By the end of 1999 HIV/AIDS was present in at least 200 countries and approximately 34.3 million people were living with the disease, 5.3 million of whom had been infected in that year alone (WHO 2000). Approximately 21.8 million persons had died from AIDS by 2000 and countries where life...

Icelandic university teachers, the Ministry of Finance and the University of Iceland have been conducting an interesting experiment by changing the form of remuneration of university teachers in a fundamental way. This paper accounts for the development of university teachers salaries the last...

The tax office wins most cases in Japan. We think about why this might be. We find that although judges who rule in favor of the taxpayer do not suffer in their future careers, if the loser-- whether governemnt or taxpayer--appeals and wins, the reversed judge's career does take a turn for the...

In this paper we use a simple model to analyze the forces which determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy which maximizes a social welfare function $U(s,Y)$ which...

The article discusses the possible cost savings of contracting out refuse collection in the Netherlands. According to foreign econometric studies, contracting out refuse collection leads to cost savings of approximately 20%. Our findings indicate that similar cost savings apply to the...

The objective in this paper is to improve the existing evidence regarding the role ownership plays in economic efficiency. It is pursued through enhancements in modeling, estimation techniques, and experimental design. With respect to modeling, state ownership is explicitly introduced into the...

This work is focused on identifying a circular pull production control system (PPCS) and make emphasis on the presence of a stability attribute. It is an introductory paper to an extended study of macroeconomic financial stability in a physically open but systemic closed system. Previous work...

This paper examines the growth pattern followed by the Chilean economy with reference to the macroeconomic reforms undertaken during the Pinochet regime, which were largely maintained by successive democratic administrations and partially reproduced by neighbouring countries. The focus is on the...