Moral Systems in the Regulations of Nonprofits: How Value Commitments Matter

This essay explores how three behavior-shaping systems - legal, market, and moral - influence the fundamental tasks of both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, including organizational goal-setting; motivation of participants; and deterring and reducing abuse of power. After identifying key features of these normative systems and their characteristic differences, the author argues that the influence of moral systems on nonprofit organizations may be underestimated, especially in view of their potentially unifying role with respect to all of the fundamental tasks. He suggests that the prospects for effective reform of nonprofit governance and accountability regimes are improved when the mechanisms and effects of these moral systems are taken into account.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 33.6. Hauser Working Paper Series Nos. 33.1-33.9 were prepared as background papers for the Nonprofit Governance and Accountability Symposium October 3-4, 2006

Advertising Restrictions and Competition in the Children's Breakfast Cereal Industry / Restrictions et compétition publicitaire dans l’industrie des céréales pour enfants

This paper takes advantage of the ban on advertising directed at children in the province of Quebec to study the effect of advertising in the children's breakfast cereal industry. Advertising is viewed alternatively as anti-competitive, if it increases brand loyalty, or as pro-competitive, if it acts a substitute for brand recognition. I construct a model of established and non-established brands in which advertising serves to inform consumers about the existence of brands. The model predicts that the effect of prohibiting advertising is to permit established brands to enjoy greater market share at the expense of newer and less well-known brands. This prediction is supported by the data: older, better-known brands have higher market share in Quebec than in regions where advertising is permitted and the opposite is true for non-established brands. This result suggests that in this market the effect of advertising cannot be to increase perceived product differentiation and reduce competition. Nous prenons avantage de l'interdiction de diffuser de la publicité à l'intention des enfants au Québec pour étudier l'effet de la publicité dans l'industrie des céréales. La publicité est considérée comme étant anti-concurrentielle si elle augmente la loyauté envers la marque, alors qu'elle est vue comme étant bénéfique pour la concurrence si elle agit comme un substitut à la reconnaissance de la marque. Nous construisons un modèle de marques établies et non-établies sur le marché où la publicité a pour but d'informer les consommateurs sur l'existence des marques. Le modèle prédit que toute prohibition de la publicité a pour conséquence de permettre aux marques établies d'augmenter leur part de marché au détriment de celles qui sont nouvelles et moins connues. Ce résultat est validé par les données. En effet, les marques les plus anciennes et les mieux connues ont des parts de marché plus élevées au Québec que dans les régions où la publicité est permise. L'inverse est vrai pour les marques non-établies. Notre résultat suggère que dans ce marché, la publicité ne peut pas augmenter la différenciation de produit et réduire la concurrence.advertising restrictions, market concentration, established brands, Réglementation de la publicité, concurrence, marques établies

Technology transfer to the broader economy

Approaches to the transfer of government-funded civil space technology to the broader commercial economy were addressed by Working Panel no. 4. Some of the problems related to current strategies for technology transfer and recommendations for new approaches are described in outline form

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INDICATORS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT FROM AN ECONOMIC VIEWPOINT

Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Granular Impact Model as an Energy-Depth Relation

Velocity-squared drag forces are common in describing an object moving through a granular material. The resulting force law is a nonlinear differential equation, and closed-form solutions of the dynamics are typically obtained by making simplifying assumptions. Here, we consider a generalized version of such a force law which has been used in many studies of granular impact. We show that recasting the force law into an equation for the kinetic energy versus depth, K(z), yields a linear differential equation, and thus general closed-form solutions for the velocity versus depth. This approach also has several advantages in fitting such models to experimental data, which we demonstrate by applying it to data from 2D impact experiments. We also present new experimental results for this model, including shape and depth dependence of the velocity-squared drag force

Squeeziness: An information theoretic measure for avoiding fault masking

Copyright @ 2012 ElsevierFault masking can reduce the effectiveness of a test suite. We propose an information theoretic measure, Squeeziness, as the theoretical basis for avoiding fault masking. We begin by explaining fault masking and the relationship between collisions and fault masking. We then define Squeeziness and demonstrate by experiment that there is a strong correlation between Squeeziness and the likelihood of collisions. We conclude with comments on how Squeeziness could be the foundation for generating test suites that minimise the likelihood of fault masking