Doug Henwood wrote:
> >"Public Versus Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration: The
> > Effects of Incentives and Organizational Form"
> >
> > BY: JONATHAN M. KARPOFF
> > University of Washington
> >
> >Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
> > http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=145609
> >
> > Date: February 26, 1999
> >
> > Contact: JONATHAN M. KARPOFF
> > Email: Mailto:karpoff at u.washington.edu
> > Postal: University of Washington
> > School of Business
> > 115 Lewis Hall
> > Box 353200
> > Seattle, WA 98195-3200 USA
> > Phone: (206)685-4954
> > Fax: (206)685-9392
> >
> >ABSTRACT:
> > From 1818 to 1909, 35 government and 56 privately-funded
> > expeditions sought to locate and navigate a Northwest Passage,
> > discover the North Pole, and make other significant discoveries
> > in arctic regions. Most major arctic discoveries were made by
> > private expeditions. Most tragedies were publicly funded. By
> > other measures as well, publicly-funded expeditions performed
> > poorly. On average, 5.9 or 8.9% of their crew members died per
> > outing, compared to 0.9 or 6.2% for private expeditions. Among
> > expeditions based on ships, those that were publicly funded used
> > an average of 1.63 ships and lost 0.53 of them. Private
> > ship-based expeditions, in contrast, used 1.15 ships and lost
> > 0.24 of them. Of public expeditions that lasted longer than one
> > year, 46.7% were debilitated by scurvy, compared to 10.5% for
> > private expeditions.
> >
> > Multivariate tests indicate that these differences are not due
> > to differences in the exploratory objectives sought, country of
> > origin, the leader's previous arctic experience, or the decade
> > in which the expedition occurred. Rather, they are due to
> > systematic differences in the ways public and private
> > expeditions were organized. In particular, compared to private
> > expeditions, public expeditions: (1) employed leaders that were
> > relatively unmotivated and unprepared for arctic exploration;
> > (2) separated the initiation and implementation functions of
> > executive leadership; and (3) adapted slowly to new information
> > about modes of arctic travel, clothing, diet, shelter,
> > leadership structure, and optimal party size.
> >
> >
> >JEL Classification: G39, H11, L29, L33, N40
--
Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901