33 research outputs found
The patients' attitude toward the social services at Battle Creek Veterans Administration Hospital, 1960
No full textCommunity College Campus Carry Policy Analysis
No full textThis study provides a policy network analysis on the implications of HB 792 and HB 280 at urban two-year open campuses, with specific attention to Georgia Piedmont Technical College (GPTC), a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG). Georgia state legislators passed House Bills 792 and 280, which authorized any person 18 years of age or older to carry an electroshock device and firearm, respectively, on Georgia public colleges and universities effective. A mixed method research design was employed to assess crime rates and college administrator opinions on the need for the campus carry policy. Employing a policy network theory into this study provides greater clarity on how interest groups establish networks and maintain relationships with government officials to move political ideologies from the legislatures to college campuses
Financial safety nets and incentive structures in Latin America
No full textThe literature on safety nets has become technically more precise by drawing on advances in contract theory and optimal governance structure. This paper begins with a treatment of some aspects of the theory. The author's approach draws more on institutional economics, and more precisely on the approach taken by Kindleberger (1978), in the sense that he believes the design of good financial safety nets for Latin America depends upon an understanding of the way that formal ex-ante safety nets have broken down during times of crisis over the past one hundred years. In this paper then author explores issues surrounding safety nets for financial systems in small open economies like those in Latin America. The starting point in Section 2 is the idea that asymmetric information will generally restrict the scope for lending to potential borrowers. Section 3 shows that government regulation of financial intermediaries can frequently lower the cost of lending. Section 4 discusses the creation of central banks in Latin America in the 1920s as an innovation to promote financial deepening. Section 5 shows that the extension of the safety net to depositors is a relatively new and untested development. Section 6 concludes with a discussion of the design of safety nets that takes into account the principles developed in the paper.Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Financial Intermediation,Financial Crisis Management&Restructuring,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform
Environment and writing : a contextual study of six students
No full textThis thesis was scanned from the print manuscript for digital preservation and is copyright the author.
Researchers can access this thesis by asking their local university, institution or public library to
make a request on their behalf. Monash staff and postgraduate students can use the link in the References field
Afro-American Perspectives. Lesson 13: Black Organizations
No full text30-program television series on black history and culture, written by William Blackwell Branch. Moderators: Isaiah Fletcher, Affirmative Action coordinator for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and Malkia Roberts, artist and teacher at American University. Roberts interviews Dr. Edgar Allen Toppin, professor of history at Virginia State College, author of "A Mark Well Made: the Negro Contribution to American Culture" (1967), and Franklin C. Showell executive director Maryland Commission on Afro-American and Indian History and Culture. Fletcher discusses the importance of black organizations created for mutual interest and self-help, public and secret
What macroeconomic policies are"sound?"
No full textMost people agree that the soundness of macroeconomic policies should be judged by their efficacy in meeting the objectives of steady growth, full employment, stable prices, and a viable external payments situation. What people debate about are the links between macroeconomics and economic structure--and in the current environment, the openness to foreign capital flows. As developing countries become more integrated into international financial markets, volatility may become an increasing fact of life. Faced with such volatility, how should these countries frame their macroeconomic policies? What broad principles should guide their macroeconomic management? In many developing countries, the openness of the capital account has been significant. Many countries have made the transition toward an open-economic paradigm. As a result, fluctuations in international capital and currency markets, as well as shifts in foreign investors'attitudes and confidence, have greatly affected local stock market prices, the level of foreign exchange reserves, and the scope for monetary and interest rate policy. Capital controls and foreign exchange restrictions have been significantly dismantled in a number of developing and transition economies. In 1970, only 34 countries--or 30 percent of the International Monetary Fund's membership-had assumed Article VIII of the IMF Articles of Agreement, declaring their currency convertible on current account transactions. By 1997, this figure had increased to 77 percent. Does financial integration make it more difficult to achieve macroeconomic stability? Apparently not, on the whole, although at times large short-term capital flows can lead to misaligned asset prices, including exchange rates. What financial integration does do is limit how far countries can pursue policies incompatible with medium-term financial stability. The disciplining effect of global financial and product markets applies not only to policymakers-through pressures on financial markets-but also to the private sector. Rather than constrain the pursuit of appropriate policies, globalization may add leverage and flexibility to such policies, easing financing constraints and extending the time during which countries can make adjustments. But markets will provide this leeway only if they perceive that countries are undertaking adjustments that address fundamental choices.Economic Theory&Research,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Macroeconomic Management
Education and earnings inequality in Mexico
No full textEducation attainment levels increased dramatically for Mexico's labor force in the 1980s and early 1990s. In parallel, the country experienced a pronounced increase in earnings inequality from 1984-94, reflected in a higher dispersion of wages and an absolute decline in the real incomes of less educated, poorer Mexicans. This increased wage dispersion presents policymakers with a tradeoff between efficiency considerations (favoring increased spending on higher education) and equity considerations (favoring a more equal distribution of per student spending) in the allocation of fiscal resources to education. The author concludes that the best way to deal with this equity-efficiency tradeoff is to encourage greater private participation in higher education. His main findings are that: a) The accumulation of human capital during 1984-94, as proxied by education attainment, was accompanied by a more equal distribution of education attainment levels over that period and, thus, exerted an equalizing effect on the distribution of incomes. The increased income inequalityobserved over that period appears to be caused by an increased rate of skill-based technological change, whose transmission to Mexico and other developing countries may have been facilitated by the increased openness of their economies. b) The greater dispersion of wager observed in Mexico during the past decade raised the rates of return on investing in higher education, reversing the traditional pattern where primary education exhibits the highest rates of return. c) The social rates of return across levels of schooling were more uniform in 1994 than in 1984, suggesting a more efficient assignment of education spending. At the same time, the distribution of spending on education became more egalitarian, as per student spending in higher education declined markedly compared with per student spending at the primary level. This surprising coincidence in the pattern of spending on education was only possible because Mexico started out with a very distorted resource allocation in education that was both highly inequitable and inefficient. As Mexico's policymakers are on the way to correcting these distortions, the opportunities for avoiding the equity-efficiency tradeoff within Mexico's centralized education framework will become progressively exhausted. d) There is little reason to expect the pace of technological change, which appears mainly responsible for raising wage dispersion and the relative returns on higher education, to abate. Efficiency considerations dictate that Mexico should respond by devoting more resources to higher education. However, the federal budget, which traditionally has financed the lion's share of higher education costs in Mexico, is unable to accommodate additional spending on higher education, while spending cuts elsewhere in the education sector are bound to raise serious equity questions. Thus, to avoid falling behind in terms of human capital accumulation, greater private sector participation is necessary, at least, in terms of cost recovery from the main beneficiaries of higher education.Decentralization,Teaching and Learning,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Health Promotion,Curriculum&Instruction,Teaching and Learning,Environmental Economics&Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Gender and Education,Curriculum&Instruction
Development of a nano-heat transfer fluid cooled direct absorbing receiver for concentrating solar collectors
No full textCopyright © The Author(s) 2013. A MATLAB-based computer model to design a novel directly absorbing receiver system (DARS) for concentrating solar collectors employing nanofluid-based solar radiation volumetric absorption is presented. Graphene and aluminum nanosphere-based suspensions in Therminol VP-1 were simulated to identify the optimum thermo-geometric configuration of a DARS comprising a transparent all glass tubular absorber. Several particle concentrations were simulated scrutinizing the optical response of the two colloidal dispersions to yield a minimum supply temperature of 250°C; further investigated are the implications of fluid flow velocity upon system yield. The resulting temperature fields and geometric dimensions of the DARS are predicted. Findings demonstrate that the DARS is able to deliver heat at ∼265°C with a receiver tube diameter of 5 mm opposed to commercially available 70-mm diameter metallic absorbers
The East Asia crisis and corporate finances : the untold micro story
No full textExplanations of the causes of the Asian crisis have focused on macroeconomic factors leading to the crisis. This paper offers a complementary corporate distress perspective linking the crisis to corporate finances. Key ratios for companies in various countries are presented in the paper. The global benchmarking imposes a consistent cross-border analysis of financial risk and performance, and sheds light on the crisis. The study provides a statistical review of the financial practices and performance of corporates in Asia: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand benchmarked against financials of corporates in other countries: Latin America, and industrialized countries: France, Germany, Japan and USA. A thematic point that comes across in all the results of the corporate financial analysis is unsustainable rapid (and probably excessive) investment in fixed assets financed by excessive borrowing in some Asian countries- e.g., Indonesia, Korea and Thailand. The East Asian investment-spending spree resulted in poor profitability, reflected in low, and declining return on equity, and return on capital employed. It leads to the conclusion that at the core of the corporate crisis were financial excesses that violated prudent financial practices, and eventually lead to the inevitable financial distress we are witnessing. Therefore, the empirical findings presented in the paper lend credence to the view advanced by Krugman that crony capitalism was at the core of the crisis. Crony capitalism was manifested in supportive bad policies-e.g., implicit government guarantees, and poor banking supervision- that lead to poor credit allocation decisions in the banking dominated financial system. Preliminary findings suggest as well vast differences in Economic Value Added between countries- developing and developed alike. The conclusions from an economic value added approach indicate that in an era of increasing capital mobility, corporates are not adhering to global standards in creating shareholder value. The analysis leads to policy conclusions.Banks&Banking Reform,Payment Systems&Infrastructure,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Financial Intermediation,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies
Caribbean Report 07-03-2002
No full text1. Headlines (00:00-00:27)2. Political talks to convene parliament in Trinidad and Tobago collapse and the parties appear to be on an elections footing. Former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday walks out of the talks saying that Prime Minister Patrick Manning is not serious about power sharing, while Prime Minister Manning is hoping a UNC member will cross the floor thereby giving the PNM government a majority. Tony Fraser reviews the political environment in Trinidad and Tobago (00:28-02:44)3. Reuters News Agency reports from Havana that a group of Cuban dissidents has gathered a petition of ten thousand signatures calling for the Cuban parliament to hold a referendum of political reforms. Such a campaign has been unheard of since President Fidel Castro came to power in 1959. His government scorns dissidents as counter-revolutionary pawns of the United States and anti-Castro Cuban-American groups in Miami Florida (02:45-03:11)4. Jamaican police shoot and kill four robbery suspects in central St. Catherine. No police officers are injured or killed. International Human Rights groups complain about killings by police in Jamaica and Jamaica’s National Security Minister, Dr. Peter Phillips visits London and meets with British officials on how they can help Jamaica stem the violence (03:12-06:41)5. Bermuda’s Ministry of Telecommunications and E-Commerce commissions a survey after criticisms from the United States that American companies are relocating their offices to Bermuda because of its tax breaks and favourable regulatory system. Rosie Hayes reports (06:42-08:19)6. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) announces that Montserrat, Dominica and Saint Kitts and Nevis will be deleted from its list of uncooperative tax havens. Saint Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas tells Ken Richards that although it has signed on to the OECD tax initiative it will approach information sharing with care. He also discusses his country’s dialogue with the Financial Action Task Force which deals with money laundering (08:20-11:34)7. The head of the US Central Bank, Alan Greenspan now seems to be confident that the US recession is over (11:35-12:16)8. A meeting of accountants mounted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados, concludes that the Enron collapse in the US was a severe blow for the accountancy profession across the Caribbean. Colin Soo Ping Chow of Ernst & Young Caribbean confirms this, Patrick Toppin, Managing Partner with Pannell Kerr Forster (Barbados), says audit committees can assist, while Lecturer in Management Studies with The University of the West Indies, Dr. Justin Robinson makes other recommendations. David Ellis reports (12:17-14:10)9. And in a follow-up to that report, President Bush announces proposals to protect shareholders from misconduct by corporate executives following Enron’s collapse. One of the measures is that chief executives will be held personally responsible for the accuracy of their financial statements. The proposals have disappointed consumer groups who say they do not contain enough powers to protect investors or punish wrongdoers (14:11-14:37)10. The head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Ace Hutchinson says consumption of the drug Ecstasy is on the rise worldwide with traffickers focussing on new markets such as Latin America and the Caribbean. The growth in Ecstasy consumption is partly due to a misconception among young people that the drug is harmless (14:38-15:24
