Is There a Place for Virtual Poverty Funds in Pro‐Poor Public Spending Reform? Lessons from Uganda's PAF

Various developing countries with weak public expenditure management systems are establishing virtual poverty funds (VPFs), drawing on the experience of Uganda's Poverty Action Fund. As a mechanism for tagging and tracking the performance of specific poverty‐reducing expenditures in the budget, a VPF can be useful. However, this article argues that such devices should be treated from the outset as transitional, and as part of wider processes of strengthening public expenditure management; otherwise, they can seriously distort public expenditure allocations and management systems, potentially undermining growth. Emphasis needs to be placed on identifying the right balance of expenditures in the entire budget; improving the effectiveness and efficiency of existing allocations; and developing better public‐sector policies for promoting pro‐poor private sector growth.     

Child protection: a new approach in South Australia

This paper argues the case for an integrated approach to child protection services, embracing children's safety, risk and needs and incorporating formal assessment instruments. It then provides a brief overview of the new child protection system in South Australia. The steady rise in child abuse/neglect reports raises questions about how best to provide child protection services. Analysis of South Australian data suggests that much of the rise can be attributed to an increase in reports of neglect and emotional abuse and an increase in re‐notifications. This in turn raises questions about the traditional investigative approach. In 1995 Messages from Research advocated that agencies re‐focus on children's needs and concentrate less on investigations into safety and risk. The critical question is how to distinguish families requiring investigation from those needing support. The latest research suggests that such decision‐making in child protection is generally inconsistent and unreliable. This paper argues that statutory agencies should use formal assessment tools to determine the level and nature of their interventions. These arguments have been critical in the development of the new child protection model in SA, which relies on a centralized intake, differential response to reports and the structured decision‐making system. Initial evaluation of the new model indicates improvements in consistency of initial screening and responses to children in danger. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Blinded sample size recalculation for clinical trials with normal data and baseline adjusted analysis

Baseline adjusted analyses are commonly encountered in practice, and regulatory guidelines endorse this practice. Sample size calculations for this kind of analyses require knowledge of the magnitude of nuisance parameters that are usually not given when the results of clinical trials are reported in the literature. It is therefore quite natural to start with a preliminary calculated sample size based on the sparse information available in the planning phase and to re‐estimate the value of the nuisance parameters (and with it the sample size) when a portion of the planned number of patients have completed the study. We investigate the characteristics of this internal pilot study design when an analysis of covariance with normally distributed outcome and one random covariate is applied. For this purpose we first assess the accuracy of four approximate sample size formulae within the fixed sample size design. Then the performance of the recalculation procedure with respect to its actual Type I error rate and power characteristics is examined. The results of simulation studies show that this approach has favorable properties with respect to the Type I error rate and power. Together with its simplicity, these features should make it attractive for practical application. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Asymptotic Comparison Between Constant-stress Testing and Step-stress Testing for Type-I Censored Data from Exponential Distribution

By running the life tests at higher stress levels than normal operating conditions, accelerated life testing quickly yields information on the lifetime distribution of a test unit. The lifetime at the design stress is then estimated through extrapolation using a regression model. In constant-stress testing, a unit is tested at a fixed stress level until failure or the termination time point of the test, while step-stress testing allows the experimenter to gradually increase the stress levels at some pre-fixed time points during the test. In this article, the optimal k-level constant-stress and step-stress accelerated life tests are compared for the exponential failure data under Type-I censoring. The objective is to quantify the advantage of using the step-stress testing relative to the constant-stress one. A log-linear relationship between the mean lifetime parameter and stress level is assumed and the cumulative exposure model holds for the effect of changing stress in step-stress testing. The optimal design point is then determined under C-optimality, D-optimality, and A-optimality criteria. The efficiency of step-stress testing compared to constant-stress testing is discussed in terms of the ratio of optimal objective functions based on the information matrix.     

Uniform Tail Asymptotics for the Sum of Two Correlated Classes with Stochastic Returns and Dependent Heavy Tails

Consider a continuous-time risk model with two correlated classes of insurance business and risky investments whose price processes are geometric Lévy processes. By assuming that the correlation comes from a common shock, and the claim sizes are heavy-tailed and pairwise quasi-asymptotically independent, we investigate the tail behavior of the sum of the stochastic present values of the two correlated classes, and a uniform asymptotic formula is obtained.     

基于企业价值与发行特征的定向增发定价效率研究

近年来,定向增发逐渐成为上市公司增发的主流方式.与公开增发相比,定向增发具有不同的发行特点.在考虑企业价值的基础上,引入发行特征这一因素,将定向增发新股的定价视作一个生产过程,运用随机前沿分析方法,对非效率项的分布假设进行扩展,以此来分析定向增发的定价效率,并以2006年4月至2009年10月的定向增发企业为样本展开实证研究.实证结果表明,中国上市公司定向增发的定价效率有待提高,企业价值和发行特征等相关因素对发行定价效率有着不同程度和方向的影响.     

宜居城市与世博理念

世界各国对宜居城市的评价标准有所不同,但有一个共同的标准确是公认的,这就是:生活在那里的居民认为这是最适宜于自已居住和生活的城市.宜居城市的条件中既包含优美、整洁、和谐的自然和生态环境,也包含安全、便利、舒适的社会和人文环境,这也是人们的共识.上海世博会的主题"城市,让生活更美好"要求我们必须在建设宜居城市上下工夫.     

福建省农村扶贫开发历程及前瞻

福建省农村扶贫开发工作经历了广义扶贫阶段、制度变革扶贫阶段、开发式扶贫阶段、扶贫到户模式阶段,绝对贫困人口数量和贫困发生率大幅下降。进入全面建设小康社会阶段,扶贫战略应进行相应调整。在回顾和总结福建省农村扶贫开发工作历程的基础上,指出农民素质偏低是导致农村贫困的核心因素,人力资本投资不足是制约农民素质提升、解决贫困问题的关键。提出今后的扶贫模式应逐步由从物质投入为主向人力资本投入为重点与核心的方向过渡,通过教育投资提高农民的科学文化素质,通过培训投资使农民依靠农业现代化增收致富、提高非农产业就业的能力,通过健康投资减少因病致贫现象的发生,通过迁移投资完善交通设施、改进就业信息渠道,降级劳动力流动成本。