Direct Effects of Money on Aggregate Demand: Another Look at the Evidence

Now that a number of central banks are faced with short-term nominal interest rates close to or at the zero lower bound, there is a renewed interest in the long-running debate about whether or not changes in the stock of money have direct effects. In particular, do changes in money have additional effects on aggregate demand outside of those induced by changes in short-term nominal interest rates? This paper revisits and reinterprets the empirical evidence based on single equation regressions which is quite mixed, with some results supporting and other results denying the existence of direct effects. We use a structural model with no direct effects of money to show that the finding of positive and statistically significant coefficients on real money growth can be misleading. The model generates data that, when used to estimate analogs of the empirical regressions, produce positive and statistically significant coefficients on real money growth, similar to those often found when using actual data. The problem is that single equation regressions leave out a set of variables, which in turn, gives rise to an omitted variables bias in the estimated coefficients on real money growth. Hence, they are an unreliable guide to calibrate monetary policies, in general, including at the zero lower bound.money; monetary base; direct effects; output gap

The violent interstellar medium in Messier 31

Taurus observations in the line of H alpha and Very Large Array (VLA) HI mapping of the HII complex No. 722 in M31, reveal what seems to be a spherical cavity 330 pc in diameter blown out by a stellar association of over 20(exp 6) years old. Evidence of induced star formation which was initiated less than 5(exp 6) years ago is present in the form of bright HII emission and numerous O, B and Wolf-Rayet stars which are found within the shell surrounding the cavity. The energy necessary to create the HI shell is estimated to be about 5(exp 51) erg

Financial Resources, Physical Resources and Performance of Public Health Institutions in Embu County, Kenya

Kenya constitution recognizes health as a fundamental right for all citizens in Kenya. Hence the Kenya government has invested resources heavily in the health sector in order to boost the performance of public health institutions. However, it has been a mere dream for many Kenyans to enjoy healthcare benefits as expected despite government commitment to improve the performance of health sector. The study sought to investigate the effect of financial and physical resources on the performance of public health institutions in Embu County, Kenya. The study used explanatory and descriptive research designs and targeted 550 employees and 769 outpatients drawn from all the five public hospitals in Embu County. The sample size comprised of 165 employees and 232 outpatients. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires and an interview guide. Quantitative data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics, while content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. The findings of the study established that there was a positive and a statistically significant effect of financial and physical resources on the performance of public health institutions. Policy implications of these findings have been discussed. Keywords: physical resources, financial resources, performance of public health institution

Human Resources, Information Technology, and Performance of Public Health Institutions in Embu County, Kenya

The health sector plays a significant role in the economic development of a country by improving the livelihoods her citizens. Despite the heavy investment in the health sector by the Kenya government, enjoying the right to health has been a mere dream for many Kenyans across counties. The study sought to investigate the effect of human resources and information technology on performance of public health institutions in Embu County, Kenya. The study used explanatory and descriptive research designs and targeted 550 employees and 769 outpatients drawn from the five public hospitals in Embu County. The sample size comprised of 165 employees and 232 outpatients. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires and an interview guide. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics, while content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. The findings of the study demonstrated that there was a positive and statistical significant effect of human resources and information technology on performance of public health institutions. Policy implications of study findings have been discussed. Keywords: strategic human resources, information technology, performance of public health institution

Leadership Styles and Employees’ Commitment among Government Hospitals in Dodoma City, Tanzania

This study aimed to explore leadership style and employee commitment among government hospitals in Dodoma City using the cross-sectional research design. The sample of 120 out of 889 employees was determined through simple random sampling procedure but only 102 returned the questionnaires. The following leadership styles were found to be existing: status quo, people oriented, democratic, task oriented and autocratic. Affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment existed in the organizations under investigation. There is a significant positive correlation between commitment of employees and two styles of leadership: democratic leadership accounting for 24.1% and autocratic leadership, accounting for 5.6%. There is no significant relationship between employees’ commitment and the following leadership styles: task oriented, people oriented, status oriented and laissez faire. The study recommends that employees need to be appraised for their commitment to the organizations. This can be done through various types of motivation in order to maintain their commitment spirit. The leaders of the organizations should be encouraged to increase the use of democratic and autocratic leadership styles which have accounted for employees’ commitment

Moral panic and social theory: Beyond the heuristic

Copyright @ 2011 by International Sociological Association.Critcher has recently conceptualized moral panic as a heuristic device, or 'ideal type'. While he argues that one still has to look beyond the heuristic, despite a few exceptional studies there has been little utilization of recent developments in social theory in order to look 'beyond moral panic'. Explicating two current critical contributions - the first, drawing from the sociologies of governance and risk; the second, from the process/figurational sociology of Norbert Elias - this article highlights the necessity for the continuous theoretical development of the moral panic concept and illustrates how such development is essential to overcome some of the substantial problems with moral panic research: normativity, temporality and (un) intentionality