Training New Executive MBA Faculty and Staff: A Case Approach

Teaching new faculty and staff how to handle Executive MBA students can be an interesting challenge. Even skilled and experienced educators may not be prepared to translate what has worked well for them with other student groups to the EMBA world. It is generally well established that case teaching can be an effective way to teach Executive level students (Barnes, et. al. 2001). They engage in active learning, and often can bring their experiences to bear on issues in a case that others did not see

THE COST STRUCTURE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the performance of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A cost function is estimated for MFIs in the region from 1999-2004. First, the presence of subsidies is found to be associated with higher MFI costs. When output is measured as the number of loans made, we find that MFIs become more efficient over time and that MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and loans to women have lower costs. However, when output is measured as volume of loans rather than their number, this last finding is reversed. This may be due to the fact that such loans are smaller in size; thus for a given volume more loans must be made.Eastern Europe, banking, microfinance, efficiency

Human Capital Indicators and Academic Success in Executive MBA Programs: A multi-program study

This paper investigates various human capital indicators as predictors of academic success for students in Executive MBA programs. Previous literature has focused on student performance in traditional full-time MBA programs and typically only for a single school. Data was examined from two different universities, with over 130 Executive MBA students. Undergraduate GPA had a statistically significant, positive relation to academic success in the Executive MBA program, while other factors, including GMAT scores and age, were not found to be as important in predicting academic success in the Executive MBA programs

The less economic freedom a state has, the more political connections local firms need

Daniel M. Gropper, John S. Jahera Jr. and Jung Chul Park argue this is the case for US bank

From Number Crunching To Organizational Leadership: Can Distance Education Adequately Handle The Range Of Graduate Business Classes?

With distance education delivery technology improving almost continuously, many Universities are seeking out distance education opportunities to expand their programs.   We seek to examine the effectiveness of the distance delivery approach across the range of types of courses offered in MBA programs – from the organizational leadership classes to the more quantitative “number crunching” classes.   Student performance in several types of MBA courses was evaluated as a result of presenting the same material on-campus (synchronously) and via distance education (asynchronously) in three different kinds of graduate business courses; a course in organizational leadership, an analytical course in managerial economics, and a quantitative methods course.   A number of individual variables (e.g., GMAT scores, undergraduate GPA) were included as explanatory factors regarding student performance.   Using multiple hierarchical regression analysis, the asynchronous distance delivery model was determined to have no adverse impact on student performance across all of these different types of MBA courses, indicating that indeed distance education techniques can adequately handle this broad range of graduate business classes

THE COST STRUCTURE OF MICROFINANCE INSTITUTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA

Microfinance institutions are important, particularly in developing countries, because they expand the frontier of financial intermediation by providing loans to those traditionally excluded from formal financial markets. This paper presents the first systematic statistical examination of the performance of MFIs operating in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A cost function is estimated for MFIs in the region from 1999-2004. First, the presence of subsidies is found to be associated with higher MFI costs. When output is measured as the number of loans made, we find that MFIs become more efficient over time and that MFIs involved in the provision of group loans and loans to women have lower costs. However, when output is measured as volume of loans rather than their number, this last finding is reversed. This may be due to the fact that such loans are smaller in size; thus for a given volume more loans must be made.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40195/3/wp809.pd

Trading Up the Happiness Ladder

How globalization affects happiness is highly disputed. Several studies use an index that amalgamates globalization's different dimensions into a single variable. Unlike previous studies and in order to better illuminate its facets, we adopt a disaggregated perspective on trade (policy) data. Distinguishing actual trade flows and the option value of trade, we find the former to slightly depress happiness, the latter to significantly promote happiness. Segmentation of WVS-data shows that the positive connotation is concentrated in low-income countries still in the process of climbing the income ladder, thus backing the notion of a shift in values

An Empirical Investigation of Changes in Scale Economies for the Commercial Banking Firm, 1979-1986.

The period of the 1980s represents a particularly turbulent time for the banking industry. A number of technological and regulatory changes have occurred, including the elimination of Regulation Q which had limited the explicit interest payments that banks could pay on some types of deposits. It would be expected that these changes would affect the structure of costs for banks. The behavior of the cost function is studied over the 1979-1986 time period, and in contrast to previous studies using earlier data, increasing economies of scale are found in the later years for banks in both unit and branch banking states. These results indicate that there may be increased cost pressure for smaller banks to become larger, either through mergers and acquisitions or through internal growth. This may lead to further consolidation pressures within the industry, and reductions in the overall number of banking firms. Copyright 1991 by Ohio State University Press.