Tracking the Trends in Inventory Management in the Automobile Manufacturing Industry Throughout the Business Cycle

This paper investigates the trends in inventory management in the automobile manufacturing industry during recessionary vs. non-recessionary periods. It is an empirical approach to testing the validity of the hypothesis that firms which carry leaner inventories perform better throughout the business cycle and are less affected by variability in the economy than less lean firms. The research also hopes to shed some light on how firm's financial statements can be manipulated through discretionary adjustments made by management pertaining to the valuation of inventories.

The State of the University of Connecticut Health Center

Academic medical centers represent the integration of education, namely schools of medicine and dental medicine, research, often through a biomedical sciences graduate program, and a clinical experience, often supplied with an onsite hospital. These medical centers involve an intricate mix of individuals and personalities, making their operation a difficult and sometimes daunting task. The University of Connecticut Health Center (UCHC) financial struggles have created a new opportunity, an affiliation with Hartford Healthcare, which will equip the UCHC with a major tertiary care University Hospital. This thesis intends to provide an analysis of the challenges and potential benefits of such a partnership. It is focused on the impact to the medical school’s academic mission and involves a comprehensive look at John Dempsey Hospital (JDH) finances, governance, and employee matters. The research concludes that such an affiliation is necessary to change the healthcare landscape of the region and transform the UCHC into a top medical driver of the Connecticut economy. It intends to show how the status quo is no longer an acceptable option.

Achieving Universal Primary Education: Can Kenya Afford it?

Kenya has experienced a rapid expansion of the education system partly due to high government expenditure on education. Despite the high level of expenditure on education, primary school enrolment has been declining since early 1990s and until 2003 when gross primary school enrolment increased to 104 percent after the introduction of free primary education. However, with an estimated net primary school enrolment rate of 77 percent, the country is far from achieving universal primary education. The worrying scenario is that the allocations of resources within the education sector seems to be ineffective as the increasing expenditure on education goes to recurrent expenditure (to pay teachers salaries). Kenya's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and the Economic Recovery Strategy for wealth and Employment Creation (ERS) outlines education targets of reaching universal primary education by 2015. The Government is faced with budget constrains and therefore the available resources need to be allocated efficiently in order to realize the education targets. The paper uses Budget Negotiation Framework (BNF) to analyze the cost effective ways of resource allocation in the primary education sector to achieve universal primary education and other education targets. Budget Negotiation Framework is a tool that aims at achieving equity and efficiency in resource allocation. Results from the analysis shows that universal primary education by the year 2015 is a feasible target for Kenya. The results also show that with a more cost- effective spending of education resources - increased trained teachers, enhanced textbook supplies and subsidies targeting the poor - the country could realize higher enrolment rates than what has been achieved with free primary education.

Corporate Tax Avoidance and High Powered Incentives

This paper analyzes the links between corporate tax avoidance, the growth of highpowered incentives for managers, and the structure of corporate governance. We develop and test a simple model that highlights the role of complementarities between tax sheltering and managerial diversion in determining how high-powered incentives influence tax sheltering decisions. The model generates the testable hypothesis that firm governance characteristics determine how incentive compensation changes sheltering decisions. In order to test the model, we construct an empirical measure of corporate tax avoidance - the component of the book-tax gap not attributable to accounting accruals - and investigate the link between this measure of tax avoidance and incentive compensation. We find that, for the full sample of firms, increases in incentive compensation tend to reduce the level of tax sheltering, suggesting a complementary relationship between diversion and sheltering. As predicted by the model, the relationship between incentive compensation and tax sheltering is a function of a firm.s corporate governance. Our results may help explain the growing cross-sectional variation among firms in their levels of tax avoidance, the .undersheltering puzzle,. and why large book-tax gaps are associated with subsequent negative abnormal returns.