Business teaching in the CIS States

The author draws on his experience teaching business concepts to executive students from former centrally-planned economies of the Confederation of Independent States, particularly Tashkent. Several lessons can be learned. Most important is that the students' perceptions of Western business knowledge is very different from those in the West. To bridge these different perceptions, the author suggests starting from a common knowledge base, using only concrete and specific work situations, making tacit knowledge explicit through imagination, analogies and metaphors, and giving priority to the process of introducing new business practices.     

Mechanism Design with Collusion and Correlation

In a public good environment with positively correlated types, we characterize optimal mechanisms when agents have private information and can enter collusive agreements. First, we prove a weak‐collusion‐proof principle according to which there is no restriction for the principal in offering weak‐collusion‐proof mechanisms. Second, with this principle, we characterize the set of allocations that satisfy individual and coalitional incentive constraints. The optimal weakly collusion‐proof mechanism calls for distortions away from first‐best efficiency obtained without collusion. Allowing collusion restores continuity between the correlated and the uncorrelated environments. When the correlation becomes almost perfect, first‐best efficiency is approached. Finally, the optimal collusion‐proof mechanism is strongly ratifiable.     

Public Day Care Centres,Company Day Care Centres,and Segregation Between Men and Women in the Labour Market: the Case of the Netherlands*

Abstract. What is needed to diminish segregation between men and women in the labour market is a program of affirmative action for the Netherlands as a whole. Specific measures aimed at the removal of barriers between occupations cannot be successful unless they are imbedded in such an overall program. A necessary part of such a plan are facilities that enable women and men to combine unpaid parental tasks and paid labour. In contrast with public day care centres, company day care centres do not fit into such a plan, because they even enlarge existing segregation. Company day care centres and other measures to facilitate parental care and paid labour are more often found in industries with a larger share of female workers. This relationship is found for both the Netherlands and the United States. It is concluded that it is in the interest of employers as well as women's emancipation to increase the number of public day care centres instead of the number of company day care centres.     

Automatic Sex-Liking and Sex-Failure Associations in Men With Sexual Dysfunction

Current models of sexual functioning imply an important role for both automatic and controlled appraisals. Accordingly, it can be hypothesized that erectile dysfunction may be due to the automatic activation of negative appraisals at the prospect of sexual intercourse. However, previous research showed that men with sexual dysfunction exhibited relatively strong automatic sex-positive instead of sex-negative associations. This study tested the robustness of this unexpected finding and, additionally, examined the hypothesis that perhaps more specific sex-failure versus sex-success associations are relevant in explaining sexual dysfunction and distress. Male urological patients (N = 70), varying in level of sexual functioning and distress, performed two Single-Target Implicit Association Tests (ST-IATs) to assess automatic associations of visual erotic stimuli with attributes representing affective valence (“liking”; positive versus negative) and sexual success versus sexual failure. Consistent with the earlier findings, the lower the scores on sexual functioning, the stronger the automatic sex-positive associations. This association was independent of explicit associations and most prominent in the younger age group. Automatic sex-positive and sex-failure associations showed independent relationships with sexual distress. The relationship between sexual distress and sex-failure associations is consistent with the view that automatic associations with failure may contribute to sexual distress.     

加拿大与美国都市圈内政府治理差异分析

本文探讨地方公共机构尤其是地方行政机构如何改变其结构和手段,以应对新的地区化和都市化的挑战。通过分析35个美国和加拿大的城市群,评估政府机构在多大程度上采用了怎样的方法去规划、实施和监督都市化政策,并重点研究都市圈机构和都市圈的财税政策。     

Optimal Cash Tender Offers*

This paper develops a contingent claims analysis, a simple decision model for determining the optimal price in a cash tender offer. The implied behavior of the optimal tender offer premium over the market price of the target common stock is also investigated. Those readers interested in applying the model may obtain an interactive computer program written in FORTRAN and implementable on a personal computer from the authors on request.     

Efficacy of a Self-Help Treatment for At-Risk and Pathological Gamblers

Available evidence suggests that self-help treatments may reduce problem gambling severity but inconsistencies of results across clinical trials leave the extent of their benefits unclear. Moreover, no self-help treatment has yet been validated within a French Canadian setting. The current study therefore assesses the efficacy of a French language self-help treatment including three motivational telephone interviews spread over an 11-week period and a cognitive-behavioral self-help workbook. At-risk and pathological gamblers were randomly assigned to the treatment group (n = 31) or the waiting list (n = 31). Relative to the waiting list, the treatment group showed a statistically significant reduction in the number of DSM-5 gambling disorder criteria met, gambling habits, and gambling consequences at Week 11. Perceived self-efficacy and life satisfaction also significantly improved after 11 weeks for the treatment group, but not for the waiting list group. At Week 11, 13% of participants had dropped out of the study. All significant changes reported for the treatment group were maintained throughout 1, 6 and 12-month follow-ups. Results support the efficacy of the self-help treatment to reduce problem gambling severity, gambling behaviour and to improve overall functioning among a sample of French Canadian problem gamblers over short, medium and long term. Findings from this study lend support to the appropriateness of self-help treatments for problem gamblers and help clarify inconsistencies found in the literature. The low dropout rate is discussed with respect to the advantages of the self-help format. Clinical and methodological implications of the results are put forth.