This study aims to propose a dynamic multi-activity network data development analysis (DMNDEA) model to measure the technical efficiency of farrow-to-finish swine production in Taiwan. Production ...phases are explicitly divided into two activities; namely, the breed-to-farrow phase and the wean-to-finish phase. By using this model, the problem of shared inputs and dynamic intermediates among activities that characterize pig production are taken into account in an integrated framework, simultaneously with the consideration of non-zero slack, allowing us to examine aspects of production in a more comprehensive and factual manner. For the empirical results based on sample data from 2006 to 2007, it is shown that the overall technical inefficiencies obtained from DMNDEA are not obviously different from those obtained using a traditional one-stage model. However, the DMNDEA results explicitly show us that the sources of inefficiency for each farm are different. Furthermore, second-stage bootstrapping regression results reveal that the determinants of efficiency for each production phase are not the same, indicating the need to identify the influential factors for each production phase separately.
This study provides evidence on the association between board composition and different types of continuous disclosure. Our sample is based on a sample of 450 firms for the period 2006–2007. Our ...experimental design uses both ordinary least-squares (OLS) regressions and two-stage least-squares regressions (2SLS), although the Durbin–Wu–Hausman χ2 test indicates that the OLS results alone would be appropriate. We include the 2SLS results in order to be able to compare the results against previous findings. Our key findings are that there is no association between board composition and different types of continuous disclosure. Our results are robust with respect to alternative variable definitions.
This study examines the perceived ability of auditees to influence external auditor controls and audit team behaviour (through, for example, delaying the availability of information and selecting ...samples in advance for auditors). Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 18 auditee staff from seven publicly-listed companies who interacted on an ongoing basis with the audit team. The findings provide an external perspective on weaknesses in auditors' control systems and suggest that game playing occurs between auditee and auditor staff in coping with conflicts that arise during audit fieldwork. These constitute a form of inter-organisational defence mechanism (coping mechanisms employed by individuals in organisations to avoid embarrassment and threat). Furthermore, the findings reveal previously unidentified auditee-related variables that can impact on the effectiveness of the auditor's control system. A number of implications of the findings for audit firms and society are identified, such as the level of trust placed by society in inexperienced time-pressured audit trainees, societal expectations of auditors and the need to reduce the predictability of audit testing.
Regional input-output tables are usually not constructed from survey data but are estimated using nonsurvey regionalization methods, which saves time and money. However, traditional regionalization ...methods ignore cross-hauling (the simultaneous exporting and importing of one and the same type of product). This flaw results in an underestimation of trade and an overestimation of regional output multipliers. This article presents a new approach based on an estimate of product heterogeneity, which addresses the problem of cross-hauling and is applicable to European System of Accounts tables with indirectly allocated imports. Its application is illustrated by the estimation of a regional input-output table for North Rhine—Westphalia, one of Germany's federal states. The results are compared to the traditional commodity balance approach, indicating that the new method suffers far less from the underestimation of trade and the overestimation of multipliers.
We empirically study formation-state choices of limited liability companies (LLCs). Most firms in our large sample of almost 20,000 LLCs are formed in the state where their principal place of ...business is located. As their size increases, firms become more likely to be formed outside that state, with Delaware emerging as the primary destination for LLCs that are not formed in the state of the principal place of business. We demonstrate that substantive law matters when LLCs choose their formation state. Limited liability companies are less likely to incorporate locally if their home state offers lax norms for minority-investor protection or creditor-friendly rules for veil piercing. In addition to contributing to the debate on regulatory competition in the law, this paper has implications for theoretical debates pertaining to choice of law in veil-piercing cases, the role of default rules, and the relationship between corporations and LLCs.
SUMMARY
The issue of free entrance is debated in many countries. We investigate changes in visitor composition associated with an introduction of an entrance fee to a state funded museum, and the ...validity of the Contingent Valuation (CV) method. We conducted two surveys to collect information about the visitors' socio‐economic backgrounds, one before and one after the fee was in effect. While entrance was still free, we also asked visitors about their willingness to pay for a visit, using the CV method. We then compare the results of the CV survey with the actual change in visitor composition caused by the fee. We thus have a unique opportunity to test the validity of the CV, which, as far as we know, has never been done in a similar way before. The results of the CV indicate that several target group visitors are less likely to visit the museum after an implementation of a relatively low fee. Consequently, charging for entrance does affect who visits the museum. The validity test of the CV method shows that a majority of the changes in visitor composition were correctly predicted. We conclude that the CV method is particularly successful when applied on goods familiar to the respondents.
Objective: Although Australia and the UK have both made efforts to systematize outcome measurement in mental health services, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how best to analyse ...routine outcome data in order to determine how services are performing.
Methods: Outcome data collected in acute inpatient and ambulatory mental health services across Australia during the 2006–2007 financial year were used. three approaches to measuring effectiveness were explored: effect size (ES); the reliable change index (RCI); and standard error of measurement (SEM).
Results: The most conservative results were produced by the RCI and the least conservative by the medium ES statistic and the SEM. By way of example, only 38.0% of inpatient admission–discharge periods of care showed significant improvement for adults when the RCI was used, whereas 67.4% and 72.9% did so when the medium ES and the SEM statistics were used, respectively.
Conclusions: In any routine outcome measurement exercise, the degree of effectiveness demonstrated by services will depend on the specific statistical indicator used to judge effectiveness. Routine outcome measurement has the potential to answer a range of crucial performance-related questions, but only if the same metric is used. Discussion of the appropriate statistical approach to take to facilitate cross-service, cross-area and even cross-national comparisons warrants attention.
Organizational form and output quality Dubrovinsky, Mati; Winter, Ralph A.
The Canadian journal of economics,
February/Février 2015, Letnik:
48, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper re-examines the relationship between a firm's organizational form, not-for-profit versus for-profit, and its output quality. The Arrow-Hansmann theory of hidden action on the part of ...providers predicts higher quality for not-for-profit suppliers. This prediction has a puzzling lack of support in the empirical literature. We propose a theory that resolves the empirical puzzle and generates additional testable implications. The theory starts with the traditional assumptions of hidden action and supplier altruism. It then incorporates two additional features of real-world markets: hidden information on supplier ability to provide high quality and a variation across buyers in the degree of informational asymmetry. The central prediction of the theory is that quality has a higher variance across for-profits than across not-for-profits. Preliminary evidence from the US market for hospital care is consistent with this prediction. Ce texte réexamine la relation entre la forme organisationnelle de la firme (à but lucratif versus à but non lucratif) et la qualité de son extrant. La théorie Arrow-Hansmann de l'action cachée de la part des fournisseurs prédit une qualité plus grande pour l'extrant des offreurs sans but lucratif. Cette conjecture a reçu un manque déconcertant de support dans la littérature empirique. Les auteurs proposent une théorie qui à la fois résout l'énigme et engendre des implications qu'on peut mettre à l'épreuve. La théorie part des postulats traditionnels d'action cachée et d'altruisme de l'offreur. On incorpore deux éléments supplémentaires des marchés dans le monde réel : d'une part, l'information cachée à propos de la capacité de l'offreur à fournir un extrant de haute qualité, et, d'autre part, une variation dans l'éventail des acheteurs du degré d'asymétrie informationnelle. La prédiction centrale de la théorie est que la variation de la qualité est plus grande pour les firmes à but lucratif que pour les firmes à but non lucratif. Des résultats préliminaires pour les marchés américains de soins hospitaliers supportent cette conjecture.
This article introduces the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) bootstrap procedure to analyze the technical efficiency of Brazilian first league football clubs. For comparison purpose the study also ...estimates the efficiency scores with the traditional DEA model. From the results, it is clear that there is a significant difference between the efficiency scores derived from the traditional DEA and the bootstrap DEA models. In terms of the average performance of the Brazilian league, both methods indicate that the Brazilian clubs operate at a high level of inefficiency. Factors that contributed to these results as well as other policy implications are provided.
This article demonstrates the value of a trait-based approach to studying technology adoption, by empirically analyzing how the valuation of technological traits may depend on factors beyond standard ...price considerations. We estimate a model of willingness to pay for risk-reducing technological traits and examine how this might vary depending on how the trait is offered to farmers, on the combination of risk reduction with other traits, and on farmers' heterogeneous tastes and perceptions about pecuniary and non-pecuniary advantages of the traits. As seed technologies are increasingly differentiated, the options for purchasing a seed that reduces farmers' yield risk are broader. We study two of these options in an ex ante framework, where farmers can purchase a drought-tolerance (DT) trait that is embedded in the seed-which is itself differentiated according to whether the seed is genetically modified or not-and/or a yield warranty that is bundled with the seed, which provides the same degree of yield insurance. Reprinted by permission of the American Agricultural Economics Association
PDF
