Measuring allocative efficiency in Cultural Economics: the case of “Fundación Princesa de Asturias” (The Princess of Asturias Foundation)     

Víctor Fernández-Blanco  Ana Rodríguez-Álvarez 《Journal of Cultural Economics》2018,42(1):91-110

The literature on Cultural Economics provides us with some examples for the measurement of technical efficiency. However, there are few case studies dedicated to the analysis of allocative efficiency. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by incorporating a methodology that analyses both technical and allocative efficiency. We use the Shephard’s distance function, particularly suitable when affronted with non-profit-making firms or institutions that are not interested in cost minimization. As an empirical application, we analyse the efficiency of Fundación Princesa de Asturias (PAF), a Spanish non-governmental organization devoted to promoting the cultural, scientific and humanistic values of universal heritage, the period of study being 1988–2012. Our findings suggest that PAF could have used 7% less inputs to achieve the same level of output. On the other hand, we have found allocative inefficiency. Concretely, the input for other expenditures appears to have been over-utilized in relation to both the inputs for labour and current assets, with labour in turn being over-utilized in relation to current assets. Moreover, our results indicate that both technical and allocative efficiency have clearly improved during the period analysed. In summary, our empirical application shows how distance function methodology can be successfully implemented to measure allocative efficiency in cultural firms and institutions.  相似文献   

Idea generation in biomedical engineering courses using Design Heuristics     

Jin Woo Lee  Anastasia Ostrowski  Aileen Huang-Saad  Colleen M. Seifert 《European Journal of Engineering Education》2019,44(3):360-378

ABSTRACT

With increasing demand for improved medical equipment and healthcare, next-generation biomedical engineers need strong design skills. Equipping biomedical engineering students with tools for idea generation and development can increase student design success. Design Heuristics are an ideation tool developed through empirical studies of product designs. While identified in the mechanical engineering space, Design Heuristics may be applicable in biomedical engineering design. In our study, we implemented a Design Heuristics session during upper-level undergraduate and first-year graduate biomedical engineering design courses. We examined the applicability of Design Heuristics within individual and team concept generation contexts. The findings demonstrated that biomedical engineering students were able to use Design Heuristics to generate multiple concepts, and that initial concepts produced using Design Heuristics were carried over into final team design. The results support the applicability of Design Heuristics to student idea generation in biomedical engineering design.  相似文献   

The Way We Ask for Money… The Emergence and Institutionalization of Grant Writing Practices in Academia     

Kathia Serrano Velarde 《Minerva》2018,56(1):85-107

Although existing scholarship offers critical insights into the working mechanisms of project-based research funding, little is known about the actual practice of writing grant proposals. Our study seeks to add a longitudinal dimension to the ongoing debate on the implications of competitive research funding by focusing on the incremental adjustment of the funder/fundee relationship around a common discursive practice that consists in describing and evaluating research projects: How has the perception of what constitutes a legitimate funding claim changed over time and why? By investigating the normative framework enacted in the justification strategies of applicants, we shed light on the historical coevolution of the increasing competition for project funding, the epistemic culture of applicants, and grant writing rhetoric. To do this, we mobilize a comprehensive data set consisting of archival data from Europe’s oldest and largest funding agency, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, as well as a corpus of 80 successful grant proposals written between 1975 and 2005. We find that the 1990s mark an important normative consolidation of what we consider to be a legitimate funding claim: Ensuring the success of the project and the project’s results becomes a major concern in applicant rhetoric. This time period coincides with a substantive rise in the level of competition for project funding. Yet, even though justification strategies might seem to address the same issues in grant proposals across the disciplines under investigation, the normative framework to which applicants refer differs according to the applicant’s epistemic culture.  相似文献   

The Nomos of the University: Introducing the Professor’s Privilege in 1940s Sweden     

Ingemar Pettersson 《Minerva》2018,56(3):381-403

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From a Means to an End: Patenting in the 1999 Danish ‘Act on Inventions’ and its Effect on Research Practice     

Nadja Sejersen  Janus Hansen 《Minerva》2018,56(3):261-281

This paper examines the potential pitfalls for academic research associated with goal displacements in the implementation of goals and indicators of research commercialization. We ask why patenting has come to serve as the key policy indicator of innovative capacity and what consequences this has for the organization of academic research. To address these questions, the paper presents a case study from Denmark on, firstly, why and how the 1999 Danish ‘Act on Inventions’ introduced patenting as a central instrument to Danish science policy and, secondly, the effects the Act has had on Danish university organization and research practices. We trace why and how commercialization was introduced as an important objective in Danish science policy since the 1980s. The increased focus on patents is explained as an isomorphic adjustment to an international ‘science policy field,’ manifested in particular through OECD statistics, where patenting has come to serve as a key metric in international rankings. In a second step, we examine what effects the patenting requirements have had on organization and research practice at a Danish university. We show that in practice ‘number of patents’ changed from serving as an indicator of innovative capacity to being a policy goal in itself, thus in effect producing a goal displacement that is potentially damaging for both academic research and innovation capacity of the surrounding society. As a consequence of this goal displacement, active scientists now increasingly engage in patenting primarily as a means to fulfill organizational targets and to increase their ‘fundability,’ rather than to promote commercial applications of their research. In conclusion, we discuss how these unfulfilled policy ambitions have led to a retrospective redefinition of policy goals rather than an adjustment of the actual policy tools.  相似文献   

Demand for culture in Spain and the 2012 VAT rise     

Javier García-Enríquez  Cruz A. Echevarría 《Journal of Cultural Economics》2018,42(3):469-506

This paper analyzes the effects that the 2012 VAT rise in Spain had on household’ demand for cultural goods and services. Household’ demands are modeled as a two-stage QUAIDS. After estimating price and expenditure elasticities, and the pass-through parameter associated with the reform, our results show that the individual welfare loss and the increment in the tax bill increase, but less than proportionately, with income. Consequently, the reform can be considered as regressive. Relating the effects of the VAT reform to households’ incomes also implies a low quantitative effect, because of the low proportion of total household expenditure that cultural expenditure represents. From a social perspective, the size of the induced welfare loss would positively depend on society’s inequality aversion. Regardless of the latter, it cannot be concluded whether the reform would have increased or reduced inequality in the distribution of cultural spending. Our results prove qualitatively robust to alternative values of the pass-through parameter.  相似文献   

The Potential Impact of COVID-19 on Student Learning and How Schools Can Respond     

Adam E. Wyse  Eric M. Stickney  David Butz  Amanda Beckler  Catherine N. Close 《Educational Measurement》2020,39(3):60-64

There is no denying the impact that the coronravirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has had on many aspects of our lives. This article looks at the potential impact of COVID-19 on student learning as schools abruptly morphed into virtual learning environments using data from several instructional, practice, and assessment solutions offered by Renaissance. First, three hypothetical learning scenarios are considered using normative data from Star assessments to explore the potential impact on reading and math test performace. Next, data on Focus Skills are used to highlight which grades may have missed the most foundational math and reading content if instruction was stopped or reduced. Last, data from two of Renaissance's practice tools are used to evaluate whether students were practicing key skills following school closures. The article concludes that academic decline will likely occur but may be tempered by the increased use of practice tools; effects may look different for math and reading; and may impact grades and schools differently. As such, schools may need to leverage decision-making frameworks, such as the Multi-tiered Systems of Support/Response-to-Intervention (MTSS/RTI) framework, more than ever to identify needs and target instruction where it matters most when school begins in fall 2020.  相似文献   

A Policy Entrepreneur in the Information Society: Shaping the Interdisciplinarity of Brain Research in Korea     

Youjung Shin 《Minerva》2018,56(2):231-257

This paper aims to show the historical contingency of policy entrepreneurship in science by analyzing the case of brain research in South Korea during the last decade of the 20th century. This decade saw an increasing emphasis placed upon the development of information technology and its use for societal changes. The rise of the “Information Society” in Korea was an important context for shaping the field of brain research as an amalgam of multiple disciplines which led to the passage of the Brain Research Promotion Act; the first law in the world enacted to promote brain research. This paper, through focusing on in what context someone takes up an entrepreneurial role, shows how the concept of interdisciplinarity has been shaped by, and how it has influenced the development of brain research and its related policy measures in Korea. It ultimately reveals the contingent and transient aspect of a policy entrepreneur and his effect on building a new field.  相似文献   

农民工子女教育过程与分层功能研究 [<Emphasis Type="Italic">Educational process and function of stratification for migrant children</Emphasis>]. 史秋霞 [Shi,Qiuxia]. 北京, 中国: 社会科学 文献出版社 [Beijing,China: Social Sciences Academic Press], 2017. 210 pp., (paperback), RMB 69, ISBN: 978-7-5201-0062-5.     

Donghui Zhang 《Frontiers of Education in China》2018,13(3):448-450

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Chance regained: David Albert’s oeuvre revisited     

Kerry McKenzie 《Metascience》2016,25(1):51-55

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