California legislated the restructuring of its electric power industry in 1996. Deregulation was successful until 2000 when crisis, caused by a number of outside forces and flawed legislation, sent wholesale electric prices skyrocketing. Restructuring of the electricity sector in Texas occurred in two phases. The first phase began in 1995, when wholesale markets were opened to competition; the second phase began June 18, 1997, when the 1999 Texas Electric Choice Act, was signed into law. Deregulation has largely been successful in Texas. This analysis examines the legislation of these states and how they differed, setting the stage for one unsuccessful and one successful move to retail competition in the electricity industry.

Competition to lure corporations has become an enormous issue between states. Smaller communities feel unable to participate in economic development opportunities since their budgets do not provide the necessary funding. In 1979, the Texas state legislature passed the Development Corporation Act in an attempt to aid the smaller communities' quest for economic development. The Act allowed for the creation of local development corporations; however, it did not provide a sufficient funding source to assist the corporations. Therefore two local sales options were established. This paper reports the findings of an analysis of per capita income and employment changes after the adoption of an economic development sales tax. The analysis showed no statistically significant impacts on cities adopting an economic development sales tax when compared with non-adopting cities.

To meet global competition many companies have reorganized work process systems, eliminated management levels, formed employee work groups and implemented variable compensation systems. This study investigated the effect of group incentives on individual sales performance in two specialty shops located in a large metropolitan hotel. Two questions were addressed: What effect would adding a group bonus plan have on individual employee's sales performance who had previously received hourly wages in one shop; and, what effect would changing an individual incentive plan to a group plan have on the individual employee's sales performance in the other shop. In one shop 5 of 7 employees' productivity increased: in the other, 1 of 3 subjects' productivity increased. Contingencies in both shops are analyzed and suggestions offered for future research.

American businesses have confronted a changing world economy marked by increasing competition , technological innovation, and instability. Many more women have entered the labor force. Many families' caregiving needs are now being met by family members who also are holding down jobs. This, in turn, has fueled the rising need among employees for workplace policies that enable them to meet the often competing demands of job and home. In 1993, Congress passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA of the Act) to provide a national policy that supports families in their efforts to strike a workable balance between the competing demands of the workplace and the home. The objective of this study is to examine the amount of FMLA lost time at one particular company in order to determine a demographic and job characteristic profile of employees who take time away from their jobs for reasons that are protected by the Act.

The purpose of this study is to determine which of three forecasting methods provides the most accurate short-term forecasts, in terms of absolute and mean absolute percentage error, for a unique set of data. The study applies three forecasting techniques--the Box-Jenkins or ARIMA method, cycle regression analysis, and multiple regression analysis--to quarterly sales tax revenue data. The final results show that, with varying success, each model identifies the direction of change in the future, but does not closely identify the period to period fluctuations. Indeed, each model overestimated revenues for every period forecasted. Cycle regression analysis, with a mean absolute percentage error of 7.21, is the most accurate model. Multiple regression analysis has the smallest absolute percentage error of 3.13.

This thesis examines China's state-owned enterprise reform and financial reform in the last two decades. I characterize the progress of China's state-owned enterprises reform in two areas: privatization of small SOEs and mass layoffs. I argue that privatization rests on the political economy of China. I also discuss the evolution of the financial system and come up with some strategies of financial liberalization in China. Result from this study suggests that if the necessary reforms of the financial sector and state enterprises are effectively carried out, inevitably this will lead to a significantly slower rate of growth for a period of time. However, these reforms will provide the basis for a period of sustained growth in the long run.

A popular approach to operating organizations in the 1990s is the implementation of work teams. The current literature offers little information on the use of performance management techniques in work team settings. This case study examined the effects of employing a performance improvement strategy on employee performance in a work team environment comprised of part-time graduate students. The performance improvement strategy included composing job descriptions, job aids (e.g., work organization charts), task request logs and posting weekly and monthly performance feedback. Improvements were observed in some aspects of team performance. Some of the improvement was due to task clarification and improved scheduling produced by the antecedent interventions. Performance feedback had little effect on measured performance but seemed to facilitate discussion and problem-solving.

It is assumed that democratic policing will help to improve the respect of human rights and democracy in a given country. Using secondary data, this study explores cross-nationally the interrelation between democratic policing practices (e.g., community policing) and democracy and human rights.The results show significant positive correlation between the practice of democratic policing and indicators of democracy and respect for human rights. The analysis strongly implies that scholars have underestimated the power of policing institutions in democratic societies.

Currently, there are more than 30 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world. Since the 1970s, after the Vietnam War, international organizations and many countries have supported refugees financially, however, they all have different definitions for a refugee. Refugees who desire peace or freedom and resettle in new countries have had remarkable economic, social, and educational achievement, especially Indochinese people in the US. However, refugees who flee from conflicts have often faced new conflicts in their host society. Both refugees and the host countries experience economic and social burden, however, refugees struggle and try to escape from their economic dependency from the local government. If refugee achievements continue, they could exceed the US educational and social norm in the future.

This study analyzes the activities of the organized crime groups involved in the drug business, as well as examining national and international efforts to control these groups. Specifically, this study addresses the following questions: How is organized crime connected to the international drug business?; What are the major transnational organized crime groups involved in the international drug business?; What is the nature of the drug problem as it relates to organized crime internationally?; What international cooperative law enforcement efforts currently exist to deal with organized crime and the drug business? Findings indicate that efforts to create an effective international law enforcement network are needed to meet the challenges of drug trafficking and globalized crime. To date, such efforts have largely been unsuccessful.

The Mercado de Fort Worth is a commercial area located between downtown Fort Worth and the "stockyards" entertainment district in a Hispanic neighborhood. Many of the buildings are vacant and in need of renovation. To promote area development, the City of Fort Worth has encouraged property owners to create a market area of Mexican-theme restaurants and shops. Property owners have expressed concern about potential returns on renovation investments. This study provides property owners with information regarding several similar projects across the country. The report finds that basic economic and site location principles are the main determinants of project success. The report also reviews local business training and assistance resources. Finally, the report provides information regarding "historic" building designations and associated tax incentives available to property owners

Electronic commerce was expected to grow exponentially, but the actual rate of growth in recent years has been disappointing. Recent surveys of perceptions of the development of electronic commerce clearly focus our attention on the perception and fear of computer crime as the major cause of this disappointing growth pattern. The thesis critiques existing private law solutions to this problem and argues from a normative theory on “the commons” for the application of new public law enforcement solutions in the public trust, sanctions, and public coproduction of order. The thesis argues that given the failures of existing private law solutions to the problem, these public law enforcement solutions should be more effective, efficient, and more satisfactory.

The purpose of this research project is to examine the educational and job-training opportunities offered in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, and how the skills acquired from these programs assimilate with the job opportunities available in the area. Specifically, we will look at the counties of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy. The central hypothesis of this project is that the Rio Grande Valley in its efforts for a more highly trained workforce may actually be enabling its workforce to seek better employment opportunities in other areas.

In this study, the development of the computer related crime will be examined in the first chapter. After a detailed introduction to computer crimes, the most common types of the computer crimes will be examined and the characteristics of the offenders and their motivates will be identified. The general investigation process of the computer crime investigation will be outlined in the second chapter. After attempting to define computer crime, computer criminals and investigation process, a case study related to the topic will be examined and the characteristics and the motives of the criminals will be identified. In the last chapter the response by law enforcement officers to high technology crime will be discussed.

This study proposes a method for measuring the regional economic impact of a relatively new sport: stock car racing. Although research on the economic impact of most major league sports is abundant, little has been written on stock car racing. The purpose of this paper is to estimate, through a simulation, the regional economic impact of Texas Motor Speedway. The study finds that the Texas Motor Speedway boosted economic activity by $87,179,367 in 1998 from racetrack operations, and supported 5,300 jobs paying $22,293,135 in earnings. In addition, expenditures by speedway visitor from outside the region are estimated at $22,985,200, further increasing the total local economic activity by $49 million.

Changes in workforce demographics, employee sentiments, and working conditions have increased attention on employees' needs to balance the demands of work life and family life. Despite apparent growing interest among companies to be responsive to these needs, the number of companies demonstrating high levels of work-family responsiveness is relatively small. The frameworks of resource dependence theory and institutional theory were used to develop a model to explain differences in work-family responsiveness among for-profit companies. The theoretical models were tested on survey data collected through a stratified random sample of 692 for-profit companies. The data were further enhanced with secondary data sources. While the institutional model explained more variance in work-family responsiveness than the resource dependence model, a model combining both theories best explains work-family responsiveness among for-profit companies. High industry-region diffusion of family-friendly benefits was one of several strong predictors of work-family responsiveness. Also, the greater the proportion of professionals in a company's industry, the greater was the level of work-family responsiveness. Companies that measured effectiveness outcomes were more likely to offer family-friendly benefits. The same was true for companies with more positive assessments regarding the impact of their family-friendly benefits. Organizations that were large, publicly traded, or had human …

The 1990s were characterized by severe turbulence in the global economy. Economic and financial crises occurred in Latin America, Middle and Eastern Europe and Asia. This analysis distinguishes between the two socioeconomic criteria "transitional" and "emerging" region. Transitional countries are former centrally planned socialist economies and emerging countries former agricultural-oriented classical developing economies with mostly a history of military or some other kind of autocratic dictatorship. The resources for the analysis are data sets regarding investment, exchange rate behavior, government finance, international liabilities of monetary authorities and inflation. The study reveals macroeconomic patterns associated with economic development in each socioeconomic region. It is shown that similar patterns are responsible for successful and non-successful performance in each region. A comparison of different regions shows many parallels between emerging economies, but only little similarity between transitional economies.

This study evaluated the relative association of socioeconomic, minority group and housing characteristics of census tracts with the racial composition of residential areas within one southwestern city between 1950 and 1980. The unit of analysis was the census tract; the data were taken from the U.S. Census of Population and Housing 1950-1980 for the Fort Worth, Texas SMSAs. The Index of Dissimilarity compared racial segregation in the Fort Worth urbanized area for blacks with all others (1950-1980) and for Spanish and non-black minorities with all others (1960-1980). The data show little change in the extent of residential segregation over 30 years. The multiple regression showed that the degree of segregation in census tracts became increasingly predictable based on past minority concentration in the same neighborhood. Lagged social status and minority group variables significantly predicted the percent of the population that was black or Spanish in census tracts ten years later. Beta weights for percent black or percent Spanish were always the strongest in each tract regression and largely determined the level of segregation that existed in tracts ten years later. This paper asserts that social status characteristics must approach more equal levels between minority and majority groups before integrated neighborhoods …