Public versus private ownership : the current state of the debate

At the heart of the debate about public versus private ownership lie three questions: 1) Does competition matter more than ownership? 2) Are state enterprises more subject to welfare-reducing interventions by government than private firms are? 3) Do state enterprises suffer more from governance problems than private firms do? Even if the answers to these questions favor private ownership, the question must still be asked: Do distortions in the process of privatization mean that privatized firms perform worse than state enterprises? The author's review found greater ambiguity about the merits of privatization and private ownership in the theoretical literature than in the empirical literature. In most cases, empirical research strongly favors private ownership in competitive markets over a state-owned counterfactual (although construction of the counterfactual is itself a problem). Theory's ambiguity about ownership in monopoly markets seems better justified. Since the choice confronting governments is between state ownership and privatization rather than between privatization and optimality, theory has left a gap that empirical work has tried to fill. Further research is needed.Health Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access

Tight Limits on Nonlocality from Nontrivial Communication Complexity; a.k.a. Reliable Computation with Asymmetric Gate Noise

It has long been known that the existence of certain superquantum nonlocal correlations would cause communication complexity to collapse. The absurdity of a world in which any nonlocal binary function could be evaluated with a constant amount of communication in turn provides a tantalizing way to distinguish quantum mechanics from incorrect theories of physics; the statement "communication complexity is nontrivial" has even been conjectured to be a concise information-theoretic axiom for characterizing quantum mechanics. We directly address the viability of that perspective with two results. First, we exhibit a nonlocal game such that communication complexity collapses in any physical theory whose maximal winning probability exceeds the quantum value. Second, we consider the venerable CHSH game that initiated this line of inquiry. In that case, the quantum value is about 0.85 but it is known that a winning probability of approximately 0.91 would collapse communication complexity. We show that the 0.91 result is the best possible using a large class of proof strategies, suggesting that the communication complexity axiom is insufficient for characterizing CHSH correlations. Both results build on new insights about reliable classical computation. The first exploits our formalization of an equivalence between amplification and reliable computation, while the second follows from a rigorous determination of the threshold for reliable computation with formulas of noise-free XOR gates and $\varepsilon$-noisy AND gates.Comment: 64 pages, 6 figure

Problematising Civil Society- on What Terrain Does Xenophobia Flourish

Is there a need to reconceptualise civil society organisations (CSOs) given the fragmented, uneven, varied and sometimes contradictory responses of CSOs to the May 2008 violence

Assessing the Extent of Utilization of Digital Technology by Lecturers of the Department of Science Education, Akwa Ibom State University, Ikot Akpaden

This study examined the use of digital technology devices in facilitating teaching and learning in Akwa Ibom State University (AKSU), Ikot Akpaden. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Three purposes, research questions, two hypotheses were raised and formulated to guide the study. The study population was all lecturers in the Department of Science Education of the Faculty of Education AKSU. All the 22 lecturers were selected as sample size for the study, using total population purposive sampling technique. The instrument used for data collection was the researchers developed questionnaire, titled; Lecturers Utilization of Digital Technology Questionnaire (LUDTQ), face and content validation was done by three experts, a reliability coefficient of 0.82 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha. Descriptive statistics were used to answer the research questions while Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and Chi-square contingency test were used to test hypotheses. The results of the test indicated that there was no significant difference in the extent of utilization of Digital Technology tools by male and female lecturers. The findings also revealed that there was a significant relationship between lecturers' Digital technology resources utilization for teaching and lecturers professional status.This led the researchers to conclude that the extent of use of DT facilities in teaching by the lecturers was found to be moderate. It was recommended among others that The management of Akwa Ibom State University and indeed other Universities in Nigeria should encourage the use of Digital technology resources by providing enough of these resources and ensure that they are properly used by the lecturers in order to enhance teaching and learning as well as students’ achievement and interest.&nbsp

Sectoral and welfare effects of the global economic crisis on Uganda: a recursive dynamic CGE analysis

This paper analyses the impact of the global economic and financial crisis on Uganda notably on macro-economic aggregates, sectoral output and household welfare, and the potential role of fiscal policy and reform in mitigating the impacts. We find that second round effects from a reduction in financial inflows such as remittances, foreign direct investments and overseas development assistance, as well as reduction in international demand from cash crops such as cotton, tea and coffee, could lead to a reduction in economic growth by 0.6 percentage points on average annually over the period 2008- 2010 compared to a baseline reflecting pre-crisis conditions. A surge in regional exports and early counter-cyclical policies in particular are found to dampen the most adverse impacts of the crisis. The paper also shows that the impact of the government’s expansionary 2009/2010 budget could return growth to pre-crisis levels and illustrates how a re-prioritization of government expenditure away from expenditure on administration to more productive sectors of the economy, combined with reforms to improve the efficiency of public spending, could lift long-term growth and reduce poverty, especially in rural areas, even more.Sub-Saharan Africa, Uganda, global economic and financial crisis, computable general equilibrium (CGE), Consumer/Household Economics, Financial Economics, Industrial Organization, International Development, Production Economics, Public Economics, C68, D58, E62, F15, H62, I32,

Assessing the Potentials of Compurized Adaptive Testing to Enhance Mathematics and Science Student’t Achievement in Secondary Schools

This study focuses on Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT), designed to provide Mathematics and Basic Science teachers in secondary schools with an innovative method of assessment, that can enhance student’s achievement. A descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. Three research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. Using purposive sampling technique, a sample size of four hundred (400) Junior secondary three (JSS3) students and four private schools with computer laboratories in Akwa Ibom State were selected for the study. Each group had 100 members with mixed Mathematical and Basic Science competencies of high, medium, and low. The instrument for data collection was a Mathematics and Basic Science Computerized Adaptive Test (MABSCAT) developed by the researchers, tested, and modified after trial testing.Descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA was used to analysed the data. Results indicated that: test lengths, testing times, and Mathematical and Basic Science competencies were significantly different at p=0.05 among four groups of stopping criteria (SEE ≤ 0.20, SEE ≤ 0.30, SEE ≤ 0.40 , and SEEm- SEEm-1 ≤ 0.005); test lengths and testing times were significantly different at p=0.05 among the three groups of Mathematical and Basic Science competencies (low, moderately high, and high); and there were 72.25 %, 16.75%, and 8% of the students having a moderately high, low, and high Mathematics and Basic Science achievement respectively. It was recommended among others that, Government should establish item banks, CAT should be introduced in assessment of learning for the actual abilities of the students to be tested with sufficient accuracy.&nbsp

Risk Adjustment and Reinsurance: A Work Plan for State Officials

Outlines the decisions and actions states need to take to implement the risk adjustment and reinsurance provisions of the 2010 health reform law, including risk adjustment model, reinsurance parameters, stakeholder engagement, and program administration

The Manuscript of James Thomson\u27s Scots Elegy

Discusses Elegy on James Therburn in Chatto, the only known poem written in Scots by James Thomson (1740-1748), author of The Seasons; provides a text and collation of variants for the poem, based on a recently-discovered photostat of the manuscript, which had long been missing, recording variants also from all previously-published texts; and argues that rather than Thomson revising his poem to Anglicize his language, in this instance he used revision to Scoticize it

Impact of a Dialogic Reading Intervention on the Effectiveness of an Adaptive Magnitude Comparison eBook for Improving Young Children’s Magnitude Comparison Skills

Dialogic reading interventions have been used successfully to increase reading skills. This study aims to investigate whether a dialogic reading intervention will also assist children with spatial and numerical magnitude comparison skills learned through a novel adaptive number e-book designed to be read together by parents and children. This study proposes that a dialogic reading intervention will improve spatial and numerical magnitude comparison skills that will transfer to general math skills following the reading of an adaptive number e-book more so than reading without dialogic reading instructions. Additionally, there are predicted benefits for executive functioning skills and for improving parental attitudes toward math.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/roesch_symposium_content/1045/thumbnail.jp