Unexpected problems sometimes arise when governments attempt to introduce competition. The problem considered herein is market power and its exercise during the California electricity crisis of 2000–2001. In introducing competition, both transitional and long-run opportunities for firms to exercise market power may arise. California had transitional rules that severely limited participation of its utilities in forward markets and enhanced the market power of new generating entities. The transitional problems could have been avoided, but in the long-run a smaller market power issue should be expected to arise stochastically. This analysis suggests a new long-run institutional policy role: continual  regulatory  oversight  of   an  industry  that   could  be   workably competitive most of the time. This explains why an agency like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should have a permanent Office of Market Monitoring. It also suggests why, in some electricity markets, stochastic market
power events may arise before capacity gets strained.

Formal village organizations (VO) can be classified into market-oriented (MO) and communityoriented (CO) organizations, with the former aimed at raising members’ incomes and the latter at the provision of local public goods. This paper investigates the role of community conservatism in opposing economic differentiation and, thereby, constraining the emergence, configuration, and activities of MOs in West Africa. To do this, we develop a model where we show that, if these conservative forces are important, MOs need to be larger than would otherwise be optimal in order to gain acceptability and emerge. This, in turn, has an impact on their governance structure, as the needed extra members demand a more participatory decision-making process in order to secure the delivery of club goods, constraining the exercise of leadership. With very high resistance to economic differentiation, no MO can emerge. Using a dataset of 646 VOs in Burkina Faso, we identify a sharp contrast in initial size and governance structure between the first MO to emerge in a village and subsequent MOs. This is consistent with the results of the model assuming that first MOs encounter strong opposition to their emergence, while the social environment is more tolerant forsubsequent MOs..

In this article, we respond at length to recent critiques of research on implicit bias, especially studies using the Implicit
Association Test (IAT). Tetlock and Mitchell (2009) claim that ‘‘there is no evidence that the IAT reliably predicts class-wide
discrimination on tangible outcomes in any setting,’’ accuse their colleagues of violating ‘‘the injunction to separate factual from
value judgments,’’ adhering blindly to a ‘‘statist interventionist’’ ideology, and of conducting a witch-hunt against implicit racists,
sexists, and others. These and other charges are specious. Far from making ‘‘extraordinary claims’’ that ‘‘require extraordinary
evidence,’’ researchers have identified the existence and consequences of implicit bias through well-established methods based
upon principles of cognitive psychology that have been developed in nearly a century’s worth of work. We challenge the blanket
skepticism and organizational complacency advocated by Tetlock and Mitchell and summarize 10 recent studies that no manager
(or managerial researcher) should ignore. These studies reveal that students, nurses, doctors, police officers, employment recruiters,
and many others exhibit implicit biases with respect to race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, social status, and other distinctions.
Furthermore—and contrary to the emphatic assertions of the critics—participants’ implicit associations do predict socially and
organizationally significant behaviors, including employment, medical, and voting decisions made by working adults.
# 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Educational privatization is rapidly expanding in many urban school districts, altering the social, political, and economic dynamics of educational policy and leadership. Yet many adherents cast privatization primarily as a fiscal or economic alternative to traditional public school management, ignoring these broader alterations. Drawing from a review of the educational privatization literature, as well as an analysis of current privatization reforms, this article offers an original typology of educational privatization and applies the typology to the reforms underway in New York City. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of this typology and privatization reforms for educational leadership practice and policy

In forming a strategy to deal with the severe economic downturn, President-elect Obama and his evolving brain trust of economic advisers should recall the largely successful and innovative efforts by the federal and state governments to avoid a projected steep post–World War II recession – in particular, the key role of higher education. Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Expanding higher education funding and enrollment capacity may be as important as any other policy lever to cope with an economic downturn, including funding for infrastructure. Yet most state and local governments are in the midst of wholesale cutting of their budgets. Some 75 percent of all students in the US are in public institutions. Feeling the effects of repeated cuts in budgets, many multicampus public systems are threatening to cap enrollment despite growing demand. Would it be smart to constrict access to higher education just when unemployment rates are potentially peaking? An exploratory Commission on Higher Education, not unlike what President Harry Truman formed in 1946, but with more urgency and possibly an initial budget, might provide a larger vision and contemplate a range of options. Short-term and immediate policies could include significant directed subsidization via state governments of the public higher education sectors; a large increase in federal Pell Grants for low-income students, already severely under-funded relative to demand; greatly expanded resources for direct loans; the possibility of a one-time grant for middle-income students to attend a participating public or accredited private institution; for some targeted age groups, federal unemployment compensation could be tied to enrollment access to an accredited higher education institution; and support of public college and university building programs as part of any new infrastructure investment program. Long-term goals should include an assessment of the overall health of the U.S.’s still famous, but strained, higher education system and what national and state goals might be conjured. Globally, those nations that resort to uncoordinated and reactionary cutting of funding, and reductions in access, will find themselves at a disadvantage for dealing with impact of the worldwide recession, and will lose ground in the race to develop human capital suitable for the modern era.