Frankenstein: The United States in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s

For nearly the past quarter century, the United States has been involved in covert operations in a region of the world that most people could not locate on a map. Invisible wars being fought by the United States and other foreign intelligence agencies in Afghanistan sowed the seeds for the attacks on September 11, 2001. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 to the summer of 2001, intelligence agencies from around the globe have had a stake in supplying, training, and funding the very same people who carried out those terrible attacks. In the middle of this chaotic time period, Osama bin Laden used political manipulation to devise a plan that would leave a scar on the face of a nation for many years to come. This research will give a history of the U.S. government’s involvement in Afghanistan during the 1980s and 1990s. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda would rise from the ashes of the Soviet conflict to become the new enemy of America. To combat these new faceless adversaries, historians need to look at the mistakes made in the past to prevent similar tragedies in the future

The fit of Certified Disability Management Specialists' (CDMS) knowledge domains with Minnesota's Qualified Rehabilitation Consultants' (QRCS') competencies

Includes bibliographical references

Cross-Dressing in Taiwanese Dramas: A Reinforcement of Heteronormativity

An examination of temporary cross-dressing in Taiwanese romantic comedy dramas that seeks to analyze how gender, sexuality and romance are portrayed. The following discourses will be used to demonstrate how these dramas often support heteronormative ideals: the absurdity of gender, the utilitarian cross-dresser, the idea of the true (bio)gender, the eroticization of the female body, the bivalent kiss, the Sexuality Crisis Bro trope, \u27gender does not matter\u27 as romance, and relationship dynamics

Teaching competition in professional sports leagues

In recent years there has been some dispute over the appropriate way to model decision-making in professional sports leagues. In particular, Szymanski and Kesenne (2004), argue that formulating the decision-making problem as a noncooperative game leads to radically different conclusions about the nature of competition in sports leagues. This paper describes a simulation model that van be used in a classroom to demonstrate how competition works in a noncooperative context. The supporting Excel spreadsheet used to conduct the game can be downloaded from the author’s personal webpage http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/s.szymanski.

The impact of compulsory competitive tendering on refuse collection services

Compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) of blue-collar services such as refuse collection and street cleaning was introduced in the UK by the Local Government Act 1988. This law, imposed by central government, obliged elected local authorities to expose specific services to competitive tendering at fixed intervals and subject to national guidelines. Whilst the issue of competitive tendering of public services has generated a substantial literature over recent years (see Domberger and Rimmer (1994) for a review), there have been relatively few studies of compulsory competitive tendering.2 This paper uses a dataset on refuse collection costs and services for the 365 English local authorities over the period 1984-94. It follows on from Szymanski and Wilkins (1993) who analysed the same database using data up until 1988

The Champions League and the Coase Theorem

The Coase Theorem is both one of the simplest and most profound ideas in economics. Coase’s insight was first expressed in print as a theorem by George Stigler, following the publication of the famous article “The Problem of Social Cost” by Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase (1960). Stigler stated it thus: “with zero transactions costs, private and social costs will be equal”. In this paper the Coase Theorem is approached through the medium of a sports league. While Coase’s article dates from 1960, a colleague at Chicago University published a discussion of the market for baseball players in 1956 which almost completely anticipates the more famous paper (Rottenberg (1956)).Coase

Tilting the Playing Field: Why a sports league planner would choose less, not more, competitive balance

It has traditionally been argued that the organizer of a sports league would prefer more competitive balance to the level that emerges in a noncooperative equilibrium. This argument has been used to justify restraints on competition between teams, which also tend to raise profits at the expense of players and consumers. This paper shows that in theory a planner would prefer less, not more, competitive balance. The paper uses data from Major League Baseball to show just how unbalanced a league planner would choose.competitive balance, sports leagues, baseball

Competitive balance in sports leagues and the paradox of power

It is generally thought that competitive equilibrium in sports leagues involves too little competitive balance (the strong dominate the weak too much- a more even contest would be more attractive). However, it is possible to sow in a standard logit contest model that the reverse is true – the strong do not win “enough”- i.e. more wins by the strong team would increase attendance or revenues. This is consistent with Hirshleifer’s paradox of power. However, this is only true so long as the strong do not become too dominant- otherwise the regime switches to one of pre-emption: the strong never lose. This paper identifies the conditions under which the paradox of power and pre-emption will manifest themselves.