Opportunity Cost

A small macroeconomic model is constructed starting from a German money demand relation for M3 based on quarterly, seasonally unadjusted data for the period from 1976 to 1996. In contrast to previous studies we build a vector error correction model for M3, GNP, an inflation rate and an interest rate spread variable to represent opportunity costs of holding money. Furthermore, import price inflation is added as an exogenous variable. The model is used to analyze the relation between money growth and inflation by means of an impulse response analysis.

This paper addresses the emerging educational framework that envisions threshold concepts as mediators of learning outcomes.While the threshold concepts framework is highly appealing on a theoretical level, few researchers have attempted to measure threshold concept acquisition empirically. Achieving this would open a new arena for exploration and debate in the threshold concepts field, and provide potential results to inform teaching practice.We begin the process of operationalising threshold concepts in economics by attempting to measure students' grasp of the threshold concept of opportunity cost in an introductory economics class.We suggest two potential measures and correlate them with an array of ex ante and ex post variables, including students' expectations of success, prior misconceptions about economics and the work of economists, and actual success in the course. Results cast new light onto the factors that influence the acquisition of threshold concepts, the relationship between threshold concept acquisition and final learning outcomes, and the empirical viability of threshold concepts generally.

We present a novel method for calculating the opportunity costs to fishers from their displacement by the establishment of marine protected areas (MPAs). We used a fishing community in Kubulau District, Fiji to demonstrate this method. We modelled opportunity costs as a function of food fish abundance and probability of catch, based on gear type and market value of species. Count models (including Poisson, negative binomial and two zero-inflated models) were used to predict spatial abundance of preferred target fish species and were validated against field surveys. A profit model was used to investigate the effect of restricted access to transport on costs to fishers. Spatial distributions of fish within the three most frequently sighted food fish families (Acanthuridae, Lutjanidae, Scaridae) varied, with greatest densities of Lutjanidae and Acanthuridae on barrier forereefs and greatest densities of Scaridae on submerged reefs. Modelled opportunity cost indicated that highest costs to fishers arise from restricting access to the barrier forereefs. We included our opportunity cost model in Marxan, a decision support tool used for MPA design, to examine potential MPA configurations for Kubulau District, Fiji Islands. We identified optimum areas for protection in Kubulau with: (a) the current MPA network locked in place; and (b) a clean-slate approach. Our method of modelling opportunity cost gives an unbiased estimate for multiple gear types in a marine environment and can be applied to other regions using existing species data.

The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has been in the vanguard of the microfinance movement, showing the potential to alleviate poverty by providing credit to poor households. Part of this success has been built on subsidies. In 1996, for example, total subsidies evaluated at the economic opportunity cost of capital amounted to about US$26–30 million. The evidence helps to explain why institutions like Grameen have not just sprung up on their own as private commercial ventures, and it underscores the value of openly addressing the costs and benefits of subsidization. The paper also describes recent difficulties in maintaining high repayment rates.

The 'Rural Livelihoods' thesis argues that the reduction of poverty hinges on the capability of the poor to combine different livelihood strategies and sources, which allow them to become less vulnerable to shocks and risks. As diversity is related to flexibility, resilience and stability, diverse livelihood systems are seen to be less vulnerable than undiversed ones . This implies that relevant to improving livelihoods are interventions that facilitate diverse household strategies and opportunities.

Due to the recent evolution of telecommunications infrastructure and the Internet as a commodity market for bandwidth, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) encounter new issues concerned with bandwidth management for the network interconnection. Bandwidth commodity exchange is considered a new B2B (Business-to-Business) electronic commerce application that brings new market opportunities to carriers and service providers for managing their bandwidth resources. This paper develops market-based bandwidth management optimization models for Differentiated Service (DiffServ) QoS (Quality of Service) networks using an implementation of the bandwidth management agent, BMP (Bandwidth Management Point). We use network economic models to formulate an optimization problem for the interconnection and resource allocation policy of the DiffServ network. We formulate and develop those economic models as optimization problems of LP, NLP, MILP and mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), and discuss the pricing mechanisms and available solution approaches for the implementation of the BMP's resource optimization process. Different opportunity costs are estimated based on the results of a network simulation using traffic flow statistics measured from a recent Internet backbone. We then numerically simulate the behavior of backbone network ISPs to optimize their profits for various demand scenarios.

Current payment for environmental service (PES) schemes face challenges in the form of evaluation of opportunity costs and ecosystem service delivery, high transaction costs, and difficulties in ensuring conditionality. Even when these conditions are met, PES may be undermined by a lack of inclusivity, leading to societal conflicts over land use. We propose a new PES-type approach that we call

Informal care by adult children remains the most common source of caregiving for elderly parents in Japan, even after the introduction of long-term care insurance in 2000. We estimate how the potential supply of child caregivers affects the use of formal care of elderly parents, focusing on the differences across children. We find that the effects of children's presence vary substantially with gender, marital status, and opportunity costs of children. The potential supply of daughters-in-law, as the traditional source of informal care, is less important in providing care than that of unmarried children. The opportunity costs of children make a difference in the use of formal long-term care.

An attendance equation is estimated using data on individual games played in the Spanish First Division Football League. The specification includes as explanatory factors: economic variables, quality, uncertainty and opportunity costs. We concentrate the analysis on some specification issues such as controlling the effect of unobservables given the panel data structure of the data set, the type of functional form and the potential endogeneity of prices. We obtain the expected effects on attendance for all the variables. The estimated price elasticities are smaller than one in absolute value as usually occurs in this literature but are sensitive to the specification issues.

In emerging economies pension programs of public sector workers tend to be more generous than pension programs of private sector workers. In this paper we study the adverse effects of these generous pension schemes on income and welfare, using a two-sector overlapping generations model. We argue that opportunity costs of running generous public pension schemes for civil servants are potentially large in emerging economies, where there is often severe lack of public investments in education and infrastructure. Calculating transitions to the post reform steady state, we find that welfare gains for the generation born before the reform can only be realized when freed up resources are reinvested into public education public, but not when these freed up resources are used for tax cuts or for infrastructure investments.

This paper empirically illustrates the difference between a standard economic impact analysis (EIA) and a cost-benefit analysis (CBA). The EIA was conducted using an existing (input-output) I-O model (STEAM). The benefit side of the CBA included non-local visitor spending, the revenue of the local organizing committee (LOC), the consumer surplus, and public good value of the sport event for the local residents. The cost side of the CBA was estimated based on the opportunity costs related to the construction of the stadium (including labor costs and the cost of borrowing), imports, and ticket sales to locals. The EIA indicated that the 2005 Pan-American Junior Athletic Championships generated a net increase in economic activity in the city of $5.6 million. The CBA showed a negative net benefit of $2.4 million. Both methods presented challenges and limitations, but CBA has the distinct advantage that it identifies the net benefits associated with hosting a sport event.

Research in entrepreneurial finance generally assumes that growth-oriented ventures lacking internal funds have to attract external finance or alternatively have to keep their growth ambitions in check. An often ignored alternative is that entrepreneurs resort to financial bootstrapping, defined as more or less creative techniques to reduce the need for more external finance (Ebben & Johnson, 2006; Winborg & Landström,

The paper provides new insights into the relationship between heritage preservation and the economic, social and institutional factors expressing countries' level of development. While investments in heritage preservation are increasingly recognized as a strategy for development and poverty reduction, little research has been conducted to understand which conditions trigger the valorization of cultural resources.

In recent times much attention has been paid to wetland conservation and management. Relatively little of this attention has been paid to the trade-offs land manager's face when deciding on the use of privately owned wetlands. In this paper the results of a survey of wetland management trade-offs in the Upper South East region of South Australia are reported. Wetland benefits are reflected by farmer attitudes and wetland management behaviour. The results indicate that farmers obtain considerable non-monetary benefits from their wetlands. These non-monetary benefits from wetlands are traded-off against monetary opportunity costs (mainly from restrictions to grazing livestock) and additional management costs. Management constraints faced by land managers are analysed and some potential incentive structures suggested.

Although the Web audience is growing exponentially, little research has explored the benefits that the audience derives from their use of the Web. This study took a cost-benefit approach to exploring the specific benefits and opportunity costs associated with World Wide Web use. We hypothesized that greater benefits coupled with fewer opportunity costs (e.g., computer and Internet access, computer expertise, connection speed, effort, and multimedia) would have an impact on the amount of time people spend on the Web and the value they attach to their Web use. We conducted a Web-based survey of 250 students enrolled at two "wired" universities who were required to use the Web for coursework. The results revealed that Leaming was the most salient benefit of the Web, followed by Pass Time and Entertainment. We found some support for the impact of opportunity costs on Web use. Stronger support was found for the impact of benefits and costs on Web surfing value. We also found that Entertainment and sports Web sites xvere the ones most likely to be linked to beneficial Web use. The discussion relates the results of the study to speculations about the future of the Web audience and the impact of reduced opportunity costs on Web use.

Corporate risk management may employ financial or operative means to reduce the exposure to unexpected currency fluctuations. This article utilizes a real options framework to establish that operative hedging through the creation of operational flexibility represents a strategic complement to any variance-minimizing financial hedge. In addition, operational flexibility creates an asymmetric exposure profile and, as a result, alters the composition of the financial hedge portfolio. It alters the number of symmetric hedge contracts employed as well as their contractual rate and provides an economic argument for the use of (exotic) currency options. Operational flexibility acts as a value driver and may therefore be utilized, independent of its usefulness for risk management. The analysis further shows that operative hedging entails an implicit opportunity cost in the form of foregone option value. D

The ecological, economic and socio-cultural roles of forests are under threat in Ghana due to the high rate of deforestation. Efforts are being made to combat this problem through rehabilitation measures. However, the costs of deforestation and restoration benefits are not adequately estimated. This paper fills in the gap in knowledge by providing an empirical estimation of the cost of deforestation in monetary terms. Primary data collected regarding timber, non-timber forest products and soils in semi-deciduous forests were analyzed using opportunity cost and replacement cost techniques. The results emphasize differences in the value of these forest goods and services lost annually. The largest losses were in stumpage fees, edible fruits, and avoided carbon emissions values. The results show that US$133,650,000 gross revenue, equivalent to 2.6% of the 2008 agricultural sector Gross Domestic Product, is lost annually. It can be concluded that restoring the degraded forest lands would bring benefits particularly to the local communities through increased stumpage revenues and harvest of non-timber forest products, as well as additional funds from carbon credits. It is recommended that stakeholders of forest resources are made aware of these costs in order to raise awareness of what they are losing through deforestation.

The Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has been in the vanguard of the microfinance movement, showing the potential to alleviate poverty by providing credit to poor households. Part of this success has been built on subsidies. In 1996, for example, total subsidies evaluated at the economic opportunity cost of capital amounted to about US$26-30 million. The evidence helps to explain why institutions like Grameen have not just sprung up on their own as private commercial ventures, and it underscores the value of openly addressing the costs and benefits of subsidization. The paper also describes recent difficulties in maintaining high repayment rates. q

Designing conservation areas entails costs that, if considered explicitly, can be minimized while still achieving conservation targets. Here we focus on opportunity costs which measure forgone benefits from alternative land uses. Conservation planning studies often use partial estimates of costs, but the extent to which these result in actual efficiencies has not been demonstrated. Our study partitions land costs into three distinct opportunity costs to smallholder agriculture, soybean agriculture and ranching. We demonstrate that opportunity costs to single stakeholder groups can be inaccurate measures of true opportunity costs and can inadvertently shift conservation costs to affect groups of stakeholders disproportionately. Additionally, we examine how spatial correlations between costs as well as target size affect the performance of opportunity costs to single stakeholder groups as surrogate measures of true opportunity costs. We conclude that planning with opportunity costs to single stakeholder groups can result in cost burdens to other groups that could undermine the long-term success of conservation. Thus, an understanding of the spatial distributions of opportunity costs that are disaggregated to groups of stakeholders is necessary to make informed decisions about priority conservation areas.

This paper surveys the various estimates that have been made of the value of household services, summarizing the methods used and comparing the statistical results. It concludes that there is wide variability in the results obtained, much of which can be attributed to the differing methods. The highest values are obtained with methods based upon the opportunity cost of women in paid employment, lower with methods based upon the cost of a single housekeeper, and lowest with methods based upon pricing individual services performed. On the basis of time use studies, three factors are found to affect very strongly the value of services performed: family size, wife's market-work status, and age of youngest child. The value of total household services should include not only the wife's contribution, but also that of the husband and children, which may amount to as much as a thud of the total. The increasing burden of more children, however, appears to fall mainly on the wife, with some relief from older children; the amount of time spent by husbands appears relatively invariant to number of children or work status of the wife.

Marine biodiversity is a resource of enormous importance to human societies that provides critical ecosystem services. Economic valuation of some services has been utilized to promote conservation initiatives by revealing a tangible and causative link between biodiversity declines and economic losses. Other ecosystem services have eluded valuation, including the value of the sea as a repository of novel pharmaceuticals. Here,

Economic prescriptions for the sustainable management of fisheries have typically been framed in the context of commercial fisheries. Fishery management failures have been characterized as a consequence of disjointedness between individually rational decisions and globally sensible outcomes-the "tragedy of the commons." The solutions proposed by economists flow from the insight that rational self-interest can lead to socially beneficial outcomes when ownership is secure and prices reflect the opportunity cost of resource use. Theoretical and empirical analyses have demonstrated that sole ownership, individual quotas, territorial use rights, fishing cooperatives, and common property management regimes can promote biologically and economically sustainable fisheries. Nevertheless, implementation of these "solutions" has met with resistance, due in part to the impossibility of uncoupling species within ecological systems and conflict between the proposed solutions and broadly accepted concepts of social justice. The problem of devising a sustainable management strategy is exacerbated in fisheries with diverse consumptive and non-consumptive users. An empirically based simulation-optimization model is used to characterize the biological and economic effects of alternative management regimes in a fishery with commercial and sport fishers. The results are generalized to the case of additional use and nonuse values.

The Hponkanrazi Wildlife Sanctuary, North Myanmar and three contiguous protected areas, comprise some of the largest expanses of natural forest remaining in the region. Demand for wildlife products has resulted in unsustainable exploitation of commercially valuable species resulting in local extirpation of vulnerable species. Camera trap, track and sign, and questionnaire-based surveys were used to examine (a) wildlife species targeted by hunters, (b) the importance of wild meat for household consumption, and (c) the significance of hunting as a livelihood activity for resident villages. Certain commercially valuable species highly preferred by hunters were either completely absent from hunt records (tiger, musk deer and otter) or infrequently obtained during actual hunts (bear, pangolin). Species obtained by hunters were commonly occurring species such as muntjacs with low commercial value and not highly preferred by hunters. Fifty eight percent of respondents (n = 84) indicated trade, 27% listed subsistence use and 14% listed human-wildlife conflict as the main reason for hunting (n = 84). Average amount of wild meat consumed per month is not significantly higher during the hunting season compared to the planting season (paired t-test, P [ 0.05). Throughout the year, the average amount of fish consumed per month was higher than livestock or wild meat (Friedman test, P \ 0.0001). Hunting is driven largely by trade and wild meat, while not a critical source of food for a large number of families could potentially be an important, indirect source of access to food for hunting families. Findings and trends from this study are potentially useful in helping design effective conservation strategies to address globally prevalent problems of declining wildlife populations and dependent human communities. The study provides recommendations to reduce illegal hunting and protect vulnerable species by strengthening park management through enforcement, increasing the opportunity costs of poaching, establishing no-take zones and research to determine the economic significance of hunting for livelihoods.

Several payments for environmental services (PES) schemes to promote large-scale afforestation are currently operational in New Zealand. In addition, the country has the only national greenhouse gas (GHG) Emissions Trading Scheme centred on forest carbon credits in the world. These market-based instruments are paramount in promoting the changes in land use required to achieve New Zealand's GHG-emission targets under the Paris Agreement, as well as to pave the way towards the goal of a low-carbon economy by 2050. We estimated the impacts of PES schemes on the profitability of Pinus radiata forestry to identify low-productivity grasslands where afforestation is likely to financially offset the current land use (i.e., mainly sheep-and-beef farming), under the assumption of constant returns to scale. We find that even without PES, 56% of these agricultural lands present lower economic returns than forestry. When PES are considered, results suggest that, depending on the PES schemes and carbon prices, 77-100% of the low-productivity grassland areas could financially benefit from afforestation. If realized, afforestation of those lands could result in the long-term removal of 1.2-1.5 Pg CO 2 from the atmosphere.

This paper explores the critical importance of diversity in technology education for fostering innovation qualities, new knowledge and capabilities among learners for the knowledge economy. It asserts that the premise for increasing participation behind questions like" What does technology have to offer females and minority groups?" is fundamentally one directional and so gives a negative message to minority cultures and groups in technology education. The proposition implies limited understanding of the role and contribution that ...

Abstract This paper discusses the key issues and concerns in the Cambodian government's efforts to implement three priority education policies for 2006–2010: ensure equitable access to education; increase quality and efficiency of the education services; and ...

The authors of this article discuss how a mixed-methods research team designed and conducted a 4-year study (Variations in Teachers' Work and Lives and Their Effects on Pupils) that tracked 300 teachers in 100 schools in England over a 3-year fieldwork period. The authors discuss processes that led to new knowledge. Although mixed methods are becoming more popular, few published accounts describe in detail how researchers have moved beyond the use and integration of mixed methods to arrive at more synergistic understandings. The advantage of synergistic approaches is their consideration and combination of a greater range of data, resulting in more nuanced, authentic accounts and explanations of complex realities.

This paper presents a meta-analysis of forest recreation in Europe based on studies that have applied the travel cost method covering 25 studies in 9 countries since 1979. We conduct the meta-regression with an increasing number of variables where level I includes only data available from the studies, level II aggregate socio-economic variables and level III site specific characteristics such as diversity, fraction of open land, and location. Data shows that consumer surplus varies between USD0.72 per trip to USD122 with a median of USD4.90 per trip. Results of the model with the best overall summary indicate that forest recreation benefits are positively influenced by an increasing level of costs per kilometre, opportunity cost of time and average distance travelled. Also large and popular forests, monotone vegetation and diverse age classes influence benefits positively. GDP, however, appear to have a negative impact on benefits and population density does not contribute significantly to predicting recreation welfare.

The theory of costs is a cornerstone of economic thinking, and figures crucially in the study of human action and society. From the first day of a principles-level course to the most advanced academic literature, costs play a vital role in virtually all behaviors and economic outcomes. How we make choices, why we trade, and how we build institutions and social orders are all problems that can be explained in light of the costs we face.

This volume explores, develops, and critiques the rich literature on costs, examining some of the many ways cost remains relevant in economic theory and practice. The book especially studies costs from the perspective of the Austrian or “causal-realist” approach to economics. The chapters integrate the history of economic thought with contemporary research, finding valuable crossroads
between numerous traditions in economics. They examine the role of costs in theories of choice and opportunity costs; demand and income effects; production and distribution; risk and interest rates; uncertainty and production; monopsony; Post-Keynesianism; transaction costs; socialism and management; and social entrepreneurship.

Together, these papers represent an update and restatement of a central element in the economic way of thinking. Each chapter reveals how the Austrian, causal-realist approach to costs can be used to solve an important problem or debate in economics. These chapters are not only useful for students learning these concepts for the first time: they are also valuable for researchers seeking to understand the unique Austrian perspective and those who want to apply it to new problems.

Do the inference strategies people select depend on the magnitude of time pressure? Is this dependency modified by the type of time pressure? These questions are addressed in three experimental studies in which participants made inferences after having searched for information on a computerized information board. In Study 1, time pressure was induced indirectly by imposing opportunity costs of being slow, a form of time pressure that is common in daily life but that has rarely been examined in the literature. A simple lexicographic heuristic (LEX) achieved the best fit in predicting participants' inferences. Studies 2 and 3 induced high time pressure either indirectly by imposing opportunity costs in terms of time or directly by limiting the time for each choice. Regardless of how time pressure was induced, under high time pressure the inferences could be best predicted with LEX, whereas under low time pressure a weighted linear model that integrates all available information predicted the inferences best. We conclude that people select strategies adaptively depending on characteristics of the situation.

Although cloning may eventually become an important technology for livestock production, four ethical issues must be addressed before the practice becomes widespread. First, researchers must establish that the procedure is not detrimental to the health or well-being of affected animals. Second, animal research institutions should evaluate the net social benefits to livestock producers by weighing the benefits to producers against the opportunity cost of research capacity lost to biomedical projects. Third, scientists should consider the indirect effects of cloning research on the larger ethical issues surrounding human cloning. Finally, the market structure for products of cloned animals should protect individual choice, and should recognize that many individuals find the prospect of cloning (or consuming cloned animals) repugnant. Analysis of these four issues is complicated by spurious arguments alleging that cloning will have a negative impact on environment and genetic diversity.

This paper has multiple objectives. I set out linkages of a causal model to portray how globalization influences international terrorist strategies. I also point to methodological and theoretical shortcomings in the literature with respect to the levels of disaggregation at which issues are analyzed, and I evaluate the opportunity-cost argument for assessing international terrorism. The paper and conclusions present perspectives on developments of terrorism in the context of globalization, including the relationship of terror to immigration.

This paper proposes a new approach to measure corporate contributions to sustainability called Sustainable Value Added. Value is created whenever benefits exceed costs. Current approaches to measure corporate sustainable performance take into account external costs caused by environmental and social damage or focus on the ratio between value creation and resource consumption. As this paper will show it is more promising to develop sustainable measures based on opportunity costs. Sustainable Value Added is such a measure. It shows how much more value is created because a company is more efficient than a benchmark and because the resources are allocated to the company and not to benchmark companies. The concept of strong sustainability requires that each form of capital is kept constant. As Sustainable Value Added is inspired by strong sustainability, it measures whether a company creates extra value while ensuring that every environmental and social impact is in total constant. Therefore, it takes into account both, corporate eco-and social efficiency as well as the absolute level of environmental and social resource consumption (eco-and social effectiveness). As a result, Sustainable Value Added considers simultaneously economic, environmental and social aspects. The overall result can be expressed in any of the three dimensions of sustainability. D

The characteristics of time as a resource are examined in order to seek evidence of these characteristics in fundamental concepts of Economics. A series of thought experiments on time travel demonstrate that a constant irreversible rate of time usage underlies the concepts of opportunity cost, time preference, and interest. This leads to the startling suggestion that the root question in Economics concerns the choice of how to spend time. Thus, the principles of Economics are tied closely to the human perception of time and more closely to the human condition than is generally admitted in undergraduate classes on the subject.

Recently, it has been recognized that revenue management of cruise ships is different from that of airlines or hotels. Among the main differences is the presence of multiple capacity constraints in cruise ships, i.e., the number of cabins in different categories and the number of lifeboat seats, versus a single constraint in airlines and hotels (i.e., number of seats or rooms). We develop a discrete-time dynamic capacity control model for a cruise ship characterized by multiple constraints on cabin and lifeboat capacities. Customers (families) arrive sequentially according to a stochastic process and request one cabin of a certain category and one or more lifeboat seats. The cruise ship revenue manager decides which requests to accept based on the remaining cabin and lifeboat capacities at the time of an arrival as well as the type of the arrival. We show that the opportunity cost of accepting a customer is not always monotone in the reservation levels or time. This non-monotone behavior implies that ''conventional" booking limits or critical time periods capacity control policies are not optimal. We provide analysis and insights justifying the non-monotone behavior in our cruise ship context. In the absence of monotonicity, and with the optimal solution requiring heavy storage for ''large" (industry-size) problems, we develop several heuristics and thoroughly test their performance, via simulation, against the optimal solution, well-crafted upper bounds, and a first-come first-served lower bound. Our heuristics are based on rolling-up the multidimensional state space into one or two dimensions and solving the resulting dynamic program (DP). This is a strength of our approach since our DP-based heuristics are easy to understand, solve and analyze. We find that single-dimensional heuristics based on decoupling the cabins and lifeboat problems perform quite well in most cases.

There is much discussion about how in-game economies emerge and evolve—particularly how they deal
with money and inflation. But games incorporate economics at even more basic levels. Indeed, many gamers are already using the
economic way of thinking without even knowing it. The
key point is that games are all about basic economic
concepts: scarcity, choice, tradeoffs, opportunity cost,
trade, and entrepreneurship.

A central issue in archaeology is the study of technological change, and yet we have relatively little theory to explain the origin of technological novelty. Most models assume that inventions are generated as needed to solve adaptive problems. Alternatively, some view innovation as a creative and random process capable only of generating variation on which selection operates. This article considers the role of risk sensitivity in the production of technological invention. It is argued that evolutionary ecological models of risk and opportunity cost establish expectations for the contexts in which individuals are likely to stick to conservative technologies and when they are likely to be inventive. Archaeological evaluation of the risk-sensitivity theory of technological change requires attention to components of technological systems and their associated mechanical, operational, and strategic costs. The framework is examined with a case study of technological change from the prehistory of the Kodiak Archipelago in the Gulf of Alaska.

Accurately estimating inventory holding cost is important for several reasons. It would lead to an improved analysis of the benefits of Just-In-Time philosophy, a more accurate specification of cost savings associated with investments in new technologies, and improved accuracy of productioninventory decisions. The inventory holding cost of a firm is typically calculated as the sum of the out-of-pocket cash flows associated with storage, and the opportunity cost of capital tied in inventories.

During the last two decades, researchers have sought to develop categories of entrepreneurs and their businesses along a variety of dimensions to better comprehend and analyze the entrepreneurial growth process. Some of this research has focused on differences related to industrial sectors, firm size, the geographical region in which a business is located, the use of high-technology or low-technology, and the life-cycle stage of the firm (i.e., start-up vs. more mature, formalized companies). Researchers have also considered ways in which entrepreneurs can be differentiated from small business managers. One of these classifications is based on the entrepreneur's desire to grow the business rapidly. This is the focus of our study.

This article extends previous economic treatments of the work attendance decision by providing a more complete specification of the absence penalty function. In particular, the penalty for absence is modelled as a function of both the opportunity cost of dismissal for excessive absence and the level of threat of dismissal chosen by management to control absence. Moreover, since the probability of dismissal is itself a function of the absence rate, a simultaneous system is posited. Strong support for the model is found in workplace-level data collected as part of the 1989/90 Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey.