Government Hedging: Motivation, Implementation, and Evaluation

This article examines option hedging strategies that enable politicians to manage budgetary risk. While the theoretical risk management arguments are general, the simulation analysis considers the example of oil revenue risk in Texas, and estimates the costs and benefits of an option hedging program. To evaluate government option hedging strategies, the study develops a hedge quotient measure that compares the future value of realized revenues plus net option proceeds to the future value of expected revenue. The average hedge quotient is found to be lower for the option hedging strategy than for the unhedged position, illustrating the cost of an option hedging program. Nevertheless, option hedging effectively manages extreme downside risk and stops large budget deficits from occurring. Politicians may also like option hedging because it preserves the potential of realizing budget surpluses.     

Recovering the Indigenous Legal Traditions of India: Classical Hindu Law in Practice in Late Medieval Kerala

The collection of Malayalam records entitled Vanjeri Grandhavari, taken from the archives of an important Namputiri Brahmin family and the temple under its leadership, provides some long-awaited information regarding a wide range of legal activities in late medieval Kerala. The organization of law and the jurisprudence represented by these records bear an unmistakable similarity to legal ideas found in dharmastra texts. A thorough comparison of the records and relevant dharma texts shows that landholding Namputiri Brahmins, who possessed enormous political and economic power in the region, mediated the implementation of dharmastra into the legal system. From this comparison arise new understandings of law and legal categories such as custom and positive law. Moreover, such comparisons begin to elucidate the problems involved in Western assumptions that it is textual law, not its interpretation and application by humans, which controls behavior. The Vanjeri records demonstrate not only the importance of dharmastra as a historical document but also the manner and extent to which dharmastra provided the foundation for legal systems in Kerala as well as in other regions of India.     

Some important variables related to conservation knowledge and interest

This study was an attempt to isolate and identify some important variables related to conservation knowledge and interest in high school age youth. The major goal of this study was to establish some basic variable groups that could provide additional meaning and direction for reintroducing an integrated conservation program into the secondary school curriculum through a more appealing instructional approach. Findings indicated that the assumption of a direct relationship between knowledge and interest does not necessarily hold. Findings also contradict popular assumptions regarding rural-urban, male-female, and age differences in levels of conservation knowledge and interest. Open-ended program approaches based on the variables identified could lead to improved methods for increasing conservation knowledge and interest.Received his M.S. in forestry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Major interest is natural resource education.Received his Ph.D. in education from The Pennsylvania State University. Major interests are recreation education and natural resource education.