Anup Gampa, Jessica V. Linley, Brian Roe and Keith L. Warren
Therapeutic communities (TCs) assume that residents are capable of working together to overcome substance abuse and criminal behavior. Economic games allow us to study the…
Abstract
Purpose
Therapeutic communities (TCs) assume that residents are capable of working together to overcome substance abuse and criminal behavior. Economic games allow us to study the potential of cooperative behavior in TC residents. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyze results from a sample of 85 corrections-based TC residents and a comparison group of 45 individuals drawn from the general population who participated in five well-known economic experiments – the dictator game, the ultimatum game, the trust game, risk attitude elicitation and time preference elicitation.
Findings
TC residents keep less money in the dictator game and return more in the trust game, and prefer short-term rewards in the time preference elicitation. In the ultimatum game, nearly half of all residents refuse offers that are either too low or too high.
Research limitations/implications
While the study involves a sample from one TC and a comparison group, the results suggest that residents are at least comparable to the general public in generosity and appear willing on average to repay trust. A substantial minority may have difficulty accepting help.
Practical implications
Rapid peer feedback is of value. Residents will be willing to offer help to peers. The TC environment may explain residents’ tendency to return money in the trust game. Residents who refuse to accept offers that are either too low or too high in the ultimatum game may also have difficulty in accepting help from peers.
Social implications
Economic games may help to clarify guidelines for TC clinical practice.
Originality/value
This is the first use of economic games with TC residents.
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Freezing extends the shelf life of food. Home freezing of fresh foods and the purchase of frozen foods have been advocated as approaches to reduce food waste in US households…
Abstract
Purpose
Freezing extends the shelf life of food. Home freezing of fresh foods and the purchase of frozen foods have been advocated as approaches to reduce food waste in US households. This paper discusses how commonly US households apply these practices, quantifies frozen food waste and relates these practices to food waste.
Design/methodology/approach
We add questions to the summer 2022 wave of the US Household Food Waste Tracking Survey. The novel survey data provide important baseline information and household behaviours, such as food waste, home freezing of fresh food and the purchase of frozen foods. We analyse the association among these behaviours from more than 1,000 US households.
Findings
We find that US household wastes about 26 g per person per week of food that was once frozen, which is about 6% of all household food waste. The finding indicates that a small portion of food waste in US households comes from frozen food. Vegetables and meats are the most commonly discarded frozen foods. Among the frozen items reported as discarded, about 30% were purchased as frozen rather than purchased fresh and then frozen at home by the consumer and about 30% more were reported as discarded from the refrigerator rather than directly from the freezer. The findings are important for informing strategies to reduce household food waste.
Research limitations/implications
While the data provide important baseline information and correlate the use of freezing with lower waste levels, more work is needed to understand if interventions encouraging frozen food purchase or home freezing would reduce household food waste.
Originality/value
We provide unique, detailed information about the quantity of frozen food waste in US households and the relationships between consumer food waste and the practices of frozen food purchasing and home freezing.
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Just a hundred years ago great developments were pending in this country in matters relating to health and to the diagnosis and treatment of disease. It was in 1852 that Pasteur…
Abstract
Just a hundred years ago great developments were pending in this country in matters relating to health and to the diagnosis and treatment of disease. It was in 1852 that Pasteur began his epoch‐making researches on the subject of bacterial fermentation. At about the same time the ophthalmoscope was introduced. In 1854 Florence Nightingale was busy demanding reforms in nursing, and in 1855 the hypodermic syringe was invented. In 1858 a register of qualified dentists was established for the first time. But the years 1851 to 1854 were remarkable also for the institution and prosecution for the first time in British history of an active campaign for the suppression of the adulteration of food. There was little knowledge of this subject and almost no laws, with two minor exceptions. It was nominally an offence under a statute of George IV to adulterate bread with alum—but no public official had any duty to enforce it. Also, there were certain Revenue Acts, enforceable by the Customs and Excise Department, which in the interests of the Revenue, not of consumers, forbade the adulteration of certain excisable articles of food. But the machinery of the Department was clumsy and inefficient. To two far‐seeing and very courageous men is due the credit for the overdue enactment in 1860 of legislation intended to protect the public from the wholesale adulteration which was rampant a hundred years ago. One was Thomas Wakley, F.R.C.S., Editor of The Lancet. Wakley in 1851 appointed an Analytical and Sanitary Commission, with Dr. A. H. Hassall, M.D., M.R.C.P., as Chief Analyst, to make investigations on a large scale, and promised that the results would be published in his journal, which would announce also the names and addresses of retailers, and of manufacturers when known, of all articles found to be adulterated. A great number of these reports appeared in The Lancet from 1851 to 1854, and were afterwards reprinted in a book by Dr. Hassall. They threw much light on many black spots. The first subject to be tackled was coffee, which was almost invariably adulterated with chicory. Analytical chemists until then had stated that it was impossible for them to detect the adulteration in their laboratories. But Dr. Hassall was a skilled microscopist, as well as a chemist and a doctor. He was the first person in this country to “ apply regularly and systematically the powers of the microscope to the elucidation of the subject of adulteration ”. He was able to detect by his microscope flagrant and widespread adulteration of the following, among many other, foods :—
This paper is a shared endeavour between client (Caroline) and therapist (Anne) which aims to examine the use of poetry in the construction of meaning in Cognitive Behavioural…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is a shared endeavour between client (Caroline) and therapist (Anne) which aims to examine the use of poetry in the construction of meaning in Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapy (CBP).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a narrative account of the early stages of therapy and the role poetry played in developing an effective therapeutic relationship and in shaping the CBP formulation, which guides treatment. The text is illustrated with examples of poetry and song lyrics that have been used to construct meaning in the therapy and the authors' own reflections on this process. The paper begins with a brief outline of the theoretical principles of CBP and then moves on to discuss the use of metaphor as part of the therapy and its role in the development of a productive therapeutic relationship.
Findings
The paper provides a reflective narrative from the perspective of client and therapist and invites the reader to consider making links between the science of evidence based practice and the artistry necessary and inherent to the practice of CBP.
Originality/value
The interacting cognitive subsystems model (Teasdale and Barnard, 1993) from cognitive science is introduced as a theoretical rationale to provide an account of the efficacy and effectiveness of poetry in this context. This is the first time an evidence based theory from cognitive science has been used as the basis for an account of the utility of poetry in constructing meaning in CBP.
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Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence…
Abstract
Presents a special issue, enlisting the help of the author’s students and colleagues, focusing on age, sex, colour and disability discrimination in America. Breaks the evidence down into manageable chunks, covering: age discrimination in the workplace; discrimination against African‐Americans; sex discrimination in the workplace; same sex sexual harassment; how to investigate and prove disability discrimination; sexual harassment in the military; when the main US job‐discrimination law applies to small companies; how to investigate and prove racial discrimination; developments concerning race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; developments concerning discrimination against workers with HIV or AIDS; developments concerning discrimination based on refusal of family care leave; developments concerning discrimination against gay or lesbian employees; developments concerning discrimination based on colour; how to investigate and prove discrimination concerning based on colour; developments concerning the Equal Pay Act; using statistics in employment discrimination cases; race discrimination in the workplace; developments concerning gender discrimination in the workplace; discrimination in Japanese organizations in America; discrimination in the entertainment industry; discrimination in the utility industry; understanding and effectively managing national origin discrimination; how to investigate and prove hiring discrimination based on colour; and, finally, how to investigate sexual harassment in the workplace.
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Thomas W. Sproul, Jaclyn D. Kropp and Kyle D. Barr
Community supported agriculture (CSA) programs allow consumers to buy a share of a farm’s production while providing working capital and risk management benefits for farmers…
Abstract
Purpose
Community supported agriculture (CSA) programs allow consumers to buy a share of a farm’s production while providing working capital and risk management benefits for farmers. Several different types of CSA arrangements have emerged in the market with terms varying in the degree to which consumers share in the farm’s risk. No-arbitrage principles of futures and options pricing suggest that CSA shares should be priced to reflect the degree of risk transfer. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors evaluate the three most common share types using a cross-sectional data set of 226 CSA farms from New England to determine if there is empirical evidence in support of the theoretical price relationship between share types.
Findings
The degree of risk transfer from farmers to consumers has a significant effect on the share price. There are statistically significant returns to scale and higher prices for organics. Farm characteristics and product offerings predict which type of shares is offered for sale.
Research limitations/implications
The data set does not contain information pertaining to actual deliveries, expected deliveries, variance of expected deliveries, or covariance information; thus differences in share prices could be due to differences in these uncontrolled factors.
Originality/value
This paper provides empirical evidence that CSA share prices reflect the degree of risk transferred from the producer to the consumer. It also highlights challenges in conducting empirical work pertaining to CSA contracting.
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Gerald Mashange and Brian C. Briggeman
The purpose of this paper is to examine the financial condition and ability of farmer cooperatives to withstand significant increases in bad debt expense.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the financial condition and ability of farmer cooperatives to withstand significant increases in bad debt expense.
Design/methodology/approach
A unique data set of farmer cooperative financial statements that spans from 1996 to 2019 is used to examine the changes in profitability, solvency, liquidity and accounts receivable risk. Also, a deterministic stress test model is designed to shock bad debt expense and the resulting write-off of accounts receivable for farmer cooperatives. The stress test provides insights to the resiliency of farmer cooperatives.
Findings
Results find that farmer cooperatives are in a strong financial position, which has improved over time. The majority of farmer cooperatives are able to absorb a substantial increase in bad debt expense because of their sizable, retained earnings position. However, cooperatives that have significant profitability challenges do experience much larger losses, especially mixed farmer cooperatives (roughly equally amounts of grain and farm supply sales) and large cooperatives with more than $500 million in sales.
Practical implications
The stress test results suggest farmer cooperative managers and boards of directors could re-examine their credit policies and consider extending additional credit. Also, cooperatives should consider monitoring and identifying an optimal accounts receivable to retained earnings ratio, which is similar to how banks examine their tier 1 capital ratios.
Originality/value
The value of this study is having data that allows for the examination of the financial condition of farmer cooperatives over time. Also, having current data means the accounts receivable stress test results are more relevant and timelier. This is important because these accounts receivable are primarily tied to crop input supplies, and farmer cooperatives are a significant market participant in the crop input supply market.
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Sitara Karim, Samuel A. Vigne, Brian M. Lucey and Muhammad Abubakr Naeem
While there is an increased demand from various corporate stakeholders on the need for public companies to have risk management frameworks as well as a stand-alone risk management…
Abstract
Purpose
While there is an increased demand from various corporate stakeholders on the need for public companies to have risk management frameworks as well as a stand-alone risk management committee to mitigate risks and simultaneously improve performance, this study investigates the effects of the risk management committee attributes on firm performance, and the role of board size is highlighted on this relationship in Malaysian listed companies.
Design/methodology/approach
Both accounting- and market-based performance measures have been used for measuring performance. A dynamic model using the generalized method of moments (GMM) has been employed to control for potential endogeneity, simultaneity and unobserved heterogeneity.
Findings
The findings reveal that risk management committee attributes such as size, independence and meetings negatively affect book-based performance measures and positively affect market-based performance measures. Moreover, board size positively moderates the risk management committee attributes and performance relationship. The study embraces the predictions of agency theory and resource dependence theory.
Practical implications
The findings are practically significant for Bursa Malaysia, Securities Commission Malaysia to assess the compliance of the Corporate Governance Code (MCCG, 2017) and for academia to further explore significant relationships in other emerging economies.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to multiple aspects: first, it studies the impact of risk management committee attributes on firm performance; second, it investigates the moderating effect of board size on RMC–performance relationship; in the end, the study employs dynamic modeling for estimation process to avoid dynamic endogeneity considered a main econometric problem for CG–performance relationships.
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Michael A. Brost and Brian H. Kleiner
Although there are many variations in the definition of diversification, it would be only appropriate to provide some form of definition for the reader. Corporate diversification…
Abstract
Although there are many variations in the definition of diversification, it would be only appropriate to provide some form of definition for the reader. Corporate diversification in its broadest sense can be defined simply as the entering into a new business activity by an existing business entity. This definition is expounded upon by many of the leading corporate diversification researchers to include references to the method of entering the new business (whether it be through acquisition, internal development, etc.), the driving forces behind the diversification (i.e., synergy, resource sharing, risk reduction), and the levels of relatedness between the company's present product line and market to that of the new businesses' products and markets.
Ben Amoako‐Adu and Brian Smith
Criticizes previous research on price/earnings ratios (PER) for neglecting their historical links with interest rates and analyses the causal links between interest ratres and the…
Abstract
Criticizes previous research on price/earnings ratios (PER) for neglecting their historical links with interest rates and analyses the causal links between interest ratres and the PERs of the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 Index (TSE300) and of seven major Canadian industries 1965‐1997. Explains the methodology and identifies three “distinct PER regimes”: 1965‐1974 (average PER 17.17), 1975‐1982 (average PER 8.92) and 1983‐1997 (average PER 17.2 with a higher standard deviation). Looks at the economic conditions for each period and suggests that current PERs “may not be too high”. Finds a negative correlation between PERs and treasury bill rates, differing between industries; and that the bill rate explains 95 per cent of PER variation for the TSE300, although it is not significant for the gold and silver industry. Adds that divided payout ratios and lower investor risk aversion are positively related to PERs, but that growth rate has a more variable influence. Summarizes the findings and their implications for PER forecasters.