Kathleen A. Carroll

Nonprofit decision making and social regulation: the intended and unintended consequences of Title IX☆

Theoretical and empirical models explore the effects of a gender equity regulation imposed on an athletic director at a nonprofit university. The behavioral model predicts a decrease in the total number of sports teams and a net decrease in the number of men’s teams, suggesting that the regulation has unintended consequences. The empirical analysis confirms the theory and identifies the size and prestige of the athletic department and the quality of the existing women’s sports program, as important factors affecting the probability that men’s sports teams were eliminated to comply with the regulation.

Measuring Market Response to Regulation of the Cable TV Industry

During the 1988–1990 period, the cable television industry was subject to a number of regulatory events. These centered on possible reregulation of rates for basic service and reduction of entry barriers for potential competitors. Using the event study methodology on a portfolio of cable firms, we find evidence that news of no reregulation caused significant positive abnormal returns. News of reregulation caused insignificant negative abnormal returns. These findings provide some support for the traditional consumer protection theory of regulation. News related to entry barriers generally had no significant effect on returns, which suggests that elements of natural monopoly may exist in the industry.

Teaching Price Discrimination: Some Clarification

This paper describes some common pitfalls in the teaching of price discrimination. The paper then presents some clarification of these issues and makes suggestions for teaching price discrimination to students in Principles and Intermediate Microeconomics classes.

Bureau competition and inefficiency: A reevaluation of theory and evidence

Abstract This paper evaluates the claim that an increase in bureau competition will improve efficiency in the public supply of services. It gives explicit consideration to the property rights characteristics of a public sector market and to the role of legislators as active demanders of bureau output, rather than as passive monitors of bureau production. The analysis demonstrates that bureau managers prefer nonprice competition to price competition. A major prediction of the paper is that greater bureau competition may increase bureau output, costs and budgets.

Opportunistic Behavior in a Cartel Setting

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) governs athletics at colleges and universities in the United States. Economists commonly view the NCAA as a cartel. We empirically reexamine evidence from the 1984 Supreme Court decision on football telecasts and find support for cartel behavior and evidence that this model does not fully explain. Our analysis indicates that the NCAA central organization may have behaved opportunistically by overregulating relative to what would maximize cartel net benefits. We provide a theoretical rationale and show that our empirical estimates are consistent with this behavior that occurs within the cartel framework.

Modeling Internal Decision Making Process: An Explanation Of Conflicting Empirical Results On Behavior Of Non‐Profit And For‐Profit Hospitals

This paper develops multiobjective models of hospital decision making that incorporate the internal decision process in both a for-profit and a nonprofit hospital. Predicted output and quality for a nonprofit hospital differ from those for a for-profit hospital under some conditions but converge under others. Convergence may be the result of a complex internal decision structure with decision control primarily by physicians; similar objectives across different organizational forms; or differing constraints. The mechanisms underlying these outcomes provide explanations for conflicting result in empirical studies of nonprofit and for-profit hospitals and provide a different rationale for convergence than nonprofit response to competition from for-profit hospitals. Understanding the source of convergence is important for policies directed toward the tax treatment of nonproift hospitals.

Separation of surface and bulk minority‐carrier lifetimes in silicon

One of the major problems in interpreting photoconductive lifetime measurements in silicon is the separation of the lifetime of carriers excited near the surface and that of carriers excited in the bulk of the crystal. This paper describes an experimental method of achieving this separation.

The Effects of Multiple Objectives in the Theory of Public Sector Supply

This paper incorporates objectives of both legislators and bureaucrats in a model of public sector decisionmaking. Existing models assume that either bureaucrats control production information and decisions, (Niskanen-type models) or legislators control production decisions (legislative models). My model explicitly incorporates imperfect agent behavior and corresponding preferences of both legislators and bureaucrats to reflect the bilateral nature of appropriations. The analysis shows that output levels generally differ from politically and socially efficient levels and depend on the relative weights of legislative and bureaucratic interests. Accordingly, Niskanen-type and legislative models are viewed as special cases of this more general approach.

Industrial Structure of the Federal Sector: Evidence from Bureau Market Share Data

This paper examines the industrial organization of the federal sector by measuring the variation of bureau market shares of appropriations. The two measures employed are rank-shift analysis (turnover) and the Hymer-Pashigian index of market share instability which have been used to indicate the level of competitiveness within private sector industries. The results of both the rank-shift and market share instability analyses strongly suggest that there is considerable competition among bureaus within the federal sector. These results are consistent with the hypothesis and existing evidence that bureaus engage in nonprice competitive strategies.

Observer in the Classroom.

An observer in the classroom describes some of the problems and experiences that were encountered in observing and interacting with instructors in physics classes. The methods and areas of observation leading to the most effective improvement of teaching are explained in detail.