THE "RUSH TO TRANSPLANT" AND ORGAN SHORTAGES

Normally, economists expect entry to improve industry performance. The effects of entry, however, can become perverse. Here, we examine the causes and effects of observed entry into the transplantation industry. Entry appears to be caused by economic rents created by the shortage of organs resulting from the current policy proscribing payment to organ donors. Under this policy, entry has little effect on the number of transplants performed. Consequently, entry spreads available organs among an increasing number of transplant centers, resulting in both increased costs and lower success rates. Thus, current policy simultaneously encourages entry and perverts its normally salutary effects.     

THE INCOME EFFECTS OF THE SOURCES OF MONETARY CHANGE: AN HISTORICAL APPROACH*

This paper attempts to answer the question – does the way in which the quantity of money is introduced into the economic system matter or only the amount introduced? The question of the importance of the sources of monetary change has become a key issue between Monetarists and Neo-Keynesians. The approach of the paper is to compare different periods in U. S. monetary history over the time span 1834–1914, which exhibited different sources of monetary change, to see whether the source of monetary change significantly affected the relationship between money and income between these periods, as well as within them. In the majority of cases examined, the income effects of the sources of monetary change were found to be insignificant.     

The Micro-economics of Old People's Homes

Summary Eleven old people's homes in England were studied to investigatehow money was distributed within the home, what it had to coverand how it could be spent. The level of the Personal Allowanceand the problems of providing shopping facilities are discussed.The relationship between questions of money and independence,initiative and responsibility in old peoples' homes are consideredand suggestions are put forward to increase old peoples' choiceand control over their own lives.     

FEAR AND LATHING IN THE MICHIGAN FURNITURE INDUSTRY: EMPLOYEE-BASED DISCRIMINATION A CENTURY AGO

We analyze employee-based discrimination using historical data on workers attributes from Michigan's furniture industry. The data provide compelling evidence of employee-based discrimination in the form of a compensating wage differential. A one percentage point decrease in the share of the work force from the worker's own ethnic group increased the wage about 0.1 percent. This response was larger in small firms, in small towns, and among certain ethnic groups. Protestants were generally paid more to work with Catholics. The additional labor costs generated by employee-based discrimination were probably offset by several benefits which rendered complete segregation unnecessary.     

Viewer Characteristics and Agenda Setting by Television News

Most previous studies of agenda setting by television news havefailed to consider factors that might strengthen or weaken agenda-settingeffects. Drawing on the findings of news recall and comprehensionresearch, this investigation of survey data gathered from 1204national news viewers identifies several characteristics ofviewers and viewing traits that increase the agenda-settinginfluence of news programs. The analysis suggests that effectsare greater when viewers have prior awareness of news topicsthrough print media exposure or have some college education.Watching news programs in color and attentively also contributesto increases in agenda setting.     

Media Hegemony: A Failure of Perspective

Numerous studies of TV news have been published since Gans's(1972) call for more research on the mass media. A central issueunderlying much of this research is control and dominance ofthe news process. This essay analyzes the logical and empiricaladequacy of media hegemony as an explanation of ideologicaldominance. Analysis of recent research shows that some researchershave uncritically adapted the "dominant ideology thesis" ofmedia hegemony to studies of TV news and have overlooked findingswhich challenge their claims about (1) the socialization andideology of journalists, (2) whether news reports perpetuatethe status quo, and (3) the nature and extent of internationalnews coverage. Despite the shortcomings of the concept of mediahegemony, efforts should continue to develop an empiricallysound theoretical perspective for locating the news processin a broader societal context.     

Adolescents, Television, and Support for Government

This research finds that support for government as measuredby a feeling thermometer scale is negatively correlated withincreased amounts of television viewing by adolescents and variesin affective directions with the types of programs young adultswatch.     

On shape detection in noisy images with particular reference to ultrasonography

We discuss the detection of a connected shape in a noisy image. Two types of image are considered: in the first a degraded outline of the shape is visible, while in the second the data are a corrupted version of the shape itself. In the first type the shape is defined by a thin outline of pixels with records that are different from those at pixels inside and outside the shape, while in the second type the shape is defined by its edge and pixels inside and outside the shape have different records. Our motivation is the identification of cross-sectional head shapes in ultrasound images of human fetuses. We describe and discuss a new approach to detecting shapes in images of the first type that uses a specially designed filter function that iteratively identifies the outline pixels of the head. We then suggest a way based on the cascade algorithm introduced by Jubb and Jennison (1991) of improving and considerably increasing the speed of a method proposed by Storvik (1994) for detecting edges in images of the second type.