democracy visibility and public good provision we examine the role of visibility in influencing government resource allocation across a multiplicity of public goods we show that a visibility effect distorts governmental resource allocation such that it helps explain why governments neglect provision of essential public goods despite their considerable benefits we show that greater democratization widens the gap in resource allocation between more visible such as famine prevention versus less visible such as malnutrition prevention public goods up to an intermediate level of democracy beyond this level this gap decreases furthermore public goods with low visibility are prone to multiple equilibria in resource allocation with voter expectations being shown to be important

democracy and human capital formation education spending in latin america 1980 to 1997 this article examines the relationship between democratic representation and spending on education in latin america the authors assess the impact that democracy has on the distribution of resources between different levels of schooling and on total spending on education specifically they test whether democratic governments allocate a greater share of resources to primary education the level that benefits the largest segment of the electorate and that is most critical for human capital formation in developing countries using time series cross sectional analysis the authors find that democracies devote a higher percentage of their educational resources to primary education and that they maintain higher absolute spending levels on education in the aggregate thereby enhancing the prospects of human capital formation

pressure groups and redistribution abstract the simple pressure group model of political redistribution can predict more with less restrictive assumptions instead of ready made pressure groups composed of individuals who vote their pocketbooks we posit heterogeneous agents each of whom decides which group to join and how much effort to expend on political activity our model then examines social affinity conditions that foster pressure group formation political sympathies based on social affinity imply testable effects of growth rate and income distribution on progressive transfers effects that prove substantial in pooled time series cross section regressions for 13 oecd countries 1960 1981

vive la difference social banks and reciprocity in the credit market social banks are financial intermediaries paying attention to non economic i e social ethical and environmental criteria to investigate the behavior of social banks on the credit market this paper proposes both theory and empirics our theoretical model rationalizes the idea that reciprocity can generate better repayment performances based on a unique hand collected dataset released by a french social bank our empirical results are twofold first we show that the bank charges below market interest rates for social projects second regardless of their creditworthiness motivated borrowers respond to advantageous credit terms by significantly lowering their probability of default we interpret this outcome as the first evidence of reciprocity in the credit market

price movements and price discovery in futures and cash markets r isk transfer and price discovery are two of the major contributions of futures markets to the organization of economic activity working 1962 evans 1978 p 80 and silber 1981 risk transfer refers to hedgers using futures contracts to shift price risk to others price discovery refers to the use of futures prices for pricing cash market transactions working 1948 wiese 1978 p 87 and lake 1978 p 161 the significance of both contributions depends upon a close relationship between the prices of futures contracts and cash commodities this paper examines the characteristics of price movements in cash or spot markets and futures markets for storable commodities section ii presents an analytical model of simultaneous price dynamics which suggests that over short intervals of time the correlation of price changes is a function of the elasticity of arbitrage between the physical commodity and its counterpart futures contract greater elasticity fosters more highly correlated price changes and thereby facilitates the risk transfer function the elasticity of supply of arbitrage services is constrained by among other things storage and transaction costs thus futures contracts will not in general provide perfect risk transfer facilities over short time horizons the essence of the price discovery function of futures markets hinges on whether new information is reflected first in changed futures prices or in changed cash prices hoffman 1932 pp 258259 the model in section ii provides a framework for analyzing whether one market is dominant in terms of information flows and price discovery in section iii we develop a model based on section ii which is appropriate for estimating the lead lag relationship between cash prices and futures prices section iv presents empirical estimates of the parameters of the model for seven different storable commodities wheat corn oats frozen orange juice concentrates copper gold and silver the cost of arbitrage between cash and futures differs across these commodities for this reason we are not surprised to find inter commodity differences in the correlation of short run price changes and in the substitutability of futures contracts for cash market positions with respect to the price discovery function of futures markets we find that while futures markets dominate cash markets cash prices do not merely echo futures prices there are reverse information flows from cash markets to futures markets as well

price and quantity endogeneity in demand analysis evidence from directed acyclic graphs we propose to use the emerging method of directed graphs to study price quantity endogeneity issues in empirical demand analysis the approach is illustrated through the examination of u s meat consumption we find that for two major meat products beef and poultry retail prices contemporaneously caused quantities consumed thus were predetermined in contrast the quantity consumed of pork appeared to be predetermined relative to its price

some models for estimating technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis in management contexts mathematical programming is usually used to evaluate a collection of possible alternative courses of action en route to selecting one which is best in this capacity mathematical programming serves as a planning aid to management data envelopment analysis reverses this role and employs mathematical programming to obtain ex post facto evaluations of the relative efficiency of management accomplishments however they may have been planned or executed mathematical programming is thereby extended for use as a tool for control and evaluation of past accomplishments as well as a tool to aid in planning future activities the ccr ratio form introduced by charnes cooper and rhodes as part of their data envelopment analysis approach comprehends both technical and scale inefficiencies via the optimal value of the ratio form as obtained directly from the data without requiring a priori specification of weights and or explicit delineation of assumed functional forms of relations between inputs and outputs a separation into technical and scale efficiencies is accomplished by the methods developed in this paper without altering the latter conditions for use of dea directly on observational data technical inefficiencies are identified with failures to achieve best possible output levels and or usage of excessive amounts of inputs methods for identifying and correcting the magnitudes of these inefficiencies as supplied in prior work are illustrated in the present paper a new separate variable is introduced which makes it possible to determine whether operations were conducted in regions of increasing constant or decreasing returns to scale in multiple input and multiple output situations the results are discussed and related not only to classical single output economics but also to more modern versions of economics which are identified with contestable market theories

basic health care provision and under 5 mortality a cross national study of developing countries summary in two cross sections of developing countries under 5 mortality is found to be associated strongly with maternal and infant health program effort and with the share of births attended by trained personnel but never with any indicator of health care spending from the standpoint of reducing under 5 mortality then the main challenge in many developing countries may be less to raise overall public health spending or even the share of public health spending devoted to basic services than to assure that a very small absolute amount of revenue is spent effectively to raise access to or improve the quality of maternal and infant health care

impacts of instrumental versus relational centered logic on cause related marketing decision making the purpose of cause related marketing is to capitalise on a firm s social engagement initiatives to achieve a positive return on a firm s social investment this article discusses two strategic perspectives of cause related marketing and their impact on a firm s decision making regarding campaign development the instrumental dominant logic of cause related marketing focuses on attracting customers attention in order to generate sales the relational dominant logic of cause related marketing focuses on building relationships with the target stakeholders through the enhancement of a firm s legitimacy the combination of these two types of logic gives rise to four types of cause related marketing altruistic commercial social and integrative this paper uses the qualitative method to explore a firm s marketing decision choices regarding campaign related decision dimensions campaign duration geographical scope cause selection and implementation strategy for each type of cause related marketing the finding provides theoretical managerial and public policy implications

social policy and mortality decline in east asia and latin america abstract since 1960 chile and costa rica have improved life expectancy and infant survival as much as south korea and taiwan despite growing more slowly suffering more income poverty and having more unequally distributed incomes this paper analyzes the origins and impact of the publicly funded social services that allowed chile and costa rica to achieve rapid reductions in the risk of early death despite relatively poor performance on income related indicators and explores how south korea and taiwan managed to achieve similar progress at reducing premature mortality despite making less deliberate efforts to fund social services for the poor

who is at the wheel when communities drive development evidence from the philippines summary community driven development cdd approaches have become an important part of development operations using data from 1 200 households in 66 communities participating in a cdd project in the philippines we analyze how communities select their proposals and how resources are allocated across villages resources flow to the poorest and more politically active villages controlling for poverty more unequal villages are more likely to receive funding this surprising result is because in more unequal villages the elected village leader is more likely to override community preferences and to influence inter village competition such that project resources flow to their villages

can mergers ensure the survival of credit unions in the third millennium abstract the survival of small financial institutions in the third millennium depends on their competitiveness against large bank rivals accordingly credit unions in australia and the united states have attempted to increase efficiency through mergers our paper uses the data envelopment analysis methodology to evaluate the post merger gains in technical and scale efficiency achieved by 31 australian credit union mergers in 1993 1994 and 1994 1995 relative to non merging credit unions when compared with the only us study of credit union mergers journal of banking finance 23 1999 367 386 our findings suggests that mergers are not associated with improvements in efficiency superior to those achieved by internal growth

corporate social responsibility theories mapping the territory the corporate social responsibility csr field presents not only a landscape of theories but also a proliferation of approaches which are controversial complex and unclear this article tries to clarify the sit uation mapping the territory by classifying the main csr theories and related approaches in four groups 1 instrumental theories in which the corporation is seen as only an instrument for wealth creation and its social activities are only a means to achieve economic results 2 political theories which concern themselves with the power of corporations in society and a responsible use of this power in the political arena 3 integrative theories in which the corporation is focused on the satisfaction of social demands and 4 ethical theories based on ethical responsibilities of corporations to society in practice each csr theory presents four dimensions related to profits political performance social demands and ethical values the findings suggest the necessity to develop a new theory on the business and society relationship which should integrate these four dimensions

how well have social economy financial institutions performed during the crisis period exploring financial and social efficiency in spanish credit unions as social economy financial institutions credit unions have traditionally been considered less efficient than traditional banking entities however like banks and savings banks they have to be as efficient and competitive as possible to survive in today s business environment especially at times of crisis to date there have been very few studies on their efficiency and practically none for the crisis period moreover almost all the existing studies assess only financial efficiency without considering their social function this study examines the levels of both financial and social efficiency in spanish credit unions as well as their main determinants during the recent crisis we apply the two stage double bootstrap data envelopment analysis dea methodology based on panel data corresponding to all the credit unions active in spain between 2008 and 2013 the empirical results indicate that financial and social efficiency achieved an acceptable level although on average the former was slightly greater than the latter we also find that both age and merger and acquisition activity were positively influential on the financial efficiency of credit unions but had a significant negative effect on their social efficiency moreover the regional location of such entities and the financial crisis were also crucial determinants of both types of efficiency our findings are therefore useful for all the stakeholders of credit unions to know if these entities have been efficient according to a double bottom line accounting in the crisis period and hence to maintain successful social management that is compatible with satisfactory financial efficiency

randomized evaluations of educational programs in developing countries some lessons this paper reviews recent randomized evaluations of educational programs in developing countries including programs to increase school participation to provide educational inputs and to reform education it then extracts some lessons for education policy and for the practice and political economy of randomized evaluations

a study of bank efficiency taking into account risk preferences abstract i use the stochastic cost frontier approach to investigate efficiency of banks operating in the third federal reserve district accounting for the quality and riskiness of bank output in addition to the mean and mode of the conditional distribution of the one sided error term i calculate confidence intervals for the inefficiency measures based on the conditional distribution the results indicate that third district banks are operating at cost efficient output levels and product mixes but are not efficiently using their inputs the second part of the article relates the inefficiency measures to several correlates

financial sustainability and poverty outreach within a network of village banks in cameroon a multi dea approach abstract microfinance institutions face a double bottom line they perform financial tasks by giving microcredits to their customers and support projects aiming at reducing poverty in doing so they have to be financially self sufficient and to target poor people excluded from the traditional financial systems however a trade off may exist between financial sustainability and poverty outreach for these institutions by using a multi dea approach this paper shows that even if a trade off exists for 15 of the mc 2 mutuelles communautaires de croissance in cameroon there is no trade off for 46 of them in order to increase without trade off financial and social performance of inefficient mc 2 a benchmarking approach combing dea and performance indicators has been developed dea is used for identifying best practices and setting benchmarking goals performance indicators are used for characterizing areas needing improvements and following the evolution of mc 2 toward their goals i e for implementing benchmarking complementarity of both approaches provides a tool box for improving financial and social efficiency and reducing the trade off between financial sustainability and poverty outreach of microfinance institutions

stakeholders matter how social enterprises address mission drift this study explores social enterprises strategies for addressing mission drift relying on an inductive comparative case study of two italian social enterprises we show how stakeholder engagement combined with social accounting can successfully support a social venture to re balance its positioning between wealth generation and social value creation indeed stakeholder engagement helps the internal actors of a social enterprise to rationalize and embody pro social values previously abandoned while social accounting reinforces this embodiment process by showing the reintroduced social commitment of the social enterprise to external audiences conversely strategies focused only on social accounting and without significant engagement of external stakeholders prove to be unsuccessful in counterbalancing mission drift because they fail to activate the necessary process of internal re introduction and operationalization of pro social values and objectives

does the median voter model explain the size of government evidence from the states despite an attempt by its own authors it is difficult to argue that the influential model of the size of government developed by meltzer and richard 1981 has had convincing empirical backing in this paper we adapt that model to a model of state government size the main testable hypothesis is that as income inequality grows government size as measured by the percentage of income devoted to government redistribution grows we test the model using panel data from the us states from 1979 1991 in contrast to the results found by meltzer and richard 1983 we find little evidence to support the model the results are robust to several model specifications and estimation techniques

the political economy of growth democracy and human capital democracy is more than just another brake or booster for the economy we argue that there are significant indirect effects of democracy on growth through public health and education where economists use life expectancy and education as proxies for human capital we expect democracy will be an important determinant of the level of public services manifested in these indicators in addition to whatever direct effect democracy may have on growth we predict an important indirect effect through public policies that condition the level of human capital in different societies we conduct statistical investigations into the direct and indirect effects of democracy on growth using a data set consisting of a 30 year panel of 128 countries we find that democracy has no statistically significant direct effect on growth rather we discover that the effect of democracy is largely indirect through increased life expectancy in poor countries and increased secondary education in nonpoor countries t he relationship between democracy and economic growth has received considerable attention in recent years as yet however there is no consensus among analysts on the relationship between these two widely studied variables sound theoretical positions have been advanced suggesting that democracy is both an impediment and facilitator of growth careful quantitative tests of the relationship have produced contradictory results in our view existing studies fail to develop an adequate political theory of growth and as a result their empirical models are typically misspecified with competing arguments on both sides of the question many analysts merely add a variable for democracy to existing economic models and then look at the sign of the coefficient and its significance this is inadequate democracy is more than just another brake or booster for the economy we argue that there are important indirect effects of democracy on growth that are manifested through public health and education where economists typically use life expectancy and secondary school enrollment as proxies for human capital we expect that democracy will itself be an important determinant of the level of public services captured in these indicators thus in

social enterprises and the performance advantages of a vincentian marketing orientation this study focuses on the managerial issue of should social enterprises ses become more marketing oriented it adapts the kohli et al j mark res 30 467 477 1993 markor marketing orientation scale to measure the adoption of marketing by ses the items capture vincentian based values to leverage business in service to the poor as a measure of a vincentian marketing orientation vmo a vmo is an organisational wide value driven philosophy of management that focuses a se on meeting its objectives by adopting a more marketing orientated approach to serve the needy and poor in a just and sustainable manner ses that exhibit a vmo seek to understand and respond to both the needs of their beneficiaries and stakeholders they are constantly generating disseminating and responding to environmental beneficiary and stakeholder information and develop their business propositions to more effectively and efficiently meet the needs of the poor while guided by a philosophy of leveraging business for social good this study of ses in australia found that a vmo is strongly and positively correlated with social economic and environmental performance these findings suggest that ses may benefit by leveraging marketing capabilities to better serve their beneficiaries and stakeholders

poverty reduction without economic growth explaining brazil s poverty dynamics 1985 2004 brazil s slow pace of poverty reduction over the last two decades reflects both low growth and a low growth elasticity of poverty reduction using gdp data disaggregated by state and sector for a twenty year period this paper finds considerable variation in the poverty reducing effectiveness of growth across sectors across space and over time growth in the services sector was substantially more poverty reducing than was growth in either agriculture or industry growth in industry had very different effects on poverty across different states and its impact varied with initial conditions related to human development and worker empowerment the determinants of poverty reduction changed around 1994 positive growth rates and a greater absolute elasticity with respect to agricultural growth contributed to faster poverty reduction but because there was so little of it economic growth played a relatively small role in accounting for brazil s poverty reduction between 1985 and 2004 the taming of hyperinflation in 1994 and substantial expansions in social security and social assistance transfers beginning in 1988 accounted for a larger share of the overall reduction in poverty

assessing the role of futures position substitutability in a monthly slaughtered pork factor demand by us processors a cointegrated var model approach abstractthis article combines cointegrated var modelling with basic neoclassical production microeconomics in a new way that tests for and illuminates the empirical nature of the monthly us pork processing sector s factor demand for slaughtered pork statistical evidence strongly suggests that the us pork processing sector has a hicksian cobb douglas slaughtered pork demand that arises from applying shephard s lemma to the sector s cost function and that us pork processors treat slaughtered pork and related futures positions as close factor substitutes in the wake of major and ongoing futures market events and trends this study establishes and statistically tests a theoretical link between futures price movements and impacts on the underlying slaughtered pork market through monthly formation of us pork processors factor demand for slaughtered pork evidence suggests that demand agents shift between demands for the two substitutes based on movements in the slaughter futures price ratio that results in

voice votes and resources evaluating the effect of participatory democracy on well being summary participatory governance is said to enhance governance citizens empowerment and the quality of democracy creating a virtuous cycle to improve the well being of the poor however there is limited empirical evidence for this relationship drawing from an original database of brazil s 220 largest cities we assess whether the adoption of a participatory budgeting pb program is associated with changes in social spending or changes in several indicators of well being we find that pb municipalities spend a slightly higher share of their budget on health and education programs but there is little evidence that this shift in budget priorities affects measurable outcomes

ownership and technical efficiency of microfinance institutions empirical evidence from latin america by using stochastic frontier analysis this article examines the technical efficiency of different types of microfinance institutions in latin america in particular it tests whether differences in technical efficiency both intra and interfirm can be explained by differences in ownership with a focus on non governmental organizations cooperatives and credit unions non bank financial intermediaries and banks the data set contains 1681 observations from a panel of 315 institutions operating in 18 latin american countries the results show that non governmental organizations and cooperatives have much lower interfirm and intrafirm technical efficiencies than non bank financial intermediaries and banks which indicates the importance of ownership type for technical efficiency

is democracy good for the poor many scholars claim that democracy improves the welfare of the poor this article uses data on infant and child mortality to challenge this claim cross national studies tend to exclude from their samples nondemocratic states that have performed well this leads to the mistaken inference that nondemocracies have worse records than democracies once these and other flaws are corrected democracy has little or no effect on infant and child mortality rates democracies spend more money on education and health than nondemocracies but these benefits seem to accrue to middle and upper income groups

how democracy affects growth abstract this paper introduces a new methodology to examine the empirical relationship between democracy and economic growth democratic institutions are assumed to affect growth through a series of channels we specify and estimate a full system of equations determining growth and the channel variables results suggest that democracy fosters growth by improving the accumulation of human capital and less robustly by lowering income inequality on the other hand democracy hinders growth by reducing the rate of physical capital accumulation and less robustly by raising the ratio of government consumption to gdp once all of these indirect effects are accounted for the overall effect of democracy on economic growth is moderately negative our results indicate that democratic institutions are responsive to the demands of the poor by expanding access to education and lowering income inequality but do so at the expense of physical capital accumulation

local capture evidence from a central government transfer program in uganda according to official statistics 20 percent of uganda s total public expenditure was spent on education in the mid 1990s most of it on primary education one of the large public programs was a capitation grant to cover schools nonwage expenditures using panel data from a unique survey of primary schools we assess the extent to which the grant actually reached the intended end user schools the survey data reveal that during 1991 1995 the schools on average received only 13 percent of the grants most schools received nothing the bulk of the school grant was captured by local officials and politicians the data also reveal considerable variation in grants received across schools suggesting that rather than being passive recipients of flows from the government schools use their bargaining power to secure greater shares of funding we find that schools in better off communities managed to claim a higher share of their entitlements as a result actual education spending in contrast to budget allocations is regressive similar surveys in other african countries confirm that uganda is not a special case

monetary transmission mechanisms in spain the effect of monetization financial deregulation and the ems the paper presents a cointegrated var analysis of monetary transmission mechanisms and changes in them after spain joined the ems in 1989 analyses of long run price homogeneity within the i 2 model turned out to be crucial for understanding the joint behavior of money income and prices the empirical findings point to real monetization effects in the pre ems period and the crucial role of shocks to nominal interest rates in particular to the long term bond rate in addition the paper provides further insights on the macroeconomic effects of joining the ems and financial deregulation the increased economic integration within the eu is shown to have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the conventional is lm transmission mechanism and led to decreased effectiveness of monetary policy

an analysis of cause related marketing implementation strategies through social alliance partnership conditions and strategic objectives cause related marketing crm is an effective marketing tool for promoting corporate social responsibility csr activities and the bulk of campaigns are designed and delivered through collaborative social alliances with non profit organisations npos the authors seek to uncover some of the factors that explain how firms and npos choose their potential partners in the development of their crm strategy the rationales for the observed patterns are investigated through semi structured interviews conducted with managers employed by the uk based firms and npos the authors find that each party has specific preferences when choosing the particular crm implementation strategies in different situations as well as different initial positions when negotiating the formation of the social alliance this article contributes to our understanding of the crm implementation strategies and both the company s and the npo s behaviours toward each of the strategies

the effects of capital mobility trade openness and democracy on social spending in latin america 1980 1999 empirical studies measuring the impact of globalization on social spending have appeared recently in leading journals this study seeks to improve upon previous work by 1 employing a more sophisticated and comprehensive measure of financial openness 2 using a more accurate measure of trade openness based on purchasing power parities and 3 relying on social spending data that are more complete than those used by previous studies on latin america our estimates suggest that several empirical patterns reported in previous work deserve a second look we find that trade openness has a positive association with education and social security expenditures that financial openness does not constrain government outlays for social programs and that democracy has a strong positive association with social spending particularly on items that bolster human capital formation t he international integration of markets for goods and services over the past two decades is unprecedented amidst a broader context of international integration latin america has experienced the most dramatic change in its economic policy orientation since world war ii few regions have undergone as rapid and thorough an economic transformation how has economic integration affected the social welfare policies of latin american governments has it forced them to reduce spending on social programs in order to compete in the world economy or has it induced them to provide social safety nets for those hurt by economic competition has democratization in latin america compelled governments to spend more on social programs in relatively open economies

improving social well being through new democratic institutions we evaluate the role of a new type of democratic institution participatory budgeting pb for improving citizens well being participatory institutions are said to enhance governance citizens empowerment and the quality of democracy creating a virtuous cycle to improve the poor s well being drawing from an original database of brazil s largest cities over the last 20 years we assess whether adopting pb programs influences several indicators of well being inputs processes and outcomes we find pb programs are strongly associated with increases in health care spending increases in civil society organizations and decreases in infant mortality rates this connection strengthens dramatically as pb programs remain in place over longer time frames furthermore pb s connection to well being strengthens in the hand of mayors from the nationally powerful ideologically and electorally motivated workers party our argument directly addresses debates on democracy and well being and has powerful implications for participation governance and economic development

a credit score system for socially responsible lending ethical banking microfinance institutions or certain credit cooperatives among others grant socially responsible loans this paper presents a credit score system for them the model evaluates social and financial aspects of the borrower the financial aspects are evaluated under the conventional banking framework by analysing accounting statements and financial projections the social aspects try to quantify the loan impact on the achievement of millennium development goals such as employment education environment health or community impact the social credit score model should incorporate the lender s know how and should also be coherent with its mission this is done using multi criteria decision making mcdm the paper illustrates a real case a loan application by a social entrepreneur presented to a socially responsible lender the decision support system not only produces a score but also reveals strengths and weaknesses of the application

social alliance and employee voluntary activities a resource based perspective the corporate social responsibility literature devotes relatively little attention to the strategic role played by employee voluntary activities evas in social alliances using the resource based perspective of the organization to frame the data collection and the analyses this article investigates 1 the role of evas in the development of corporate and non profit organizations npos competitive assets and 2 the management approaches to how both parties can develop their own resources by combining them with the shared resources with the purpose of enhancing its competitive advantage in its own sector the database is composed of 70 specifically designed interviews with managers of uk based firms and npos the analyses suggest among other things that the majority of corporate and non profit managers find that evas generate substantial tangible and intangible benefits for their respective organisations creating genuine synergies we also find evidence of a general preference for the management approaches of such programmes in both types of organisation

economy of mutuality merging financial and social sustainability the article posits the concept of economy of mutuality as an intellectual mediation space for shifts in emphasis between market and social structures within economic theory and practice economy of mutuality it is contended provides an alternative frame of reference to the dichotomy of market economy and social economy for inquiry about what business is for and what values it presupposes and creates the article centers around the objective of gaining a broadened understanding of business so as to include not just market economy but social enterprise and social economy in pursuit of this objective a range of various archetypes of business enterprise are considered in light of higher ends of economic life the highest telos of business encompassing all such archetypes it is argued is founded on reciprocity and integral human development the article concludes that compared to market economy per se economy of mutuality provides a better conceptual framework for business in undertaking the challenges of sustainability

mismanagement or mismeasurement pitfalls and protocols for dea studies in the financial services sector abstract dyson et al dyson r g allen r camanho a s podinovski v v sarrico c s shale e a 2001 pitfalls and protocols in dea european journal of operational research 132 245 259 suggest that the application of dea presents a range of problems and they suggest that the systematic collection and reporting of these problems would significantly enhance dea practice it is widely accepted that dea studies may be compromised by the problem of data heterogeneity while this problem is expected in studies that cross national boundaries it may also arise in studies for a single country there can for example be significant market and regulatory differences between regions within a single country using a sample of australian credit unions this paper demonstrates the pitfalls and protocols of using dea it is intended that the guidelines provided in this study will enhance dea practice in the financial services sector

simultaneity and structural change in u s meat demand an inverse of the almost ideal demand system the iaids is developed in order to test the endogeneity of prices and quantities in the u s meat demand system the iaids has all the desirable theoretical properties of the aids except aggregation from the micro to the market level using annual data both prices and quantities appear to be endogenous within the entire meat market including livestock production costs and technical change indicators as instruments eliminates evidence of a mid 1970s demand change

do gasoline prices respond asymmetrically to crude oil price changes the authors test and confirm that retail gasoline prices respond more quickly to increases than to decreases in crude oil prices among the possible sources of this asymmetry are production inventory adjustment lags and market power of some sellers by analyzing price transmission at different points in the distribution chain the authors attempt to shed light on these theories spot prices for generic gasoline show asymmetry in responding to crude oil price changes which may reflect inventory adjustment effects asymmetry also appears in the response of retail prices to wholesale price changes possibly indicating short run market power among retailers

evaluating the performance of us credit unions credit unions are small cooperative not for profit institutions which distinguishes them from other financial intermediaries in this study we conduct a performance evaluation of credit unions the criteria respect the unique organizational and institutional features of credit unions without losing sight of the fact that they must compete with other financial intermediaries we use nonparametric nonstochastic techniques to measure performance and we use parametric stochastic techniques to attribute performance variation to features of credit unions and their operating environment our sample consists of two thirds of all active credit unions in 1990