Endowment Size Research Articles

Discovery Sequence and the Nature of Low Permeability Gas Accumulations

There is an ongoing discussion regarding the geologic nature of accumulations that host gas in low-permeability sandstone environments. This note examines the discovery sequence of the accumulations in low permeability sandstone plays that were classified as continuous-type by the U.S. Geological Survey for the 1995 National Oil and Gas Assessment. It compares the statistical character of historical discovery sequences of accumulations associated with continuous-type sandstone gas plays to those of conventional plays. The seven sandstone plays with sufficient data exhibit declining size with sequence order, on average, and in three of the seven the trend is statistically significant. Simulation experiments show that both a skewed endowment size distribution and a discovery process that mimics sampling proportional to size are necessary to generate a discovery sequence that consistently produces a statistically significant negative size order relationship. The empirical findings suggest that discovery sequence could be used to constrain assessed gas in untested areas. The plays examined represent 134 of the 265 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas assessed in undeveloped areas of continuous-type gas plays in low permeability sandstone environments reported in the 1995 National Assessment.

Marshallian External Economies in International Trade

Ethier (1982) showed that in the presence of increasing returns to scale due to Marshallian externality a large country always gains from trade while under a certain condition a small country loses from trade at the trading equilibrium. In this paper we show that, even if Ethier's assumptions are relaxed, his main results still hold, and we further derive a necessary and sufficient condition for a small country to lose from trade. Moreover it is shown that the total world endowment of productive factor as well as the relative size of each country's factor endowment is important for the above necessary and sufficient condition in other cases than those which Ethier considered.

Alumni Donations and Colleges’Development Expenditures: Does Spending Matter?

AbstractSince college development officers supply recognition to alumni and seek donations in return a model is devised wherein this exercise of market power in the exchange is included. Data for three years is used from eighteen universities and colleges‐public and private, large and small, research and teaching oriented. The findings indicate that schools with higher development costs generate substantially more donations. Several demographic characteristics of the student body were tested. Schools with higher participation in fraternities and sororities have higher giving, while schools with a higher proportion of part‐time students have lower giving. Surprisingly, having an NCAA Division I athletic program has no significant effect on alumni giving. Likewise, alumni donations seem independent of whether a school is public or private, or is or is not a research institution. Finally, the size of a school's endowment has no predictive value, but the level of annual bequests is strongly positively related to alumni giving.

Rural sector responses to economic crisis in Uganda

AbstractThis paper, based on a survey of farm households in Uganda's Masaka district, analyses the impact of the country's economic decline on the rural sector. The economic crisis has reduced the flow of resources from the urban areas, in terms of both goods and services and remittances from urban‐based relatives. To preserve their livelihoods, rural dwellers have had to diversify their sources of income. Ability to do this is constrained not only by household characteristics, such as size, age and education of head and time endowment, but also by economic variables such as the existence of markets, size of land holding and credit availability. It is argued that to reincorporate peasants into the modern sector it is necessary to remove the barriers which prevent them from realizing a fair return on their production factors and assets.

Choice of accounting method by not-for-profit institutions accounting for investments by colleges and universities

This study reports a preliminary empirical investigation into the relation between the choice of investment accounting method used by colleges and universities and factors such as type of institution, endowment size and returns, and debt. Because these institutions use fund accounting, the effects of the choice of investment accounting method can reasonably be isolated from other accounting decisions. The results indicate that the selection of investment accounting method is influenced by type of institution, endowment size and returns, but not by debt covenants.

A Theory of 'Oil'Igopoly: Cournot Equilibrium in Exhaustible Resource Markets with Fixed Supplies

The emergence of an effective and powerful cartel in the international petroleum market has stimulated considerable effort among economists to develop models of pricing and supply behavior for this industry.2 This modeling task poses two basic difficulties. First, as in the standard oligopoly problem, one must characterize the behavior of several sellers in a market, aware of each other and of their effect on market price. Second, there is here the added difficulty of treating the explicitly intertemporal nature of suppliers' decision, wherein a limited stock must be optimally allocated over time. This paper studies the implications of the simplest non-trivial postulates about these two aspects of the problem. It is assumed that suppliers are non-cooperative Cournot-Nash players, each of whom is imagined to select an optimal supply strategy taking as given the strategies of the others. Moreover, it is hypothesized that the feasible strategies are limited to open loop paths, chosen at the initial date to maximize the present value of profits in light of the paths of supply which the others have chosen.3 These basic postulates, together with a few technical assumptions concerning the structure of resource demand, permit one to demonstrate the existence of at least one non-cooperative equilibrium. Concerning thisequilibrium we show that: (1) the average and marginal return on resource stocks is inversely related to the size of a player's initial endowment; (2) aggregate production decreases over time until all stocks are exhausted, while firms with smaller stocks exhaust their supplies no later than firms with larger stocks do; (3) the present value of price net of extraction cost declines over time; (4) industry production maximizes a weighted average of intertemporal consumer's surplus and producers' profits;

The Negro College, Student Protest and the Future

I count it a great honor to be invited to my Alma Mater. My roots run deep on the red hill and I have the greatest appreciation for the contribution of Morehouse College, past and present, to me and to my family. A recent release received from the President's Office clearly indicated the lofty position of the college among its peers. The accomplishments of its graduates, and the high quality of its faculty and staff make it possible for every alumnus to raise his head a little bit higher and throw out his chest a little bit farther. The record of Dr. Mays during his two decades as president furnish a model of accomplishment in the steady progress for all of our colleges to follow in both of these respects. Morehouse, throughout its history, has had limited resources both in terms of its needs and those available to its competitors, but it has likewise outstripped most in getting the largest in returns per dollar available. Its relatively low standing among its peers in size of endowment and its top rank in terms of the quality of its student output and the level of training of its faculty well illustrate this point. But in the race ahead, this will not be enough. Morehouse must have more and better resources to maintain its present position of eminence and to reach