Intertemporal Social Evaluation

Intertemporal social-evaluation rules provide us with social criteria that can be used to assess the relative desirability of utility distributions across generations. The trade-offs between the well-being of different generations implicit in each such rule reflect the underlying ethical position on issues of intergenerational equity or justice. We employ an axiomatic approach in order to identify ethically attractive socialevaluation procedures. In particular, we explore the possibilities of using welfare information and non-welfare information in a model of intertemporal social evaluation. We focus on the individuals’ birth dates and lengths of life as the relevant non-welfare information. As usual, welfare information is given by lifetime utilities. It is assumed that this information is available for each alternative to be ranked. Various weakenings of the Pareto principle are employed in order to allow birth dates or lengths of life (or both) to matter in social evaluation. In addition, we impose standard properties such as continuity and anonymity and we examine the consequences of an intertemporal independence property. For each of the Pareto conditions employed, we characterize all social-evaluation rules satisfying it and our other axioms. The resulting rules are birth-date dependent or lifetime-dependent versions of generalized utilitarianism. Furthermore, we discuss the ethical and axiomatic foundations of geometric discounting in the context of our model.

Consistent House Allocation

In practice we often face the problem of assigning indivisible objects (e.g., schools, housing, jobs, offices) to agents (e.g., students, homeless, workers, professors) when monetary compensations are not possible. We show that a rule that satisfies consistency, strategy-proofness, and efficiency must be an efficient generalized priority rule; i.e. it must adapt to an acyclic priority structure, except -maybe- for up to three agents in each object's priority ordering.

Social Choice: Recent Developments

In the past quarter century, there has been a dramatic shift of focus in social choice theory, with structured sets of alternatives and restricted domains of the sort encountered in economic problems coming to the fore. This article provides an overview of some of the recent contributions to four topics in normative social choice theory in which economic modelling has played a prominent role: Arrovian social choice theory on economic domains, variable-population social choice, strategy-proof social choice, and axiomatic models of resource allocation.

Consistent Relations

Consistency, a natural weakening of transitivity introduced in a seminal contribution by Suzumura (1976b), has turned out to be an interesting and promising concept in a variety of areas within economic theory. This paper summarizes its recent applications and provides some new observations in welfarist social choice and in population ethics. In particular, it is shown that the conclusion of the welfarism theorem remains true if transitivity is replaced by consistency and that an impossibility result in variable-population social-choice theory turns into a possibility if transitivity is weakened to consistency.

A Mathematical Representation of "Excitement" in Games from the Viewpoint of a Neutral Audience

Researchers have long believed the concept of "excitement" in games to be subjective and difficult to measure. This paper presents the development of a mathematically computable index that measures this concept from the viewpoint of an audience. One of the key aspects of the index is the differential of the probability of "winning" before and after one specific "play" in a given game. If the probability of winning becomes very positive or negative by that play, then the audience will feel the game to be "exciting." The index makes a large contribution to the study of games and enables researchers to compare and analyze the "excitement" of various games. It may be applied to many fields especially the area of welfare economics, ranging from allocative efficiency to axioms of justice and equity.

A Mathematical Representation of "Excitement" in Games: A Contribution to the Theory of Game Systems

Researchers have long believed the concept of "excitement" in games to be subjective and difficult to measure. This paper presents the development of a mathematically computable index that measures the concept from the viewpoint of an audience and from that of a player. One of the key aspects of the index is the differential of the probability of "winning" before and after one specific "play" in a given game. The index makes a large contribution to the study of games and enables researchers to compare and analyze the “excitement” of various games. It may be applied in many fields, especially the area of welfare economics, and applications may range from those related to allocative efficiency to axioms of justice and equity.

Consumer-based brand equity conceptualisation and measurement: a literature review

Although there is a large body of research on brand equity, little in terms of a literature review has been published on this since Feldwick's (1996) paper. To address this gap, this paper brings together the scattered literature on consumer-based brand equity's conceptualisation and measurement. Measures of consumer-based brand equity are classified as either direct or indirect. Indirect measures assess consumer-based brand equity through its demonstrable dimensions and are superior from a diagnostic level. The paper concludes with directions for future research and managerial pointers for setting up a brand equity measurement system.

Social dimensions of economic development and productivity: inequality and social performance

Includes bibliography

Equity, foreign investment and international competitiveness

Includes bibliography

Income inequality and pecuniary crimes

This paper verifies the relationship between income inequality and pecuniary crimes. The elasticity of pecuniary crimes relative to inequality is 1.46, corroborating previous literature. Other factors important to decrease criminality are expanding job opportunities and a more efficient legal system, (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

What Kind of Justice Today ? Expectations Of 'Good Justice', Convergences And Divergences Between Managerial And Judicial Actors And How They Fit Within Management-Oriented Values

This research aims toward a better understanding of the organizational culture(s) of the judiciary in Switzerland by analysing what 'good justice' means nowadays in this country. It seeks to clarify whether, and to what extent, expectations of 'good justice' of judicial actors (judges without managerial experience) and of managerial actors (court managers) are similar and to describe possible managerial implications that may result from this. As judges are at the heart of the judicial organization and exert a strong influence on other groups of actors (Sullivan, Warren et al. 1994), the congruence of their expectations with those of court managers will be at the centre of the analysis. Additionally, referring to the conceptual worlds of Boltanski and Thévenaut (1991), we analyze how closely these expectations are to management-oriented values. We found that almost half of expectations are common to the two groups examined and the main quoted ones are compatible to new public management (NPM) concepts. On the other hand, those expectations shared exclusively by judges relate to the human side of justice, whereas those specific to court managers focus on the way justice functions.

Interrelation among Economic Growth, Income Inequality, and Fiscal Performance: Evidence from Anglo-Saxon Countries

The interrelation among economic growth, income inequality, and fiscal performance is very complex. The paper provides the analysis of the interrelations among these variables jointly by the structural VAR methodology, examining also transmission channels among them. This approach allows exploring dynamic interactions among them and feedback effects on each other. The empirical analysis is implemented for the Anglo-Saxon countries, the UK, the USA, and Canada. We find that income inequality has negative effect on economic growth in the case of the UK. The effect is positive in the cases of the USA and Canada. The increase in income inequality worsens fiscal performance for all the countries

R&D Performance Analysis: Case Studies on the Challenges and Promotion of the Evaluation and Measurement of R&D

Due to the intense international competition, demanding, and sophisticated customers, and diverse transforming technological change, organizations need to renew their products and services by allocating resources on research and development (R&D). Managing R&D is complex, but vital for many organizations to survive in the dynamic, turbulent environment. Thus, the increased interest among decision-makers towards finding the right performance measures for R&D is understandable. The measures or evaluation methods of R&D performance can be utilized for multiple purposes; for strategic control, for justifying the existence of R&D, for providing information and improving activities, as well as for the purposes of motivating and benchmarking. The earlier research in the field of R&D performance analysis has generally focused on either the activities and considerable factors and dimensions - e.g. strategic perspectives, purposes of measurement, levels of analysis, types of R&D or phases of R&D process - prior to the selection of R&Dperformance measures, or on proposed principles or actual implementation of theselection or design processes of R&D performance measures or measurement systems. This study aims at integrating the consideration of essential factors anddimensions of R&D performance analysis to developed selection processes of R&D measures, which have been applied in real-world organizations. The earlier models for corporate performance measurement that can be found in the literature, are to some extent adaptable also to the development of measurement systemsand selecting the measures in R&D activities. However, it is necessary to emphasize the special aspects related to the measurement of R&D performance in a way that make the development of new approaches for especially R&D performance measure selection necessary: First, the special characteristics of R&D - such as the long time lag between the inputs and outcomes, as well as the overall complexity and difficult coordination of activities - influence the R&D performance analysis problems, such as the need for more systematic, objective, balanced and multi-dimensional approaches for R&D measure selection, as well as the incompatibility of R&D measurement systems to other corporate measurement systems and vice versa. Secondly, the above-mentioned characteristics and challenges bring forth the significance of the influencing factors and dimensions that need to be recognized in order to derive the selection criteria for measures and choose the right R&D metrics, which is the most crucial step in the measurement system development process. The main purpose of this study is to support the management and control of the research and development activities of organizations by increasing the understanding of R&D performance analysis, clarifying the main factors related to the selection of R&D measures and by providing novel types of approaches and methods for systematizing the whole strategy- and business-based selection and development process of R&D indicators.The final aim of the research is to support the management in their decision making of R&D with suitable, systematically chosen measures or evaluation methods of R&D performance. Thus, the emphasis in most sub-areas of the present research has been on the promotion of the selection and development process of R&D indicators with the help of the different tools and decision support systems, i.e. the research has normative features through providing guidelines by novel types of approaches. The gathering of data and conducting case studies in metal and electronic industry companies, in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, and in non-profit organizations helped us to formulate a comprehensive picture of the main challenges of R&D performance analysis in different organizations, which is essential, as recognition of the most importantproblem areas is a very crucial element in the constructive research approach utilized in this study. Multiple practical benefits regarding the defined problemareas could be found in the various constructed approaches presented in this dissertation: 1) the selection of R&D measures became more systematic when compared to the empirical analysis, as it was common that there were no systematic approaches utilized in the studied organizations earlier; 2) the evaluation methods or measures of R&D chosen with the help of the developed approaches can be more directly utilized in the decision-making, because of the thorough consideration of the purpose of measurement, as well as other dimensions of measurement; 3) more balance to the set of R&D measures was desired and gained throughthe holistic approaches to the selection processes; and 4) more objectivity wasgained through organizing the selection processes, as the earlier systems were considered subjective in many organizations. Scientifically, this dissertation aims to make a contribution to the present body of knowledge of R&D performance analysis by facilitating dealing with the versatility and challenges of R&D performance analysis, as well as the factors and dimensions influencing the selection of R&D performance measures, and by integrating these aspects to the developed novel types of approaches, methods and tools in the selection processes of R&D measures, applied in real-world organizations. In the whole research, facilitation of dealing with the versatility and challenges in R&D performance analysis, as well as the factors and dimensions influencing the R&D performance measure selection are strongly integrated with the constructed approaches. Thus, the research meets the above-mentioned purposes and objectives of the dissertation from the scientific as well as from the practical point of view.

Market failure, inequality and redistribution

We consider the following question: does market failure justify redistribution? We argue that the general answer to this question is no, in the sense that policies for correcting market failures do not aim at producing a "desirable" income distribution. This follows from the fact that, by construction, market failure is a deviation from "efficiency" that does not involve any notion of a desirable distribution of welfare (or income). However, there are special cases where a "corrective measure" involving redistribution can offset a market failure, so this can provide a form of efficiency- based justification for redistribution.

Poverty, Inequality and Natural Resources Degradation

The present study is an attempt to understand the link between natural resource degradation and poverty among people dependent on these resources. This is done by examining the impact of depletion of marine resources on the livelihood and socio-economic condition of the small-scale marine fishery community in South Kerala. In Kerala, nearly ten lakh fisherfolk depend on the marine fishery resources for their livelihood. The overall level of education of the small-scale fishing community is lower than that of the State’s rural population. Almost all the households surveyed, is one way or other, depend on fishery resources for livelihood. Low levels percapita income and high levels of inequality imply the existence of a large proportion of poor people in the community who are vulnerable to external shocks. The study reveals that poverty was comparatively higher among households with no fishing assets, with only one earner, with more than two children, and depending entirely on pensions/remittances. The study has not provided any evidence to show that poverty in the community is the result of depletion of marine resources.