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As the site characterization has progressed, many of the steps for processing, plotting, checking and interpreting the individual data sets have already been carried out. In addition, the conceptual model has been iteratively improved based upon these various sets of data. At this point we will have a wide range of data from different sources (our own as well as others). Much of this data is in different formats and scales. Now is the time for a final review and fresh look at all of the data when we have it all before us and the rush of fieldwork is over. The large amounts of data, gathered by the site characterization process, by themselves are not that useful. A formidable part of the site characterization process is having engineers, geologists and hydrologists assemble, conduct interpretations and integrate this diverse set of data. The conversion of raw data to useful information is a value-added process, which is achieved by careful professional analyses (Sharma 1994 personal communication). As the raw data is converted to useful information, a conceptual model or models are developed. The ultimate objective of the site characterization is to develop the most accurate conceptual models of site conditions possible within the time and budget constraints of the project. This is done by progressively minimizing the envelope of uncertainties in the interpretation of the data.

Current planning for the future of coastal zones in England is occurring at a time of great change and uncertainty. Alongside the expectation of increased storminess and impending sea-level rise associated with climate change, coastal decision-making is subject to a whole host of institutional shifts and the legacy of past coastal management decisions. Changing official policy, administrative arrangements and jurisdictions, the need to create conditions for community involvement and local and national level budgetary constraints are all issues in the melting pot.

The selection of appropriate public transport investments that will maximise the likelihood of delivering the levels of service required to provide a serious alternative to the car is high on the agendas of many metropolitan governments. Mindful of budget constraints, it is crucial to ensure that such investments offer the greatest value for money. We promote the view that integrated multi-modal systems that provide frequency and connectivity in a network-based framework offer the best way forward. A mix of public transport investments with buses as feeder services and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as trunk services can offer a greater coverage and frequency than traditional forms of rail, even at capacity levels often claimed of rail. Design features are important in order to promote good performance, and evidence is presented as to the importance of the various design elements to driving patronage. Decision-makers need to recognize that implementation issues can be complex to achieve a successful outcome of a BRT system contributing to the public transport network.

Urban food security is a function of access to food. My research in Accra, Ghana found that food prices, stagnant incomes, the geographical location of food markets, and other budgetary constraints all contribute to household food insecurity. A comparison of data between the 2003 Women's Health Survey of Accra and the following 2008–2009 round, found some improvements in food security among respondents. However, substantial food insecurity remains in Accra. Policy recommendations include opening regulated and appropriate spaces for food markets in all neighborhoods, foster school feeding programs, and supporting local farmers in and around Accra.

In this chapter, we present a set of guidelines summarizing the material described throughout the book. These guidelines are intended as a road map leading the analyst through the projection process. There are three basic steps. First is to determine exactly what is needed in terms of demographic characteristics, geographic regions, length of projection horizon, and time and budget constraints. Second is to choose the appropriate projection methods, collect and evaluate the input data, adjust for special events, and construct the projections. Third is to review and document the results. These guidelines will not answer every question, but they will provide a checklist highlighting the issues that must be considered and the choices that must be made. We believe they will help the analyst make reasonable choices and—perhaps more important—avoid potentially disastrous pitfalls.

This study aims to evaluate the impact of intergenerational transfers on the budgetary constraints of adult children in Japan by using the Engel method to estimate the economic burden or benefit represented by their elderly parents, whose socioeconomic heterogeneity is kept into account. Low-income elderly parents put some strain on their sons and their sons’ families: the study’s (admittedly rough) estimates indicate that a middle-aged family would have to earn about 12% more in order to preserve the same living standard of an otherwise comparable family, but without low-income elderly parents. In contrast to this, the wife’s high-income elderly parents are beneficial to the family budget: the order of magnitude of their help, when they are co-residing, is of about 24% of the (daughter’s family) income.

Cloud computing has been touted as a revolutionary concept in computing. In this article, we introduce the cloud computing concept, and then discus the implications for the use of the cloud model in higher education. Due to budget constraints and the power of computing “on-demand,” many believe that colleges and universities will be at the forefront of the shift to using cloud-based resources. We examine the impact of cloud computing on both research and university computing operations. We see that globally, this shift is already making a difference in how universities procure and use IT resources. In conclusion, we advance a six-stage Cloud Migration Strategy for introducing and implementing cloud computing in institutions. We also discuss the necessary changes in policies and procurement, as well as security and reliability concerns for institutions implementing cloud computing.

Group decisions must often obey exogenous constraints. While in a preference aggregation problem constraints are modelled by restricting the set of feasible alternatives, this paper discusses the modelling of constraints when aggregating individual yes/no judgments on interconnected propositions. For example, court judgments in breach-of-contract cases should respect the constraint that action and obligation are necessary and sufficient for liability, and judgments on budget items should respect budgetary constraints. In this paper, we make constraints in judgment aggregation explicit by relativizing the rationality conditions of consistency and deductive closure to a constraint set, whose variation yields more or less strong notions of rationality. This approach of modelling constraints explicitly contrasts with that of building constraints as axioms into the logic, which turns compliance with constraints into a matter of logical consistency and thereby conflates requirements of ordinary logical consistency (such as not to affirm both a proposition and its negation) and requirements dictated by the environment (such as budgetary constraints). We present some general impossibility results on constrained judgment aggregation; they are immediate corollaries of known results on (unconstrained) judgment aggregation.

In the framework of the experimental activity of the ELSA Laboratory of the JRC, an extensive PsD testing campaign was carried out on a doubly bi-eccentric plan-wise irregular R.C frame structure representative of non-seismically designed buildings widespread in Europe. In spite of the torsional irregularity being minor, the torsional response turned out to be quite significant, as a result of the choice of the seismic input. The opportunity was thus taken of experimentally assessing the effects of irregularity on the seismic behaviour and to compare it to the effects of poor structural detailing and lack of basic seismic design requirements. Also, the effectiveness was assessed of two different retrofitting strategies, a ductility-only intervention and a strength-only one, in providing a satisfying seismic response and tackling the structural weaknesses detected by the tests in the unretrofitted configuration. Conclusions are thus drawn on the basic criteria to be taken into account when devising a retrofitting strategy for existing irregular buildings under strict time and budget constraints. Also, it is discussed if whether a reduction of torsional effects is a basic aim to be pursued in retrofitting under above said constraints or if it can be neglected in the decision making process, even though the role of torsional effects in affecting the response is indisputably acknowledged.

A developing emphasis of health care reforms has been creating organisations with responsibilities for strategic commissioning of services for defined populations. Such organisations must set priorities in aiming to meet their populations’ needs subject to a budget constraint. This requires estimates of the health benefits and costs of different interventions for their populations. This paper outlines a framework that does this and shows how this requires modelling to produce estimates in a way that is transparent to commissioners, of requisite complexity to produce sound estimates for priority setting using routinely available data. The example illustrated in this paper is an intervention that would improve glucose control in the English population with type 1 diabetes. It takes many years for a change in glucose management to deliver maximum benefits; hence the intervention is not good value-for-money in the short run. We aim to give a more strategic view of the costs and benefits modelling costs and benefits in a steady-state model which suggests that the intervention is good value-for-money in the long run.

Since design issues are complex and land use interests often conflict, the use of optimization tools for identifying nature reserve designs can be beneficial to land managers. These tools can identify the best reserve design(s) for a set of objectives or compromises between objectives. By comparing a reserve proposal with the optimal design, the proposal’s degree of optimality can then be quantified, and its quality can be better assessed. Such comparisons allow managers to make more defensible decisions as land use pressures intensify.

CNES’s 1996 Strategic Plan repositions the French space agency for a more active role as a partner to French industry. The maturity of the space industry and the integration of space into the mainstream of economic activity and budgetary constraints have forced CNES to rethink its role towards “the partnership” concept. The rationale for such a new policy is that CNES has to go beyond its role of an agency distibuting funds to industry for the development of goverment space programs. As a center of excellence, CNES is a center of expertise with a tremendous competence in space technology, and should act as a partner helping industry to be competitive in the international arena. This does not mean that CNES would bid for contracts against industry. Instead, the agency would offer its services in research and development to buttress industry’s work on a given task. CNES can take technical risks and perform research and development work that would either be difficult for industry or non-profitable in the short term. Knowing the market, industry can seek the contracts.

At this point, a number of problems connected with market exchange have been considered: information costs, environmental non-sustaina- bility, increasing “difference” in income and bargaining power, deviance from the “true” utility-constrained production cost value, undervaluation and sticky prices of corn — all problems causing inequality and inefficiency. Some (at least) of these problems belong to a specific historical context. This is true, for example, with respect to the negative consequences of taxation on corn. The feudal rent system provided the wealthy with corn and enforced a large, constant market supply: rich people with a loose budget constraint became largely independent of a demand-driven market supply. In this way the price structure was “perverted”. This problem may disappear or diminish when democracy rules and if market power is not too asymmetrically distributed. Some of the problems Rousseau discusses may be of this historically specific character. But others may be more general, and may even, in one way or another, be present in all market exchange. Rousseau discusses two means for democratic society of handling these latter kinds of problems. These means are market avoidance, and a democratic government that breeds a strong social morale.

This chapter focuses on indirect production. Like the more familiar idea of indirect utility, the idea is to introduce a budget constraint into the model. Instead of thinking of inputs as given, we instead think of the decision-maker as being confronted with a fixed budget which they may use to purchase inputs, at given input prices, i.e., inputs become choice variables rather than being treated as given. This type of model is useful in a variety of contexts. Perhaps the most obvious would be a government unit that receives an annual budget which they allocate and use to provide services.

Record declines in public confidence in higher education institutions of the last decade have paralleled record decreases in budget appropriations. While higher education has become increasingly more important to national welfare, colleges are being accused of failing to respond to public need. The loss of public trust and confidence along with the necessity to do more with less because of budgetary constraints has created strong external pressure for change on the nation’s campuses. Change in education has most often taken the guise of reform. Campuses have moved to strengthen the core curriculum and to make the business functions more efficient. By the time a campus launches one reform effort, competing efforts are on the horizon sparking a new change cycle. Before one effort is institutionalized, a new and often competing effort is launched. The result has been fractional change efforts.

Meaningful empirical analysis of telephone demand must be accompanied by theory. At the time of the 1980 book, most existing studies of telephone demand were guided by the general canons of neoclassical demand theory, but the standard statement that demand depends upon price and income is of limited usefulness. The telephone and the network to which it belongs possess a number of singular features that must be taken into account in modeling its demand. By 1980, these features had been examined at a theoretical level in several places, but the discussions were highly abstract and had little impact empirically.

The third private health insurer considered in this study is a comparatively young, fast-growing company, to be called insurer C henceforth. Insurer C constitutes a perfect complement to insurers A and B, running an experience-rated system of rebates for no claims. Since an insured’s merit rating depends on claims submitted in a series of previous years, this system will be called a “dynamic bonus” system for short. As of 1981 and 1982 (the observation period used in the statistical analysis of Chapter 8), insurer C offered two monthly premiums worth of rebates for no claims at the end of the first year without claims, three monthly premiums at the end of the second and a maximum of four starting in the third consecutive year without claims. In the meantime, many private health insurers in Germany have strengthend this (2, 3,4) rating to a (3,4, 5) or even (4, 5,6) rating.

The idea that demand functions may involve time (or, more precisely, the notion of “earlier and later”) goes back a long time. It was elaborated in the theoretical work of Roos (1925) and Evans (1930), and its implications for empirical research were perhaps first brought out in studies of the demand for cars [De Wolff (1938); for other references see Houthakker and Haldi (1960)]. Recently the same idea has been applied more generally by Stone and Rowe (1957) and Nerlove (1959). While the general approach followed in these empirical studies has considerable intuitive appeal, the underlying theory has never been spelled out in any detail.The basic notion is that of a desired stock, actual demand during a time interval being related to the gap between the desired and the actual stock. Thus it is often assumed (partly by analogy with certain models of expectations) that the rate of demand is proportional to this gap, which leads to an exponential adjustment of actual to desired stock.

In contrast to most work in decision theory, which treats only “reversible risk,” this paper examines the effect on present decision making of gambles that involve “irreversible risk” — i.e., where the outcomes of present gambles may significantly change future opportunities for choice. A two-period optimization model is presented that contrasts certainty, reversible risk and irreversible risk decisions. Two forms of the latter are considered — one involving only physical capital, one involving both physical and human capital as imperfectly substitutable inputs into intertemporal productivity. Irreversible risk is shown to increase the conservatism of risk choice; irreversibility with human capital has especially striking conservative effects compared with conventional reversible risk choice.

While cost-benefit analysis offers a potentially valuable tool for public decision-making on problems of human resources, as well as other program areas, its use in practice has been limited in significant part because of empirical difficulties which can be overcome. In a commonly used version, a set of alternatives is ranked according to the ratio of benefits to costs. Projects with the highest ratios are chosen first and the number of projects included is determined by a budget constraint. The framework is quite general. It says nothing about what should be defined as a project. If a program exhibits diminishing returns to scale, it is necessary only to treat successive increments as separate projects. If programs interact so that success depends on the combinations undertaken, increments of various combinations can be treated as separate projects. Definition of the array of alternatives is left to the analyst who is aware of the context in which the conclusions are to be used.

The flow of funds data are a quarterly multi-sector, multi-instrument tableau of financial transactions. The estimation of models explaining these data on the basis of interest rates and real sector inputs has by now become quite refined and almost standardized when equilibrium is assumed to hold over time in all markets. The possibility of allowing for disequilibrium in such models, however, has been considered only for special cases and specific markets.1 The general neglect of disequilibrium in flow of funds models is disturbing not only as a matter of principle, but also as a matter of practical importance. It is generally agreed that disequilibrium, or credit rationing, occurs in a number of the negotiated loan markets — specifically business, mortgage, and consumer loans — and it seems likely that, over the time of a quarter year, interest rates may not clear other financial markets as well. The purpose of this note, therefore, is to suggest a general method for specifying and estimating disequilibrium in a flow of funds model.

The model of the socialist economy that has been developed by Janos Kornai and his associates reflects the many insights of these economists into the behaviour and interactions of socialist economic institutions (Kornai, 1980, 1982b, 1986; Kapitany et al., Chapter 15; Kemme, 1987 and Chapter 4; Lacko, Chapter 10). Despite its positive features, the shortage model has gaps in coverage and is imprecise in some definitions and specifications of hypotheses. Several of its problems, especially related to the concept of the soft budget constraint, have been noted by critics such as Gomulka (1985), Hare (Chapter 3) and Nuti(Chapter 5). However, neither they nor Kornai have adequately analysed one of the apparent major determinants of sectoral and institutional behaviour and performance in a shortage economy, namely the central decision-makers’ priorities that are expressed during plan formulation and implementation.

An important problem of human resource management that is concerned with employees’ productivity in a firm is undoubtedly the assigning of personnel to roles or jobs according to a given set of criteria (Childs, 1972; Derman, 1972; Nelson, 1970; Wilson, 1977; Panayiotopoulos, 1978). This problem is usually termed the personnel allocation problem, and it deals with the allocation function of human resource management. On the other hand, it is usually necessary for industrial units to provide education, training, and development to the personnel in order to increase productivity on the current job (Sinha, 1970; Walker, 1969; Moder and Elmaghraby, 1978). Broadly speaking, the above industrial activities appear in the course of time according to the following order: 1. There are n jobs and m candidates; if n < m, then choose n individuals and hire them (selection problem); 2. Assign the n individuals to the n jobs so as to maximize the total value of the assignment (assignment problem); 3. Provide education and development to the employees according to the present (short-term) and future (long-term) needs of the firm; the decision here is whether to provide development, and if so, when, for what duration, of what kind, and to whom (development problem).

The conventional approach to consumption theory considers only one consumer. His preferences are represented by a utility function, which is maximized subject to a budget constraint. Under appropriate conditions this leads to a system of demand equations, one for each good.

The large federal deficits since 1975, and the prospect of their further rapid expansion through the mid-1980s, have caused greater attention to be focused on the economic consequences of federal deficits. Much of the discussion has centered on the issue of whether a rise in the deficit crowds out interest-sensitive private spending. This discussion is properly directed, as a vast majority of deficits since the late 1960s have been debt financed. In particular, while marketable Treasury securities net of Federal Reserve holdings actually declined during the 1964–69 period, private investors have purchased about 85 percent of the cumulative rise in federal debt since 1969. Moreover, during 1980 and 1981, private investors purchased over 90 percent of the rise in outstanding federal debt.1

The multiperiod allocation of limited resources among competing investment proposals is one of the most significant and difficult problems a business organization must resolve. The significance of the problem stems from the fact that any set of capital investments represents both a means of implementing strategic plans and a framework for developing future strategic plans. The difficulty of the problem is a consequence of a variety of factors: the implementation of investment proposals that require the use of scarce resources, the length of time required to transform a proposal into an operational investment, the need to live with capital investments that may take a number of years to recover the financial resources required for their implementation, and the lumpiness of capital investments, to cite a few illustrations. Moreover, the sheer magnitude of the capital investment budgets of business organizations can be staggering. It is not uncommon to see such budgets exceed one billion dollars per year.

In preparing to write this paper, I looked again at the paper by Kolsen, Ferguson and Docwra (1975) on road user charges, and was intrigued by their comparison between the ‘Classical School’ and the ‘Pragmatic School’ and by the somewhat scornful comments about ‘second-besting’ among the latter. Nevertheless, Kolsen et. al., appear to have in mind mainstream second-best theory which is particularly concerned with what to do in the sector of interest - say transport - when the other sectors of the economy fail to satisfy the marginal conditions. I am concerned with something different, with the special type of second-best problem identified by Boiteux (1956, 1971) (before the term ‘second-best’ was coined). This is the problem of how to price the various products of one or more public enterprises which are required to break even or meet some other budget constraint. The existence of the problem implies a decreasing cost industry; otherwise the multi-product firm could satisfy the marginal conditions, pricing at marginal cost and breaking even all at once.

The implementation of a precipitation chemistry measurement programme can be an extremely complicated and expensive task. It is necessary that the measurement programme be well designed so that the resulting data will be useful and the programme cost effective. Mancy and Allen [1] suggest eight key steps in the design of a monitoring system: 1. Objectives of measurement: Why are the measurements needed? 2. Models of measurement systems: What is the best type(s) of model(s) to represent the information needed? 3. Determinands/parameters: What are the key determinands; which sampling sites should be selected; and with what frequency should they be sampled? 4. Method of analyses: How will the sampling and measurements be conducted? How will the quality be assured and controlled during the programme? 5. Data processing: How will the data be gathered, stored, confirmed, retrieved and displayed? Will the data and methods be readily available for others to use? 6. Information assimilation: How will the information be assimilated relative to Steps 1 and 2? Is there sufficient or excess information relative to the objectives and conceptual models? 7. Cost analysis: Are the important determinands being measured within budgetary constraints? Is the programme feasible? Should the objectives (Step 1) and conceptual models (Step 2) be modified? 8. Information dissemination: How will the information be disseminated in order to be useful to others?

There are numerous instances in economics where nonconvexities are inherent to the problem at hand. The obvious cases are those of increasing marginal rates of substitution and increasing returns in the Arrow-Debreu model (cf. Starr [7], Arrow-Hahn [1]). Nonconvexities are also inherent in transactions (Heller [4], Heller-Starr [6]) and in models of optimal taxation with administrative cost (Heller-Shell [5]). Nonconvexities also arise in the theory of externalities (Starrett [8]).

The real virtue of this paper, in my opinion, is its careful modelling of the U.K. institutional structure, in particular as this relates to the local authority budget constraint. This has not been done before in U.K. studies to the best of my knowledge. I was particularly pleased to see the authors take explicit account of the fact that the central government itself uses regression analysis as a basis for allocating grants to local authorities. There is a real danger that the unwary economist, while claiming to have unearthed a behavioural relationship applying to decentralised decision makers, will in his regression simply be replicating the rule used by the central authorities in allocating funds to state or local authorities. Jackman and Papadachi have not fallen into this trap.

Often due to exploration budget constraints the applied geologist finds himself a jack-of-all-trades as well as master-of-his-own. This paper provides a broad-brush picture of the types of information required and provides some detail in areas where difficulties can arise in obtaining information. Whilst recognising there are many facets of the geological profession, this introduction to the session dwells mainly on information in the context of the exploration for, and exploitation of, metalliferous and petroleum resources.

One of the governmental responses to the rapid rise in health care costs was a 1970 amendment to the Public Health Services Act (P.L. 91–515). It was observed that part of the cost increase was associated with some degree of over-investment in medical facilities and equipment. For some given geographical region there was an excess of beds per population unit, and expensive equipment was duplicated, leading to higher than necessary per user cost.