Business Commons^™

Assessing The Impact Of Expenditure On Achievement In Virginia Public Education, Robert C. Dolan, Robert M. Schmidt

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

The strength of the relationship between student achievement and school resources has important implications for public policy in general, and for the appropriate role of state funding in local education in particular. It is well known that, to the extent that higher expenditures render improved educational performance, vexing issues of legal and economic equity arise. Of course, it is also well known that the findings of extensive empirical analysis suggest that the expenditure-achievement nexus is, at best, of secondary importance among the factors affecting education.

This paper examines the relationship between achievement and expenditure in Virginia public schools. Our focus …

The Demographic Transition And Population Policy In Egypt: An Integrated Methodology At The Household Level, Allen C. Kelley, Robert M. Schmidt

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

This paper examines household-level fertility research within the broader contexts of the demographic transition and public policy. The framework chosen for this examination is the Easterlin/Crimmins (1982, 1985) model which we modify and apply to a sample of rural Egyptian households. The remainder of this section describes the value of that model in analyzing the demographic transition and in formulating public policy. Section 2 provides a summary of the theory, 3 a critical discussion of the empirical model and its application to rural Egypt, and 4 the results.

The Hidden Challenges Of Retail Expansion, Larry N. Bitner, Judith D. Powell

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

Successful small retailers invariably are tempted to test the adage "more is better." While the expansion allure is more than many can resist, it must be tempered by the realization that many hidden challenges await the unsuspecting entrepreneur.

Success of the new organization will required not only ore but a different kind of effort than used in managing the single store. First, successful operation will now depend on delegating operating decision to professional managers. The autonomy given these managers in a complex decision and may be placed anywhere within a three dimensional continuum depending on the desired image, supervision, and …

Modeling Institutional Production Of Higher Education, Robert C. Dolan, Robert M. Schmidt

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

This paper follows an earlier article in which we examined the production process of higher education. Two aspects of the original study serve as the basis for this paper and thus warrant brief review.

First, we have argued that educational production does not lend it self to analysis as a production function in the classic sense. A simple production rendering ignores the fact that two of the more important factors, students and faculty, enter the process upon considerable self-selection, especially among the more highly qualified of these inputs. This reasoning led us to model educational production as a three-equation simultaneous …

Rationalism, Capitalism, And Democracy: The Views Of Schumpeter And Knight, J. Patrick Raines, Clarence R. Jung Jr.

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

The concept of rationality is both the origination point and the Achilles’ heel of the study of economic theory. Two of America’s more important economists, J. A. Schumpeter and Frank H. Knight, held highly developed views of the rationalistic civilization and rational thought. Although considerable concordance is present in their visions of rationality, conceptual differences exist.

Rational behavior is, in many respects, like beauty in that its meaning is defined by the extent to which there is a mapping with the values of the observer. Any discussion of rationality must begin with this difficult problem of relativity in values.

This …