Cost saving is a critical objective for most companies that use outside help for the management of their IT function. Many businesses, though, fail to realize the savings they expected. And such failures are common whether the companies use traditional outsourcing (in which IT services are shifted wholly or in part to one or more provider organizations whose compensation is based on the satisfa...

Abstract: Some scholars of the Interwar Debate on Socialism argue that the trial and error method developed by Taylor (1929), Lange (1938), and Dickinson (1939) proved that socialism could match or outperform capitalism. Other scholars argue that the trial and error method of simulating markets was an illegitimate compromise between true socialism and capitalism. The market socialists failed to...

This paper develops a positive theory of growth and redistribution in which agents care about both their absolute and relative levels of consumption. As in Alesina and Rodrik (1994), public goods are productive and are financed by a tax on capital. Equilibrium tax policy is chosen by a pivotal voter and is shown to reflect the strength of status preferences and the distributions of wealth and p...

as mutually agreed upon by the two major sects (shī‘a and sunnī), divorce is effected only by the husband; and to explain the evidence for this matter, the jurists commonly resort to the prophet’s tradition, “divorce is in the hands of the one who has touched the leg [i.e. in the hands of the husband]” although this tradition is mainly related in the sunnī tradition sources, it is claimed in im...

Off-label use of medication is common in many areas of medicine and particularly in dermatology. Off-label use of medication, whether by prescription or use of samples, creates special ethical issues that include informed consent, patient autonomy and the fundamental adage “first, do no harm”. The choice of medication is also influenced by the patient and appropriate use ultimately depends on a...