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For well over three decades, the concepts of equity and efficiency have been used by policy analysts and elected officials to frame the debate about the formulation and evaluation of public policies and programs. In this paper we use these ideas to organize an historical analysis of policies and research strategies in K‐12 education finance from the 1960s through the 1990s. In each decade we stress the dominant themes, major events, and research strategies regarding equity and efficiency, knowing that themes and research strategies span many decades but are sometimes in the foreground and other times in the background. We conclude with an assessment of how these two concepts can be compatible and how current policies are increasingly “win‐win” ones that are proposed to make progress on both goals.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of unemployment on coronary heart diseases (CHD) in Italy on a sample of male manual workers in the private sector.

The authors investigate the association between CHD and different unemployment experiences (ever unemployed; short, mid and long cumulative unemployment), exploiting a large Italian administrative database on careers and health. The study design is based on the balancing of individuals' characteristics during a 12-year pre-treatment period; the measurement of unemployment occurrence during a seven-year treatment period; the observation of CHD occurrence during a five-year follow up. The workers characteristics and the probability of receiving the treatment are balanced by means of propensity score matching. Standard diagnostics on the balancing assumption are discussed and satisfied, while the robustness to violations of the unconfoundedness assumption is evaluated by a simulation-based sensitivity analysis.

The authors find a significant increase of CHD probability was found among workers who experience more than three years of unemployment (relative risks (RR)=1.91, p<0.1), and among those who exit unemployment starting a self-employment activity (RR=1.70, p<0.1). Using different selections of the study population, a clear pattern emerges: the healthier and more labour market attached are workers during pre-treatment, the greater is the negative impact of long-term unemployment on health (RR=2.79, p<0.01).

The very large representative sample (n=69,937) and the deep longitudinal dimension of the data (1985-2008) allowed the authors to minimize the risks of health selection and unemployment misclassification. Moreover, the adopted definition of unemployment corrected some undercoverage and misclassification issues that affect studies based on a purely administrative definition and that treat unemployment as a unique career event disregarding the duration of the experience.

This paper uses a laboratory experiment to examine the effect of accountability pressure as a monitoring control tool to mitigate subordinates' propensity to create budgetary slack. The results suggest that budgetary slack is (lowest) highest when accountability pressure is (present) absent under a private information situation. The results further reveal that accountability pressure is positively associated with subordinates' perceived levels of honesty, which in turn is negatively associated with budgetary slack creation. The findings of this paper have important theoretical and practical implications for budgetary control systems design.

Management development has traditionally been perceived as being the domain of large rather than micro‐enterprises, with developmental issues normally being addressed by means of educational interventions.However, the challenges and obstacles for growth facing these micro‐enterprises (businesses employing ten people or fewer) differ significantly from those of a larger organisation. Reports on the current provision for management development as it relates to micro‐enterprises, and the perception of owners/managers in Ireland of the role of management development in the running of their companies. The objective of the research was to establish the nature and content of training and development interventions required by the owners/managers of micro‐enterprises. Preliminary research and findings indicated the need for a new approach towards the design of management development programmes for micro‐entrepreneurs. Taking into account the perceptions and preferences of owners/managers it is clear that a new approach to the design and delivery of management development programmes for micro‐entrepreneurs is needed. This new approach has implications for trainers as it includes changes not only in the content but also in the timing, location and delivery mechanism of programmes. The research results suggest a model for the formulation ofamanagement development training strategy for owners/managers of micro‐enterprises. Outlines design specifications for a management development programme for owners/managers, based on the model developed from the research findings.

This paper focuses on the development and evaluation of a management development programme for owner/managers of independent retail businesses in Limerick City. It describes the objectives of the programme, the selection mechanism for participants, the programme content and an extensive evaluation of the programme focusing on pre‐, interim and post‐course evaluation.

The nature of the international corporate public relations function is the substance of ongoing debate by both leading public relations academics and practitioners, with the predominant body of literature advocating public relations as a management rather than a line function. This ongoing debate formed the basis of a 1993 exploration of public relations as a management function within Irish companies, which concluded that public relations was a line rather than management function at that time. In light of changes in the intervening decade, this article aims to assess the evolution of public relations practice to date.

This paper presents the results of longitudinal research undertaken in 2003, replicating the 1993 study with the original participant companies, addressing seven key prerequisites identified from literature in the classification of public relations as a management function.

Based on an exploration of these prerequisites the paper concludes that the public relations function in the companies surveyed is now a management function.

The research undertaken illustrates further possibilities in longitudinal research with the same companies in addition to illuminating the wider possibilities in both public relations practitioner and function research. Furthermore, qualitative research adopting either a case study or depth interview methodology would add greater understanding the nature, development and complexities of public relations in Irish companies.

The paper notes the progression of public relations from a line to a management function. This progression will have implications for the education and management of the public relations practitioner and the positioning of the function within organisations.

The paper depicts a longitudinal study of public relations in Ireland. The paper is of value to both academics and practitioners in benchmarking the progression of public relations.

The purpose of this paper is to optimise and characterise the sensory aspects of gelatos flavoured with different types of coffee preparations (brewed, espresso and soluble), to select the most acceptable formulation and investigate the influence of hedonic claims on the consumer acceptance of this product.

First, the optimal concentration of each coffee type (brewed, soluble and espresso) to be added to the gelato was determined using the just-about-right scale. Second, the acceptance and purchase intentions towards gelatos flavoured with different concentrations of each type of coffee were determined. Finally, the most acceptable concentration for each flavour was selected based on purchase intentions and three other hedonic claims (i.e. texture, flavour and overall impression).

The estimated optimal concentrations of coffee (in relation to syrup) were found to be 111.09, 135.31 and 59.38 per cent for brewed, espresso and soluble coffee, respectively. Gelatos flavoured with soluble coffee were accepted more readily and associated with higher purchase intentions based on the evaluated sensory attributes (i.e. colour, taste, texture, softness and overall impression). The sensory perceptions towards these gelatos did not change significantly based on the evaluated hedonic claims (“coffee”, “soluble coffee” and “gourmet coffee”). This reveals that consumers may not be influenced by specific information and/or hedonic claims in the case of coffee gelatos.

Besides encouraging the availability of a variety of coffee products on the market, this work also supports future studies aimed at the optimization of coffee products from a sensory perspective.

In this study, a panel of 74,128 Italian SMEs was analyzed to verify whether any syndromes could be identified and defined through financial ratios. Defining relevant syndromes (i.e. the set of correlated signs and symptoms often associated with a particular disorder) can be of importance for assessing which specific intervention can solve a firm's difficulties.

To identify the main syndromes involved in company defaults, firstly, financial data on defaulted firms for each of the main economic sectors were examined through a cluster analysis; the results obtained for each sector were then compared to verify whether syndromes recur across sectors. Finally, the effects of each syndrome were compared with possible default causes, as described by previous literature.

Results show that a significant share of corporate insolvencies is characterized by a set of recurrent signs and symptoms so that the main syndromes can be identified. The results also show that these syndromes recur across sectors, even if specific values characterize each sector.

The approach adopted in this study sets a new direction for the analysis of default risk, as the study shows that certain key syndromes can be defined and described, and the study suggests that different problems can induce different risk patterns. Further analyses of other samples could confirm whether the same syndromes recur over countries and over time.

This is the first study aimed at identifying and describing the syndromes affecting SMEs, conducted by means of balance-sheet ratios.

While the economic literature mostly tackled discrimination looking at labour costs, this work focuses on its relation to labour productivity, arguing that discrimination may worsen the performance of female employees. In this view, it represents a source of allocative inefficiency, which contributes to reducing output.

Female discrimination is both a social and an economic problem. In social terms, consolidated gender stereotypes impose constraints on women’s behaviour, worsening their overall well-being. In economic terms, women face generally worse labour market conditions. Using long-run Italian data spanning from 1861 to 2009, the authors propose a novel measure of female discrimination based on the observed frequency of discriminating epithets. Following social capital theory, the authors distinguish between structural and voluntary discrimination, and use Data Envelopment Analysis for time series data to assess the extent of inefficiency that each component of discrimination induces in the production process.

The results draw the trajectory of female discrimination in Italy and provide evidence in favour of the idea that female discrimination reduces productive efficiency. In particular, the structural component of female discrimination, although less sizeable than the voluntary component, plays a major role, especially in recent years, where more stringent beauty standards fuel looks-based discrimination.

The contribution of this work is twofold. First, based on contributions from social sciences different from economics, it proposes a novel theoretical framework that explores the effect of discriminatory language on labour productivity. Second, it introduces a novel and direct measure of female discrimination at the country level, based on the bidirectional link between language and culture. The indicator is easily understood by policymakers and may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-discrimination policies.