Imposes Opportunity Costs Research Articles

Egg maturation, egg resorption and the costliness of transient egg limitation in insects.

Although there is widespread agreement that the cost of oviposition underlies selective oviposition in insects, there is no consensus regarding which factors mediate the cost of oviposition. Models have suggested that egg costs are often paramount in those insects that do not continue to mature eggs during the adult stage (pro-ovigenic insects). Here we address the hypothesis that egg costs are generally less significant in synovigenic insects, which can replenish oocyte supplies through continuous egg maturation. A dynamic optimization model based on the biology of a highly synovigenic parasitoid, Aphytis aonidiae, suggests that the maximum rate of egg maturation is insufficient to balance the depletion of eggs when opportunities to oviposit are abundant. Transient egg limitation therefore occurs, which imposes opportunity costs on reproducing females. Thus, whereas the most fundamental constraint acting on the lifetime reproductive success of pro-ovigenic species is the fixed total number of eggs that they carry at eclosion, the most fundamental constraint acting on a synovigenic species is the maximum rate of oocyte maturation. Furthermore, the ability of synovigenic species to reverse the flow of nutrients from the soma to oocytes (i.e. egg resorption) has a dramatic influence on the cost of oviposition. Whereas females in hostrich environments may experience oviposition-mediated egg limitation, females in host-poor environments may experience oosorption-mediated egg limitation. Both forms of egg limitation are costly. Contrary to initial expectations, the flexibility of resource allocation that typifies synovigenic reproduction actually appears to broaden the range of conditions under which costly egg limitation occurs. Egg costs appear to be fundamental in mediating the trade-off between current and future reproduction, and therefore are an important factor favouring selective insect oviposition.

Realistic job previews: A test of the adverse self-selection hypothesis.

The realistic job preview (RJP) literature has focused more on posthire outcomes such as employee retention than on prehire outcomes such as applicant attraction and job choice behavior. This study extends the RJP literature by focusing on 2 important issues related to applicant attraction: (a) the weight applicants place on negative information in relation to other variables such as pay level and promotional opportunity and (b) whether the best applicants react differently to negative information than do other applicants (adverse self-selection). Results indicate that applicants place a fairly high negative weight on negative job information, relative to other vacancy characteristics. The results regarding adverse self-selection are less clear but suggest that the highest quality applicants may be less willing to pursue jobs for which negative information has been presented, especially when doing so imposes opportunity costs.

More Women-Owned Businesses are Important; New Government Programs may not be

Strickland and Burr at once proclaim the utility of generally employeeless and undercapitalized sole proprietorships for women having few work options and assert that enough of these small businesses grow big that the group as a whole benefits the national economy. They miscast the first function as primarily facilitating the second. For many women, small business ownership is a short-term last resort and perhaps the sole way now to enlist some in service to the national economy. Greater national gain in the form of job growth and income enhancement, however, can be achieved in the longer term by diverting capital and labor to the wage and salary sector Policy fostering women's ownership of small business should have as its principal target women, not small business per se. Subsidies paid women-owned businesses impose opportunity costs associated more with skill development than growth in gross national product. Policy's main goal should be to aid women in securing skills and using them to maximum advantage on the open market unfettered by discrimination.