John Ruggiero - Böcker

A reexamination of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy, this study challenges prevailing images of Chamberlain as a tragic hero—a man of peace, naively impressed by the dictators, who did his best under difficult circumstances to prepare his country for war. Instead, the author suggests that Chamberlain dominated his government and demonstrated an uncanny ability to manipulate those around him in support of his own personal vision of Britain's national interest. The failure to rearm to a level consistent with imperial obligations presented a formidable problem. The British Government admittedly had no good option available to it; however, Chamberlain was prepared to endure the humiliating consequences of appeasement, even if it meant peace at any price. He did so for personal, political, and prejudicial reasons.Ruggiero argues that, without Chamberlain, British rearmament would have taken a new direction, and such action might have prevented World War II. Relying primarily upon the Chamberlain Papers and Cabinet Records, this account details how and why Chamberlain adopted his chosen course of action, even after all support for his policies fell away as a result of the Munich Crisis. Most studies have concentrated directly on Chamberlain's appeasement policy, and this is the only one that analyzes his role in the rearmament program at length. It also sheds new light on appeasement by illustrating the connection between the policy and Britain's attempts to rearm.

Based largely on Neville Chamberlain's own words and official government documents, this book describes how were it not for Chamberlain's powerful, dominating presence in the British government, World War II might have been avoided.Was Adolf Hitler hell-bent on inciting a war, and there was no course of action by any national leader that could have prevented World War II? Or, did Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement policy with Germany and slowness in strengthening England's armed forces directly encourage Hitler to strike, dooming Chamberlain's successor Winston Churchill to face the war that could have been prevented? This book provides an in-depth look at one of the most pivotal moments in England's history, tapping a variety of primary sources to reveal rarely considered perspectives on the story behind the road to World War II. It explains how Chamberlain was driven by a personal agenda to destroy Socialism, which was the primary force behind Chamberlain's "double policy" of gradual rearmament and appeasement of the German dictator that enabled Hitler to strengthen his position in Europe.Author John Ruggiero takes exception to the Revisionist argument that Chamberlain had no choice but to appease Hitler, instead arguing that Charmberlain's pursuit of a policy of appeasement powered Germany's war machine, and as the most important figure in the British government, he therefore bears full responsibility for the failure of that policy. Students of international relations and history will be surprised to learn that Hitler was not wholly responsible for the war, while scholars will be interested in the manner in which Chamberlain managed to control the agenda—and his rationale for doing so.

This book focuses on the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to Major League Baseball (MLB). DEA is a nonparametric linear programming model that is used across academic disciplines. In sports economics, authors have applied the technique primarily to assess team and/or managerial efficiency. The basis for performance analysis is economic production theory, where it is assumed that baseball can be viewed as a production process whereby inputs (player quality measures) are transformed into outputs (wins, attendance). The primary advantage that DEA has over more traditional regression based approaches is the ability to handle multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Further, the approach is nonparametric and hence, does not require a priori specification of the production function.The book develops the theory of DEA in the context of a production environment. A focal point is the assessment of technical and cost efficiency of MLB teams. It is shown that previous frontier applications that measure efficiency provide biased results given that the outcome of a game is zero-sum. If a team loses a game due to inefficiency, another team wins a lost game. A corrected frontier is presented to overcome this problem. Free agent salary arbitration is analyzed using a dual DEA model. Each free agent's contract zone is identified. The upper and lower bounds, representing the player's and team's perspective of value, respectively, are estimated. Player performance is estimated using a modified DEA model to rank order players based on multiple attributes. This model will be used to evaluate current Hall of Fame players. We provide arguments for other players who are deserving of membership. We also use our measure of performance and evaluate age-performance profilers for many ball players. Regression analysis is used to identify the age of peak performance. The method is used to evaluate some of the all-time greats. We also use the method to analyze admitted and implicated steroid users. The results clearly show that performance was enhanced. This book will provide appropriate theoretical models with methodological considerations and interesting empirical analyses and is intended to serve academics and practitioners interested in applying DEA to baseball as well as other sports or production processes.>

This book focuses on the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to Major League Baseball (MLB). DEA is a nonparametric linear programming model that is used across academic disciplines. In sports economics, authors have applied the technique primarily to assess team and/or managerial efficiency. The basis for performance analysis is economic production theory, where it is assumed that baseball can be viewed as a production process whereby inputs (player quality measures) are transformed into outputs (wins, attendance). The primary advantage that DEA has over more traditional regression based approaches is the ability to handle multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Further, the approach is nonparametric and hence, does not require a priori specification of the production function.The book develops the theory of DEA in the context of a production environment. A focal point is the assessment of technical and cost efficiency of MLB teams. It is shown that previous frontier applications that measure efficiency provide biased results given that the outcome of a game is zero-sum. If a team loses a game due to inefficiency, another team wins a lost game. A corrected frontier is presented to overcome this problem. Free agent salary arbitration is analyzed using a dual DEA model. Each free agent's contract zone is identified. The upper and lower bounds, representing the player's and team's perspective of value, respectively, are estimated. Player performance is estimated using a modified DEA model to rank order players based on multiple attributes. This model will be used to evaluate current Hall of Fame players. We provide arguments for other players who are deserving of membership. We also use our measure of performance and evaluate age-performance profilers for many ball players. Regression analysis is used to identify the age of peak performance. The method is used to evaluate some of the all-time greats. We also use the method to analyze admitted and implicated steroid users. The results clearly show that performance was enhanced. This book will provide appropriate theoretical models with methodological considerations and interesting empirical analyses and is intended to serve academics and practitioners interested in applying DEA to baseball as well as other sports or production processes.>

This book provides a complete analysis of educational production and costs using the nonparametric technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book focuses on estimation of technical, allocative and scale efficiency in the public sector characterized by the influence of exogenous socio-economic variables. State of the art DEA models will be presented and fully discussed. Specific education topics important to policy makers including adequacy, technical, allocative and scale efficiency, productivity and environmental costs will be analyzed. To illustrate how these techniques can be applied to school systems worldwide, the authors use data on Australian elementary and high schools to develop nonparametric measures that will help inform current policy debate in Australia.The purpose of the book is to provide a comprehensive analysis of educational production using numerous public sector DEA models. We provide a review of DEA with SAS programming code to estimate technical, scale and allocative efficiency in chapter 2. In chapter 3, we extend the DEA models to control for exogenous factors of production. SAS code is also provided to estimate all public sector models. We use simulated data to illustrate the results. Chapters 4–6 provide a complete analysis of the primary and secondary schools. We analyze input and output oriented models and derive measures of technical, allocative and scale efficiency. We also provide estimates of environmental costs that arise from schools facing different operating environments based on socioeconomic conditions. In addition, we show how DEA can provide insight on adequacy—the minimum cost of providing a pre-defined adequate education. The models presented are consistent with public sector production in general and educational production in particular. We also provide a complete analysis of educational productivity for both primary and secondary schools using state of the art public sector Malmquistmeasures. The authors use current data on Australian schools to highlight important policy questions related to efficiency and productivity given concerns that schools are not allocatively scarce resources in an economic efficient way.This research focus comes at an important watershed moment in the Australian Federal Governments’ current involvement in designing new nationally consistent funding models for both government and non-government schooling sectors with effect from 2014. A new National School Resourcing Standard is proposed to be implemented signaling a move to resource adequacy, school efficiency and value for money dimensions. These standards are consistent with the measures presented and estimated in this book. As a result, the models implemented in this book can serve as the basis to evaluate the funding changes associated with the transition from a ‘centralized’ to a new ‘decentralized’ set of school funding arrangements.

This book provides a complete analysis of educational production and costs using the nonparametric technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book focuses on estimation of technical, allocative and scale efficiency in the public sector characterized by the influence of exogenous socio-economic variables. State of the art DEA models will be presented and fully discussed. Specific education topics important to policy makers including adequacy, technical, allocative and scale efficiency, productivity and environmental costs will be analyzed. To illustrate how these techniques can be applied to school systems worldwide, the authors use data on Australian elementary and high schools to develop nonparametric measures that will help inform current policy debate in Australia.The purpose of the book is to provide a comprehensive analysis of educational production using numerous public sector DEA models. We provide a review of DEA with SAS programming code to estimate technical, scale and allocative efficiency in chapter 2. In chapter 3, we extend the DEA models to control for exogenous factors of production. SAS code is also provided to estimate all public sector models. We use simulated data to illustrate the results. Chapters 4–6 provide a complete analysis of the primary and secondary schools. We analyze input and output oriented models and derive measures of technical, allocative and scale efficiency. We also provide estimates of environmental costs that arise from schools facing different operating environments based on socioeconomic conditions. In addition, we show how DEA can provide insight on adequacy—the minimum cost of providing a pre-defined adequate education. The models presented are consistent with public sector production in general and educational production in particular. We also provide a complete analysis of educational productivity for both primary and secondary schools using state of the art public sector Malmquistmeasures. The authors use current data on Australian schools to highlight important policy questions related to efficiency and productivity given concerns that schools are not allocatively scarce resources in an economic efficient way.This research focus comes at an important watershed moment in the Australian Federal Governments’ current involvement in designing new nationally consistent funding models for both government and non-government schooling sectors with effect from 2014. A new National School Resourcing Standard is proposed to be implemented signaling a move to resource adequacy, school efficiency and value for money dimensions. These standards are consistent with the measures presented and estimated in this book. As a result, the models implemented in this book can serve as the basis to evaluate the funding changes associated with the transition from a ‘centralized’ to a new ‘decentralized’ set of school funding arrangements.