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This chapter applies the Consortium for Advanced Management, International (CAM-I) Activity-Based Cost Management (ABC/M) tool to paratransit. The intent is to enable agencies sponsoring rides to save money through sharing rides and vehicle-time.

Several paratransit cost-allocation models from Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) and other sources are reviewed and one is adapted to the ABC/M methodology, based upon the author’s previous work proportionately allocating ride time among sponsoring agencies at a consolidated human service transportation agency and the price sheets used in contracted operations to minimize financial risk.

Through application of the principles of ABC/M, paratransit providers can properly allocate costs, determine the costs of providing proposed new services, plan for future vehicle acquisitions, and motivate their customers to tailor their transportation needs in a manner that will save them money and boost efficiency.

University-based transportation studies programs may be motivated to apply these strategies to urban and rural paratransit providers that serve several customer agencies.

If agencies sponsoring paratransit rides understand that funds can purchase more rides during off-peak hours or if rides are shared with clients of other agencies, then paratransit resources can be used more efficiently and to the benefit of more individuals.

By enabling the provision of more rides, a greater number of riders will be enabled to reach necessary services and participate in community life.

This is the first application of the ABC/M methodology to paratransit (and transit) and possibly to social services.

This chapter examines the relationship between corporate governance and agency costs of family and non-family ownership of public listed companies in Malaysia. It presents a longitudinal study of the 290 publicly listed companies in the Main Board of the Bursa Malaysia over the period 1999–2005.The study applies the governance mechanisms such as board size, independent director and duality as a tool in monitoring agency costs based on asset utilization ratio and expense ratio as proxy for agency costs. There is strong evidence that larger board size has a significant effect as a device in mitigating agency costs. The study supports that independent directors and duality are viewed differently by family and non-family ownership. The evidence shows that an independent director in family ownership does not influence agency costs. But non-family ownership needs more independent directors to counsel and monitor the company and thus reducing the agency conflict with shareholders. The study also finds that family ownership experiences less agency conflicts when duality role exists. Contrary, non family ownership experiences high agency costs when duality exists on board.

We examine the empirical relationship between direct equity agency costs measures and corporate governance control mechanisms to control equity agency costs. We measure the three direct agency cost proxies commonly used in the literature: the operating expense; asset turnover; and selling, general, and administrative (SGA) ratios. Internal corporate governance control mechanisms examined are inside ownership (IO), outside ownership concentration (OC), the size of the board of directors (BODs), and the composition of the BODs (proportion of nonexecutive (NE) directors and separation of chief executive officer (CEO) and board chair). The external corporate governance control mechanism examined is the size of bank debt (short-term debt). Univariate and multivariate tests reveal that the only statistically significant relationship between corporate governance control mechanisms and direct equity agency cost measures is the negative relationship between the proportion of IO and direct agency costs. The asset utilization ratio (asset turnover) ratio is the best proxy for direct equity agency costs and can be useful for event studies of announcement period excess returns.

This study examined the effect of good stewardship on agency costs and firm performance. The panel data analysis with the Panel Corrected Standard Errors (PCSEs) estimator was employed to analyze the effect of good stewardship on agency cost and the impact of good stewardship on the performance of 37 South African firms from 2007 to 2016. The findings of this study reveal that good stewardship has a significant positive effect on agency costs as well as firm performance, implying that the promotion of good stewardship should be accompanied by suitable strategies to manage additional agency costs.

Government agencies have endeavored, with limited success, to improve the methodological consistency of regulatory benefit–cost analysis (BCA). This paper recommends that an independent cohort of economists, policy analysts and legal scholars take on that task. Independently established “best practices” would have four positive effects: (1) they would render BCAs more regular in form and format and, thus, more readily assessable and replicable by social scientists; (2) improved consistency might marginally reduce political opposition to BCA as a policy tool; (3) politically-motivated, inter-agency methodological disputes might be avoided; and (4) an independent set of “best practices” would provide a sound, independent basis for judicial review of agency BCAs.

This study examines whether investment horizons among institutional investors affect cash dividend payout policies among firms. We use institutional ownership volatility and persistence to measure institutional ownership stability. We find that cash dividend payout ratios are negatively correlated to volatility and positively correlated to persistence. The results suggest that firms with stable institutional investors encourage managers to pay cash dividends rather than invest in suboptimal projects or perquisite consumption. Furthermore, this study tests whether the impact of institutional ownership stability on cash dividend policy matters in firms with greater agency costs. This study finds that stable institutional ownership increases cash dividends for firms with severe or slight agency problems. These findings suggest that institutional ownership stability plays an important role in monitoring and hence in determining cash dividends.

Federal regulatory agencies are created by Congress to mitigate particular social problems, such as pollution (the Environmental Protection Agency), discrimination (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), and anticompetitive conduct (the Federal Trade Commission). These agencies have the delegated authority to issue Rules and Regulations that have the force of law within their respective domains, constrained by the oversight of the President and Congress, and by litigation through the Courts. Many view the extent of such oversight as inefficiently lax, with the result that “missionary” bureaucracies successfully overregulate and inefficiently extend the span of their authority. After describing these concerns, I develop a model of agency bias that extends my earlier work with Canice Prendergast and Topel (1993, 1996) to a regulatory framework. In the model, activist bureaucrats who seek greater regulation are attracted to an agency's mission. Their biases are constrained by the courts, where agency rules and regulations can be challenged, and by oversight from other branches of government. In equilibrium, agencies gain from the exercise of bias even though all parties know it occurs and seek to mitigate its costs. The public sector is overregulated on average. Overregulation is largest when the social problem is least harmful, and when oversight of agency actions is weak. Stronger oversight would reduce the distortionary effect of agency biases. More precise legislative language would provide clearer guidance to the court system, which would reduce deference to biased agency opinions in the formation of regulations.

Conventional foreign direct investment (FDI) theories regard FDIs as strategic moves based on operational or industrial organization considerations. We demonstrate that financial factors are also important in corporate FDI decisions. The financial factors concern internal capital market strength and corporate governance and include exchange rate changes, internal and external financing cost, risk diversification, and agency costs. There is variability in the significance of financial variables depending on industries and destinations. The integrated model with both strategic and financial factors is superior to either component model in explaining FDIs. However, financial factors are no less important in explaining the prevailing FDI phenomena than strategic or operational variables.