Community Perceptions of Unmeasured Quality Improvement in Goods and Services

Because of the costs involved in such exercises, current productivity measures do not necessarily fully take into account changes in the quality of goods and services over time. This paper outlines the derivation of measures that lead to quantification of the “community preference for its perceptions of improved unmeasured quality” in products. The measures are based on the proposition that individuals behave in such a manner as to maximise their quality of life. This is expressed by the individual’s choices in her purchase of quantity, quality and type of goods and services. This choice reflects her particular trade-offs, given her level of spending. The government is responsive to the community’s choices in terms of the services it produces. In aggregate, this is expressed in an economy by the choice of goods and services purchased. The measures that are derived are not grounded in production theory, but the “payment for output” measure can be related to theory assuming competitive markets and profit maximising, efficient firms. This paper first shows the development of a “payment for output” of goods and services from an entity measure. From this the “community preference for output increases” measure was developed. Using the mining industry as a basis and the wholesaling industry as a check, a measure of changes in the “community preference for its perceptions of improved unmeasured quality” in other entities in an economy is derived. These two community preference measures for an entity are relative to what is on offer in the whole economy and are not absolute measures, in contrast to productivity (incorporating changes in measured quality) estimates. For Australia as a whole in the 1989-90 to 1998-99 period, the annual multifactor productivity (MFP) increase was 1.64 percent and the annual increase in community preference for its perceptions of improved unmeasured quality was 0.31 percent. The addition of the two measures therefore represents an increase of 19 percent on the MFP figure alone. A measure of the efficiency of an economy in responding to changing community preferences is also derived.Payment, productivity, quality, community, preference, efficiency

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030: The road to a new economic paradigm in the Middle East?

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 is set to reframe the economic landscape of the Gulf region. Unveiled in April, the ambitious plan aims to overhaul the Saudi economy and reduce the Kingdom’s reliance on oil. First introduced by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Vision 2030 also highlights the Kingdom’s ambition to privatise five percent of the state-owned Aramco—the world’s most valuable company. This partial privatisation would help the company gain more transparency and dynamism. It would also solidify Saudi Arabia’s commitment to diversification and put an end to its status as a rentier state

Book Review: Roger Hardy’s The poisoned well

Almost fifty years after Britain and France left the Middle East, the toxic legacies of their rule continue to fester. Roger Hardy’s lively new account of imperialism in the region is bursting with memorable anecdotes, intriguing detail and splashes of colour that illuminate a canvas of power, greed and double standards

Book Review: Allin & Simon’s ‘Our Separate Ways’

America’s alliance with Israel will not be the most urgent issue facing Donald Trump in his first weeks in the White House. But it faces an uncertain future – and not only on the (reasonable) assumption that a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is unlikely to be agreed any time soon. The Trump transition team could do worse than read a book that stands on the familiar territory of Middle East strategy and diplomacy, but which focuses, unusually, on long-term social and political changes in both countries. The signs are, it argues, that Israel will continue to move to the right and the US to lose patience with the most genuinely ‘special’ foreign relationship it has

The macroeconomic impacts of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak: an information paper for Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

This memorandum provides a scenario analysis of the likely macroeconomic impacts of a limited foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in New Zealand. It is worth stressing at the outset that it is not a forecast, nor a ‘central’ scenario, but an exercise to gauge broad magnitudes and to trace through the likely shocks to several key macro variables based on a set of plausible events.foot-and-mouth disease, simulation

Book Review: Christopher Phillips’ ‘The Battle for Syria’

Syria’s war is far from over but it is already the subject of a large number of books – many about the internal dynamics of the conflict or the headline-grabbing jihadis who dominate perceptions of it. Christopher Phillips’ impressively-researched study of its international dimensions is an important contribution to understanding the bleak story so far. Based on interviews with officials and a mass of secondary sources, it identifies and examines the key external components of the worst crisis of the 21st century: the fading of American power, Russian assertiveness, regional rivalries and the role of non-state actors from Hezbollah to ISIS

Principles for Creating Original Content for the Worship Service

This paper offers observations and guidance for creating original content for the worship service. The project involved creating an Extended Play Recording for Eagle Church in Whitestown, IN. After an introduction to the project and its author, five principles for creating original content for the worship service are discussed. These include: Lyrics Before Melody and Creativity, Embrace the Context of the Local Church, Collaboration is Critical, Strive for Excellence as an Artist, and Worship in Spirit and Truth. Following a discussion of these principles, the conclusion offers reflections and future plans

An Urban Mausoleum

This thesis explores the placement of a mausoleum into an urban environment. Ideally, one is encouraged to reflect on their temporal nature. A benefit of this contemplation is to be able to live a good life to the fullest extent possible. Not only does contemporary US culture not do this, but it continually distances itself further from supporting any type of reflection on death. An absence of critical reflection is detrimental to the human experience. It is the goal of this thesis to demonstrate that the built environment can rectify this situation and sponsor a solution

EELS at very high energy losses

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) has been investigated in the range from 2 to >10 keV using an optimized optical coupling of the microscope to the spectrometer to improve the high loss performance in EELS. It is found that excellent quality data can now be acquired up until about 5 keV, suitable for both energy loss near edge structure (ELNES) studies of oxidation and local chemistry, and potentially useful for extended energy loss fine structure (EXELFS) studies of local atomic ordering. Examples studied included oxidation in Zr, Mo and Sn, and the ELNES and EXELFS of the Ti-K edge. It is also shown that good quality electron energy-loss spectroscopy can even be performed for losses above 9.2 keV, the energy loss at which the collection angle becomes ‘infinite’, and this is demonstrated using the tungsten L3 edge at about 10.2 keV

Time series of commodity futures prices

This paper examines the pattern of volatility over time of a series of commodity futures prices, and focuses in particular on the futures price variability as the maturity date of the futures contract approaches. In a rational expectations model of asymmetric information, the paper provides conditions under which the Samuelson hypothesis that the variability of futures prices increases as maturity approaches will be true