Allocating Vote: Health — ‘Needs Assessment’ and an Economics-Based Approach

This paper critiques 'needs assessment' as a basis for allocating public funding of health and disability services and discusses an alternative economics-based approach. In essence, the former approach ignores the effects on health outcomes of health care spending at the margin while the latter focuses explicitly on these considerations. A simple diagrammatic model is introduced that illustrates at a conceptual level the (micro) economic constraints and choices available to policy-makers. Finally, some practical steps and unresolved issues in implementing the economics approach are considered.

Dynamic Input/Output Automata: a Formal and Compositional Model for Dynamic Systems

We present dynamic I/O automata (DIOA), a compositional model of dynamic systems. In DIOA, automata can be created and destroyed dynamically, as computation proceeds, and an automaton can dynamically change its signature, i.e., the set of actions in which it can participate. DIOA features operators for parallel composition, action hiding, action renaming, a notion of automaton creation, and a notion of behavioral subtyping by means of trace inclusion. DIOA can model mobility, using signature modification, and is hierarchical: a dynamically changing system of interacting automata is itself modeled as a single automaton. We also show that parallel composition, action hiding, action renaming, and (subject to some technical conditions) automaton creation are all monotonic with respect to trace inclusion: if one component is replaced by another whose traces are a subset of the former, then the set of traces of the system as a whole can only be reduced.Comment: 65 pages, 11 figures, Information and Computation, Available online 21 March 201

The Diffusion of New Technologies: Evidence From the Electric Utility Industry

This paper investigates the effect of firm size and ownership structure on technology adoption decisions, using data on the electric utility industry. We argue that traditional models of technology diffusion are subject to sample selectivity biases that may overstate the effect of firm size on adoption probabilities. By extending conventional hazard rate models to use information on both adoption and non-adoption decisions, we differentiate between firms' opportunities for adoption and their underlying adoption propensities. The results suggest that large firms and investor-owned electric utilities are likely to adopt new technologies earlier than their smaller and publicly-owned counterparts. Moreover, the selection biases from conventional statistical models can lead one to overstate size effects by a factor of two and to understate ownership structure and factor cost effects by two to four times.

Animal health and the role of communities: an example of trypanasomosis control options in Uganda

In many African countries, governments are re-thinking the role of the state in centrally providing certain goods and services. The rights and responsibilities for providing various public goods are being decentralized to lower levels of government administration, and/or being devolved directly to local citizens or user groups themselves. It is thus critical to ask: under what circumstances will local groups provide the socially optimal level of the public good? In this paper, we apply this question to the case of controlling an important vector-borne livestock disease in Uganda, trypanosomosis, which is transmitted by the tsetse fly. We investigate the underlying epidemiology of transmission and different options for control, and the implications for group provision of control, within the framework of a game-theoretic model. Results indicate that individual incentives to uptake tsetse and trypanosomosis control differ widely across different control methods. Since the costs of successfully implementing collective action are affected by individual incentives to participate in collective action, the model predicts which method/s are likely to be successfully implemented at the community level. More broadly, the model highlights under what circumstances community-provision is not likely to be optimal, depending on the underlying epidemiology of the disease, technological parameters, prevailing market characteristics, and socio-cultural conditions.

CEO Pay and Firm Performance: Dynamics, Asymmetries, and Alternative Performance Measures

This study explores the dynamic structure of the pay-for- performance relationship in CEO compensation and quantifies the effect of introducing a more complex model of firm financial performance on the estimated performance sensitivity of executive pay. The results suggest that current compensation responds to past performance outcomes, but that the effect decays considerably within two years. This contrasts sharply with models of infinitely persistent performance effects implicitly assumed in much of the empirical compensation literature. We find that both accounting and market performance measures influence compensation and that the salary and bonus component of pay as well as total compensation have become more sensitive to firm financial performance over the past two decades. There is no evidence that boards fail to penalize CEOs for poor financial performance or reward them disproportionately well for good performance. Finally, the data suggest that boards may discount extreme performance outcomes -both high and low - relative to performance that lies within some `normal' band in setting compensation.

Fundamental Parameters of Cepheids: Masses and Multiplicity

Masses determined from classical Cepheids in binary systems are a primary test of both pulsation and evolutionary calculations. The first step is to determine the orbit from ground-based radial velocities. Complementary satellite data from Hubble, FUSE, IUE, and Chandra provide full information about the system. A summary of recent results on masses is given. Cepheids have also provided copious information about the multiplicity of massive stars, as well as the distribution of mass ratios and separations. This provides some important constraints for star formation scenarios including differences between high and low mass results and differences between close and wide binaries

Microgravity Combustion Diagnostics Workshop

Through the Microgravity Science and Applications Division (MSAD) of the Office of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) at NASA Headquarters, a program entitled, Advanced Technology Development (ATD) was promulgated with the objective of providing advanced technologies that will enable the development of future microgravity science and applications experimental flight hardware. Among the ATD projects one, Microgravity Combustion Diagnostics (MCD), has the objective of developing advanced diagnostic techniques and technologies to provide nonperturbing measurements of combustion characteristics and parameters that will enhance the scientific integrity and quality of microgravity combustion experiments. As part of the approach to this project, a workshop was held on July 28 and 29, 1987, at the NASA Lewis Research Center. A small group of laser combustion diagnosticians met with a group of microgravity combustion experimenters to discuss the science requirements, the state-of-the-art of laser diagnostic technology, and plan the direction for near-, intermediate-, and long-term programs. This publication describes the proceedings of that workshop

The economic crisis and community development finance: an industry assessment

For thirty years, the community development finance industry—banks, credit unions, loan funds, community development corporations, venture funds, microfinance institutions—has quietly provided responsible, well-designed and well priced credit to lower-income people and communities. These entities have provided this credit with the support of the federal government, through the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, the Low Income Housing and New Markets Tax Credits, the Small Business Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and various housing and facilities development programs. The industry has also been supported in its efforts by mainstream institutions such as banks and insurance companies, most frequently motivated by the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) or by concern that CRA-like obligations would be imposed. Philanthropic foundations and supporters and state and local governments have also played their parts. The result: a community development finance industry that has survived and even prospered during recessions and political downdrafts. But the field, and the communities, businesses, and individuals it serves, are hurting now, and fearing bigger hurt. This paper examines this situation and focuses attention on what needs to be done.

Climatic variability and cooperation in rangeland management: a case study from Niger

In this paper, we develop an empirical model of an agro-pastoral system subject to high climatic risk to test the impact of rainfall variability on livestock densities, land allocation patterns and herd mobility observed at the community level. Also, because grazing land is a common-pool resource, we determine the impact of cooperation on these decision variables. To capture different abilities of communities to manage these externalities, we construct indices comprised of factors considered to affect the costliness of achieving successful cooperation found in the collective action literature. We then test hypotheses regarding the impact of rainfall variability and cooperation using data collected in a semi-arid region of Niger. Results indicate that rainfall variability first leads to higher and then lower stock densities, indicating that benefits of accumulating large herds in variable environments are eventually offset by the higher risks of low production and higher mortality. Communities with characteristics hypothesized to favor cooperation have lower stock densities and greater herd mobility. Neither cooperation nor rainfall variability has a significant impact on the proportion of land allocated to crops vs. common pastures.Environmental management,