Redefining the board's role in fiscal planning

Board approval of an operating budget, a traditional exercise of board authority, can trivialize board leadership and stultify managerial prerogatives. Considered within a new governance paradigm, conventional budget approval is not only unnecessary, but dysfunctional. This article argues that boards should proactively establish policy for financial planning and then require administrative budgeting throughout the year to meet the policy criteria. The result is that boards stay focused on the bigger issues, particularly program priorities and goals, leaving managers the authority to create and adjust budgets within policy boundaries.     

Socioeconomic,sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of the tempo of divorce

The association between sociodemographic, demographic, and attitudinal measures and the timing or tempo of marital dissolution over a 14-year time span is examined. Separation is considered equivalent to divorce. Early and late divorce are differentiated by whether the event occurred before or after the average number of years married prior to divorce. Data were obtained on husbands and wives within childbearing years (up to 39 years) in the 1st years of the 1st marriage. A random stratified sample of 610 couples was drawn from records of marriages in a midwestern county between 1972-77. Reinterviews were conducted on 544 couples in April 1985. socioeconomic variables included educational attainment, occupational prestige, wife's employment status, wife's future work plans, husband's attitude to wife's future work plans, total family income, and level of satisfaction with current financial status. Demographic variables are age at marriage, number of children in 1985, marital duration, and desired family size. Attitudinal items were religiosity and gender role orientations (traditionalism, modernism, egalitarianism). Exposure to divorce was not equitably distributed for the 108 who divorced, but this was not statistically significant. The results indicate that those divorced earlier were wives who worked outside the home, worked at more prestigious jobs, planned to be employed throughout married life, and whose father had a higher level of educational attainment. This finding is not consistent with prior research which has shown that favorable socioeconomic conditions lower the probability of divorce. The timing of divorce was affected by the presence of children. Those married at younger ages divorced earlier and couples with children delayed divorcing longer than couples without children. These findings were consistent with earlier research. Catholic wives delayed divorce longer than non-Catholic wives. Males lower in sexual satisfaction divorced earlier. Divorce was postponed longer for husbands with traditional values and wives who had higher scores on egalitarianism. Wives with scores on modernism had earlier divorces than wives scoring lower on modernism. The tempo of divorce was in multiple classification analysis predicted best by wife's employment status and number of children. Cross-classification was not possible.     

Retiree medical plan design: determining the philosophy, communicating the need

Much has been written, both in benefit-related journals and in the general press, about the recent statement, FAS 106, issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). This statement requires most employers to begin accounting for retiree health care benefit costs for active employees as well as current retirees, creating a significant negative financial impact. Most of the attention has been focused on getting the numbers that will tell the extent of the impact resulting from FAS 106. The next step has been to review retiree medical coverage to see how the affected companies can change it to reduce their liability. Although the urge is strong to adopt a quick-fix solution, employers can greatly benefit by reviewing their benefit philosophies and making plan decisions that make sense for them. This article discusses key questions that can help focus the issue on company philosophies and lays out a framework for determining suitable plan designs that can also help companies manage the retiree medical liability.     

Adjustment of provisional mortality series: the dynamic linear model with structured measurement errors

The authors "consider the problem of adjusting provisional time series using a bivariate structural model with correlated measurement errors. Maximum likelihood estimators and a minimum mean squared error adjustment procedure are derived for a provisional and final series containing common trend and seasonal components. The model also includes measurement errors common to both series and errors that are specific to the provisional series. [The authors] illustrate the technique by using provisional data to forecast ischemic heart disease mortality."     

Population growth,farmland, and the long-run standard of living

This paper studies the natural-resources element in the theory of population growth over the very long run. In the context of the stock of land and Malthusian crises in earlier times, the model shows how resources have become more available rather than more scarce, even as population and income have increased.The paper sketches a mechanism which, added to the Malthusian system, leads to entirely different conclusions than does the Malthusian system. Using the illustration of food and land, change in knowledge and hence in the stock of resources is made a function of the stock of knowledge and the price of resources. The speed of adjustment depends on the economic and social climate for the development of new knowledge. Population growth first raises food and land prices, which then stimulate the creation of new resources, eventually leading to less scarcity of resources and lower prices than originally prevailed.That is, population growth creates new problems which in the short run constitute additional burdens which, in the longer run, lead to new developments that leave people better off than if the problems had never arisen.This paper benefitted from being presented in earlier draft at a Population Association of America meeting, to the Economic History workshop at the University of Illinois, and to a seminar of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population in New Delhi. We appreciate valuable comments on earlier drafts from Stanley Engerman, E. L. Jones, William McNeill, and two anonymous referees. Gunter Steinmann acknowledges financial support from the Volkswagen Foundation and a travel grant from Fulbright Commission.     

Supreme Court expands view of interstate commerce in peer review proceeding

At the end of May, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed an antitrust claim by a physician against a hospital for an allegedly improper peer review proceeding. Previously, hospitals were allowed to defend against antitrust claims regarding a peer review decision involving one physician on the grounds that the activities did not affect interstate commerce. The Supreme Court has apparently removed this defense by letting stand a Court of Appeals decision allowing a physician's antitrust claim against a hospital that has suspended his privileges.