Rebates, inventories, and intertemporal price discrimination

We demonstrate that universally redeemed rebates can increase manufacturer profits by reducing the incentives of downstream retailers to hoard inventories when optimal wholesale prices vary predictably over time. By bypassing retailers and making direct contracts with buyers, the manufacturer can increase the variations in effective prices paid by consumers without concomitantly creating larger incentives for retailers to hold inventories. During profitable, high-demand periods, manufacturer revenues are ordinarily constrained by'competition'from retailer inventories, thus limiting profits. However, by selectively offering rebates to consumers while maintaining high wholesale prices, low-demand periods can be accommodated without inducing retailer hoarding.     

Easy to Declare,Difficult to Implement: The Disconnect Between the Aspirations of the Paris Declaration and Donor Practice in Nigeria

The arguments in academia over the effectiveness of foreign aid fall into two broad categories: those grounded in political economy and those focused on donor conduct and aid effectiveness. There have been policy attempts within the donor community to reconcile them, including the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. This article examines the key features of foreign aid to Nigeria between 1999 and 2007. Using the Declaration as a framework, it looks for ways of making foreign aid in Nigeria more effective.     

Finance and innovation in British small independent firms

This paper is concerned with the effects of internal and external capital investment funding patterns on the innovativeness of British small independent firms. By using a combined sample of firms from the relatively prosperous South East and the more problematic Scottish development region, an additional diverse regional economic perspective is given to data initially presented in a national context. Beyond a presentation of the extent of external borrowing, the paper seeks to establish the characteristics of firms obtaining external funds and to assess whether this external capital borrowing sub-sample is mainly comprised of low technology firms in decline, or of high technology firms fueling innovation-led expansion. Data is included on the role of both public and private loan agencies in the external funding process. Conclusions are based on the pattern of results and focus on ways in which the delivery of financial aid might be improved to assist expansion, particularly in fast growing high technology small firms.     

Pretrial negotiation, litigation, and procedural rules

We model the civil dispute resolution process as a two-stage game with the parties bargaining to reach a settlement in the first stage and then playing a litigation expenditure game at trial in the second stage. We find that the English rule shifts the settlement away from the interim fair and unbiased settlement in most circumstances. Overall welfare changes are in favor of the party who makes the offer in the pretrial negotiation stage. Lawyers however, always benefit from the English rule, because fee shifting increases the stake of the trial and thus intensifies the use of the legal service.     

The Dynamics of Social Indicator Research for California’s Central Valley in Transition

How can social indicator research improve understanding of community health as well as inform stakeholders about the assets disadvantaged communities have for coping with disparities? This paper describes the development and evolution of the Partnership for Assessment of Communities (PAC) and its best practices for social indicator research. The PAC will be of interest to researchers across multiple disciplines for a number of reasons. First, PAC is a working model of best practices for multidisciplinary scholarly inquiry. Second, it has developed an integrated model of quantitative and qualitative methodology to define and measure community health as compared to traditional quality-of-life indicators. Third, it serves as an example of “action research,” in that the findings have the potential to make an impact on community stakeholders and policy outcomes in the greater Central San Joaquin Valley of California, a region characterized by deep social and economic disparities.     

Validation of prognostic indices using the frailty model

A major issue when proposing a new prognostic index is its generalisibility to daily clinical practice. Validation is therefore required. Most validation techniques assess whether “on average” the results obtained by the prognostic index in classifying patients in a new sample of patients are similar to the results obtained in the construction set. We introduce a new important aspect of the generalisibility of a prognostic index: the heterogeneity of the prognostic index risk group hazard ratios over different centers. If substantial variability between centers exists, the prognostic index may have no discriminatory capability in some of the centers. To model such heterogeneity, we use a frailty model including a random center effect and a random prognostic index by center interaction. Statistical inference is based on a Bayesian approach using a Laplacian approximation for the marginal posterior distribution of the variances of the random effects. We investigate different ways to summarize the information available from this marginal posterior distribution. Our approach is applied to a real bladder cancer database for which we demonstrate how to investigate and interpret heterogeneity in prognostic index effect over centers.     

At the margins: agriculture,subsidies and the shifting fate of North America’s native grassland

We examined patterns of shifting cropland cultivation in the US Great Plains from the dust bowl to the beginning of the twenty-first century, by comparing land-cover data from 400 sample sites across the region from the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s and 2000s. The small area land-cover data were nested within 50 target counties across the region. To understand the use of marginal land for cultivation since the Great Depression, we argue, requires consideration of the long term dynamics of demography, technology and policy. We draw on these historical dynamics, and their interactions with programs aimed at reducing environmental impacts of agriculture, to tell the story of how and when marginal lands have been brought into use. In a multilevel panel design, macro- and micro-level covariates were used to predict levels of encroachment on marginal soils. We conclude that land retirement programs (like the Conservation Reserve Program) have had a generally stabilizing effect on the micro-level patterns of land use in recent decades, but that increased levels of encroachment on marginal soils and native grassland remain a problem in areas with higher or increasing population densities.     

A survey of disabled children and young people’s views about their quality of life

This study aimed to explore disabled children and young people’s perspectives about their quality of life, in terms of physical, mental and social well-being. Ninety-one disabled children, recruited through voluntary organisations in Scotland, completed KIDSCREEN-27, a validated measure of health-related quality of life for children. Findings were compared with those from a European study of predominantly non-disabled children. The children gave largely positive reports about school, family relationships and their physical health. However, one in three reported often feeling ‘sad’ and many were excluded from social activities with their peers. Expectations of achieving academic qualifications, and moving into further or higher education, were generally low. The children’s perceived quality of life was lower than their European counterparts, less so in relation to school but particularly for friendships and peer support. The findings are discussed in the light of the social relational understanding of disability. Policy and practice implications are identified.     

The foster care crisis: What caused caseloads to grow

Foster care caseloads more than doubled from 1985 to 2000. This article provides the first comprehensive study of this growth by relating state-level foster care caseloads to state-specific characteristics and policies. We present evidence that increases in female incarcerations and reductions in cash welfare benefits played dominant roles in explaining the growth in foster care caseloads over this period. Our results highlight the need for child welfare policies designed specifically for the children of incarcerated parents and parents who are facing less generous welfare programs.