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Marginal Returns (marginal + return)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	33%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	33%

Selected Abstracts

THE CRIME-CONTROL EFFECT OF INCARCERATION: DOES SCALE MATTER?,

CRIMINOLOGY AND PUBLIC POLICY, Issue 2 2006
RAYMOND V. LIEDKA
Research Summary: Several prominent empirical studies estimate models of a constant proportional effect of prison on crime, finding that effect is substantial and negative. A separate literature argues against the crime-reducing effect of prison but mainly on theoretical grounds. This second literature suggests that the elasticity of the prison/crime relationship is not constant. We provide a model that nests these two literatures. Using data from the United States over 30 years, we find strong evidence that the negative relationship between prison and crime becomes less strongly negative as the scale of imprisonment increases. This revisionist model indicates that (1) at low levels of incarceration, a constant elasticity model underestimates the negative relationship between incarceration and crime, and (2) at higher levels of incarceration, the constant elasticity model overstates the negative effect. Policy Implications: These results go beyond the claim of declining marginal returns, instead finding accelerating declining marginal returns. As the prison population continues to increase, albeit at a slower rate, after three decades of phenomenal growth, these findings provide an important caution that for many jurisdictions, the point of accelerating declining marginal returns may have set in. Any policy discussion of the appropriate scale of punishment should be concerned with the empirical impact of this expensive and intrusive government intervention. [source]

Being well and doing well: on the importance of income for health

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE, Issue 2006
S.V. Subramanian
Income is robustly associated with health status. Higher income is associated with lower mortality and morbidity, both cross-nationally and within societies. This relationship is not just confined to low levels of income, but extends well beyond median levels of income in society with diminishing marginal returns to health status with additional increments in income. Drawing upon the absolute and relative interpretations of income and conceptualising them simul-taneously at the individual and community level, we develop a typology of income,health relationships and discuss the distinctiveness of, and connections between, each type. We conclude that a multilevel conceptual and methodological framework is most appropriate to understand the income,health relationship. [source]

Staff Activity in Supported Housing Services

JOURNAL OF APPLIED RESEARCH IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 4 2002
David Felce
Background Variation in staff performance between small community housing services indicates the need for research on the factors which predict high-quality care. Methods The associations between service sector, staffing levels, staff characteristics, internal organization or working practices, non-institutional milieu, and staff activity and the nature and extent of staff attention to residents were explored in a study of 10 statutory, 10 voluntary and nine private sector community housing schemes. Results There were few significant differences between sectors after differences in resident abilities were taken into account. Higher staff to resident ratios predicted greater resident receipt of attention and assistance but also a lower proportion of time during which each member of staff was directly concerned with residents. A greater range in resident ability predicted lower resident receipt of attention and assistance. A higher proportion of qualified staff was not shown to be a positive attribute but greater prior experience was associated with staff spending more time directly concerned with residents, less time doing ,other' activity and residents receiving more assistance. Measures of the internal organization and non-institutional milieu of the settings were not strongly related to staff activity. Conclusions The findings are consistent with previous research that there are diminishing marginal returns associated with increasing staff. Size of residence was unimportant. Links between service organization and staff performance require further research but retaining experienced staff appears to be important. As resident receipt of attention and assistance was unrelated to their adaptive behaviour level, there is a need to find ways to ensure that staff support matches the needs of residents better. [source]

Distribution of gains from research and promotion in the presence of market power

AGRIBUSINESS : AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 3 2003
Michael K. Wohlgenant
This article evaluates how marginal returns to producers from promotion and research are affected when market intermediaries have market power in the retail market. Using an equilibrium displacement model, the relative importance of market power is evaluated for a "typical" food-processing industry, and the empirical analysis focuses on how much profits from advertising, off-farm research, and farm research are affected by a one dollar increase in check-off funds, assuming equal efficiency in funds spent at each level of the marketing channel. The empirical analysis systematically considers alternative values of the underlying structural parameters of the model using Monte Carlo simulations to generate confidence intervals of marginal returns from each alternative use of the funds. Important findings are that the results with market power are indistinguishable from those obtained under pure competition and the results are most affected by input substitutability. [EconLit citations: L660]. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Agribusiness 19: 301,314, 2003. [source]

The dynamics of vulnerability: locating coping strategies in Kenya and Tanzania

THE GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNAL, Issue 4 2005
SIRI H ERIKSEN
We investigate how smallholder farmers at two sites in Kenya and Tanzania cope with climate stress and how constraints and opportunities shape variations in coping strategies between households and over time during a drought. On the basis of this analysis, we draw out implications for adaptation and adaptive policy. We find that households where an individual was able to specialize in one favoured activity, such as employment or charcoal burning, in the context of overall diversification by the household, were often less vulnerable than households where each individual is engaged in many activities at low intensity. Many households had limited access to the favoured coping options due to a lack of skill, labour and/or capital. This lack of access was compounded by social relations that led to exclusion of certain groups, especially women, from carrying out favoured activities with sufficient intensity. These households instead carried out a multitude of less favoured and frequently complementary activities, such as collecting indigenous fruit. While characterized by suitability to seasonal environmental variations and low demands on time and cash investments, these strategies often yielded marginal returns. Both the marginalization of local niche products and the commercialization of forest resources exemplify processes leading to differential vulnerability. We suggest that vulnerability can usefully be viewed in terms of the interaction of such processes, following the concept of locality. We argue that coping is a distinct component of vulnerability and that understanding the dynamism of coping and vulnerability is critical to developing adaptation measures that support people as active agents. [source]

Does Allocation of Public Spending Matter in Poverty Reduction?

ASIAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL, Issue 4 2008
Evidence from Thailand
H41; H53; H54 The present paper uses a panel dataset to estimate the marginal returns to different types of government expenditure on agricultural growth and rural poverty reduction in Thailand. The study finds that additional government spending on agricultural research provides the largest return in terms of agricultural productivity and has the second largest impact on rural poverty reduction. Increased investment in rural electrification has the largest poverty reduction impact, mainly through improved nonfarm employment. Rural education has the third largest impact on both productivity and poverty reduction. Irrigation has a positive impact on agricultural productivity, but regional variation is considerable. Government spending on rural roads has no significant impact on agricultural productivity and its poverty reduction impact ranks last among all investment alternatives considered. Additional investment in the Northeast Region has a greater impact on poverty reduction than in other regions. [source]