Risk Management – Managing Risks, not Calculating Them

The expected utility approach to decision making advocates a probability vision of the world and labels any deviation from it ‘irrational’. This paper reconsiders the rationality argument and argues that calculating risks is not a viable strategy in an uncertain world. Alternative strategies not only can save considerable cognitive and computational resources, but are more ‘rational’ with view to the restricted definition of rationality applied by expected utility theorists. The alternative decision making model of risk management is presented and explained.

On the nature of Bulgarian subsistence agriculture

In most countries of Central and Eastern Europe the process of transition to market economy resulted in an increasingly subsistence type of agriculture. The extent of subsistence farming varies from one country to another, but the phenomenon is universally present. The very existence, yet expansion of subsistence agriculture has been perceived as a paradox. It is sufficient to remind that it simply does not fit the definition of transition, which is viewed as a process that has to bring about the market into economy, the same market that went missing in agriculture. The latter would incline one to consider subsistence agriculture as a temporary phenomenon that will perish as transition advances. The basic textbook economic theory views subsistence agriculture as implicitly irrational and contradicting the sound economic logic and principles. This is also the prevailing opinion on the nature of subsistence agriculture in transition economies, as well as in general. This paper challenges this viewpoint and argues that subsistence agriculture is not only logical consequence from the worsened economic conditions at individual level, but it contributes to the overall market stability. Developing the argument with regard to Bulgaria, which is a country with a large share of subsistence agriculture, as an illustration, it dismisses the claims that subsistence causes waste of production resources and loss of overall welfare. Conversely, it is demonstrates that subsistence agriculture increases both production and consumption.

Modelling the effects of subsistence on Bulgarian agricultural performance

No abstract is available for this item

Regime-switching Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) analysis of UK meat consumption

The asymptotic distributions of cointegration tests are approximated using the Gamma distribution. The tests considered are for the I(1), the conditional I(1), as well as the I(2) model. Formulae for the parameters of the Gamma distributions are derived from response surfaces. The resulting approximation is flexible, easy to implement and more accurate than the standard tables previously published

The Question of Competence: Reconsidering Medical Education in the Twenty-First Century

[Excerpt] The real challenge for those involved in designing competency-based educational programs is to recognize the complexity of competence as a concept. Only then can they effectively delineate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners must acquire to be able to perform within each domain at a predetermined level and to recognize that the expected level of performance within each domain will vary depending on the learner\u27s stage of education and the specialty he or she is learning. The authors of this book help us do just that. They examine the challenges facing medical education and introduce the concept of discourse as a mechanism both for examining the idea of competence and considering how to implement competency-based education. In so doing, they provide us with a new way to ask the questions that are at the heart of every report advocating change, every criticism of medical education, and every conversation that questions why health care is the way it is today

The impact of contractor selection method on transaction costs: a review

The basic premise of transaction-cost theory is that the decision to outsource, rather than to undertake work in-house, is determined by the relative costs incurred in each of these forms of economic organization. In construction the "make or buy" decision invariably leads to a contract. Reducing the costs of entering into a contractual relationship (transaction costs) raises the value of production and is therefore desirable. Commonly applied methods of contractor selection may not minimise the costs of contracting. Research evidence suggests that although competitive tendering typically results in the lowest bidder winning the contract this may not represent the lowest project cost after completion. Multi-parameter and quantitative models for contractor selection have been developed to identify the best (or least risky) among bidders. A major area in which research is still needed is in investigating the impact of different methods of contractor selection on the costs of entering into a contract and the decision to outsource