Determinants of retirement timing expectations in the United States and Australia: a cross-national comparison of the effects of health and retirement benefit policies on retirement timing decisions

Data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (N = 2,589) and the Australian Household Income and Labour Dynamics survey (N = 1,760) were used to compare the macro-level policy frameworks on individual retirement timing expectations for pre-baby boomers (61+ years) and early baby boomers (45 to 60 years). Australian workers reported younger expected age of retirement compared to the U.S. sample. Reporting poor health was more strongly associated with younger expected retirement age in the United States than in Australia. Cohort and gender differences in the United States were found for the effect of private health insurance on younger expected age at retirement. Our results draw attention to how cross-national comparisons can inform us on the effects of policies on retirement expectations among older workers.     

Information systems and managerial decision making

The role of an information system is to support managerial decision processes. Some of these processes can be completely specified in advance and, as long as the specification remains acceptable to management, resolution can be done automatically, within the framework of the information system. However, in other cases, managers are involved in all stages of the decision process, which cannot be completely specified in advance. The task of the information system in these cases is to provide information to the managers engaged in making the decisions. This paper considers these problems from the point of view of the information system designer and makes recommendations about design and implementation.     

A critique of arguments supporting disability avoidance

Many prominent bioethicists argue that positive consequences follow from avoiding disability in offspring by preconceptual, preimplantation or prenatal means. This paper critiques two variants of these positions: ‘Open future’ arguments that avoiding disability is in the interest of the persons who will be affected by it if born and ‘non‐person‐affecting’ claims that failures to avoid disability in offspring are wrong for reasons independent of their effect on affected offspring. Difficulties with both person‐affecting and non‐person‐affecting accounts are discussed in support of the charge that these arguments do not show that positive consequences follow from disability avoidance.     

Some initial specifications for a strategic information system

Much of the discussion and published literature on information systems to date has been about systems concerned with the internal administration and operations of an organization. Considerably less attention has been given to the information requirements of the more strategic managerial activities of planning and policy making, in which the future directions and objectives of the organization are decided. Internal information systems in many organizations have now grown to maturity. At the same time, managers have become aware of the need for an additional component of the overall information system to support their more strategic activities. This paper considers the broad characteristics of a strategic component of an organizational information system and derives some initial specifications from which a more comprehensive design can be developed.     

Parental involvement in reading: the influence of socio-economic status and supportive home visiting

SUMMARY: This paper describes the deployment of the technique for non-professional tutoring of reading known as ‘paired reading’ on a large scale in the Kirklees Local Education Authority. From the very large amount of data generated in multi-site field trials, particular attention is focused on the relationship between supportive home visiting (if any), an index of the socioeconomic disadvantage of the catchment area of each participating school, and outcomes in term of gains on norm-referenced tests of reading. Some surprising conclusions emerge.     

An LP model for assessing congeneration strategies

A linear programming model is described which is designed to assist in the assessment of optimum operational strategies for industrial plants with cogeneration facilities. A concise format is provided for linking together basic elements such as boilers, valves, turbines and processes with steam and electricity demands with steam, fuel and electricity balance equations. The model should prove particularly useful for assessment when electricity tariffs have time-of-use energy or demand charges or when tariffs have conditions which require consideration of strategies over an extended period. The model has been applied to a paper mill which utilises pass-out turbines for cogeneration of electricity and process steam. Results indicate that savings in fuel costs of the order of 400,000 dollars per year could be obtained by implementing optimal strategies for operating the present turbines. Savings of the order of one million dollars per year could be obtained by converting the turbines to give high pressure pass-out steam and then operating optimally.