicate that aggregate cost redutions obtained through deregulation are likely to be small. The pattern of intercoastal shipments could change a great deal, however, with U.S. producers picking up a large share of the Northeast market.     

The Expectation-Threshold model of reproductive decision making

It is proposed that as expectations about parenting become increasingly high, couples have an increasing tendency to decide to have a(or another) child. Similarly, as parenting expectations become increasingly low, couples have an increasing tendency to decide on sterilization. Couples without extremely high or low expectations continue to use contraceptives. Expectations are defined as Subjective Expected Utilities (SEUs) for having or not having a child. Preliminary results support the model and suggest that the threshold for making these decisions is not at neutral, but is conservative so that couples must have fairly high or low expectations before making such binding decisions are parenting or sterilization. The fact that data reveal that this exists supports the Expectancy-Threshold model, but it also requires a change in SEU Theory's maximization rule for some kinds of decisions.The authors wish to thank Carole Baker, former executive Director of the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood, and the board members of that organization for their cooperation, and Dr. Barbara Beach who helped with the data analysis. Funding was provided, in part, by The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, University of Washington, through a grant, No. 5 P30 HDO 9397, from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development     

The Household Encyclopedia as Magic Kit: Medieval Popular Interest in Pranks and Illusions*

Each of us has wished at some time to send in three box tops andget a magic kit that contains itchingpowder to give to our enemies, instructions for tricks designed to baffle our friends, and potions to make us more desirable. Exactly so in the Middle Ages. Bruno Roy's delightful essay on medieval do-it-yourself magic reveals the strong popular interest in practical jokes, illusions and tricks. People in the Middle Ages were playful and high-spirited, waiting to entertain and be entertained. The transformative power implicit i n the tricks played by jugglers or entertainers appealed to all classes of society; these same jugglers not only dealt in illusory tricks but often used various chemicalpreparations, giving a “scientific” cast to their pranks. That so many of these tricks were related to the household in terms of the joke itself or the ingredients used suggests the widespread popularity of magic kits, a popularity that today perhaps resides only with the children who save the box tops.     

The importance of innovation leadership in cultivating strategic fit and enhancing firm performance

This study examines the importance of innovation leadership in cultivating the strategic fit of an organization with its environment, and enhancing various economic, relationship, and product performance outcomes. It thus explores how innovation leadership enables a firm to change and adapt to its external environment and by implication enhance its performance. The results of data collected from 117 firms show that innovation leadership, both directly and through increased strategic fit, significantly enhances firm performance. Implications for research on strategic and innovation leadership and adaptive organizational systems are discussed.     

Analysis of ordered probit model with surrogate response data and measurement error in covariates

ABSTRACT

Often in data arising out of epidemiologic studies, covariates are subject to measurement error. In addition ordinal responses may be misclassified into a category that does not reflect the true state of the respondents. The goal of the present work is to develop an ordered probit model that corrects for the classification errors in ordinal responses and/or measurement error in covariates. Maximum likelihood method of estimation is used. Simulation study reveals the effect of ignoring measurement error and/or classification errors on the estimates of the regression coefficients. The methodology developed is illustrated through a numerical example.     

The robustness of the likelihood ratio test,the nonparametric sum rank test,and f-ratio tests when the populations are from the negative binomial family

In this study, the robustness of power and significance level of several statistical testing methods was evaluated under the assumption that the test populations were from Poisson, negative binomial, or geometric distributions. The F-ratio test, with or without appropriate transformations, was shown to be both safe and robust for all distributions examined.