A theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs

We propose a theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs. A principal delegates part of his authority to a supervisor who can acquire soft information about an agent's productivity. If the supervisor were risk-neutral, the principal would simply make the better informed supervisor residual claimant for the hierarchy's profit. Under risk-aversion, the optimal contract trades-off the supervisor's incentives to reveal his information with an insurance motive. This contract can be identified with the one obtained in a simple hard information model of hierarchical collusion with exogenous transaction costs. Now, transaction costs are endogenous and depend on the collusion stake, the accuracy of the supervisory technology and the supervisor's degree of risk-aversion. We then discuss various implications of the model for the design and management of organisations

The Federal Advisory Committee Act: Balanced Representation and Open Meetings in Conflict with Dispute Resolution

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

A Theory of Supervision with Endogenous Transaction Costs

We propose a theory of supervision with endogenous transaction costs. A principal delegates part of his authority to a supervisor who can acquire soft information about an agent's productivity. If the supervisor were risk-neutral, the principal would simply make the better informed supervisor residual claimant for the hierarchy's profit. Under risk-aversion, the optimal contract trades-off the supervisor's incentives to reveal his information with an insurance motive. This contract can be identified with the one obtained in a simple hard information model of hierarchical collusion with exogenous transaction costs. Now, transaction costs are endogenous and depend on the collusion stake, the accuracy of the supervisory technology and the supervisor's degree of risk-aversion. We then discuss various implications of the model for the design and management of organisations.Supervision, soft information, collusion, endogenous transaction costs

A procedure for the environmental evaluation of roads in South Africa

Bibliography: pages 136-145.The aim of this report is to develop a procedure for the environmental evaluation of roads in South Africa, because in the past the environmental evaluation of road projects have been on an ad hoc basis, often using different formats. The procedure is therefore to be replicable from scheme to scheme, procedure, Management and is to be incorporated into the existing road development while drawing on the principles of Integrated Environmental The first part of the report is a study of the environmental evaluation procedures adopted in the United Kingdom, United States of America and Ontario (Canada). The environmental evaluation of roads in these countries are compared under the following headings: contextual features of the environmental evaluation procedures; the planning, location and design stages of the environmental evaluation procedures, and the environmental evaluation documentation. In this comparative study, the common and unique steps and elements are identified in order to generate an 'Ideal'. The second part of the report is a study on the environmental evaluation of roads in South Africa. The administrative structure, legislation, policy and planning procedures for roads in South Africa, and Integrated Environmental Management (IEM) are discussed. Although IEM is currently been developed and road authorities are committed to IEM, the procedure still needs to be incorporated into the existing road development procedure. The third part of the report develops a procedure for the environmental evaluation of roads in South Africa. The procedure developed incorporates common and unique steps and elements generated in the 'Ideal' into the existing road development procedure. The Environmental Conservation Act and Integrated Environmental Management are also taken into account in developing the procedure. Finally, as there is at present no formal documented procedure for the environmental evaluation of roads in South Africa, it is recommended that the procedure be considered by road and environmental authorities with a view to implementing it

An investigation of the possibilities of finding adequate techniques of therapy for use in cases of stealing-behaviour in children

Aim: To investigate the problem of stealing-behaviour in children with a view to developing a system of therapy based on the laws of learning as presented by Clark Hull. The nature of the problem: Stealing behaviour in the child is considered to be a symptom of some underlying causal condition. Such a general statement means nothing unless it can be expanded to answer the questions: 1) How is stealing selected from the many possible responses. 2) How does liltealing become established as a response to the particular causal situation. This paper will attempt to find an answer to these questions by considering stealing cases treated at the Child Guidance Clinic of the University of Cape Town and an attempt will be made to indicate suitable methods of therapy

Photochemical behaviour of 5-formyl and 5-acetyl uracils in the presence of ethene

Atypically for uracils, 5-formyl and 5-acetyl uracils react photochemically with excess ethene to produce non-acylated cyclobutane adducts whose formation can be explained by a novel, tandem [2+2] cycloaddition/Norrish-I α-cleavage proces

Two identification tools applied on Mascarene’s corals genera (Xper2) and species (IKBS)

For future biodiversity studies relying on species identification, environmental officers and researchers will only be left with monographic descriptions and collections in museums. This is why a knowledge base on the zooxanthellate scleractinian corals of the Mascarene Archipelago is being developed. This project offers results for both biologists/taxonomists and students or MPA-teams. Two online computer-based applications permit to identify genera and species. The first identification tool, called Xper², was developed by LIS (Informatic and Systematics Laboratory) in Paris, and is used for identifications to genera. The second tool, named IKBS (Iterative Knowledge Base System), was developed by IREMIA (Institute for Research in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science) in La Réunion, and is used for identifications from families to species. The tools presently work for Astrocoeniidae, Pocilloporidae, Acroporidae (only Acropora + Isopora), Psammocoridae, Siderastreidae (owns Psammocoridae as genera), Fungiidae, Poritidae, Faviidae Faviinae, Faviidae Montastreinae, Mussidae. We plan to start a new phase to add the last families, fully translate the web site in English and extend the Xper² identification to all the western Indian Ocean genera

Un cadre de conception pour réunir les modèles d'interaction et l'ingénierie des interfaces

National audienceWe present HIC (Human-system Interaction Container), a general framework for the integration of advanced interaction in the software development process. We show how this framework allows to reconcile the software development methods (such MDA, MDE) with the architectural models of software design such as MVC or PAC. We illustrate our approach thanks to two different types of implementation for this concept in two different business areas: one software design pattern, MVIC (Model View Interaction Control) and one architectural model, IM (Interaction Middleware)