[This study develops an empirical model to examine the responsiveness of budgetary allocations to public demand for services and the resulting outcome-generating activities in the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The analysis combines nonfinancial measures of the results of operations with budgetary and financial measures. The model explicitly incorporates efficiency and effectiveness measures and reflects as well the interactive nature of outcome-generating activities in the NYPD. The setting investigated suggests that, as in for-profit managerial accounting, task complexity and budgetary slack may be important conditioning variables in performance assessment. The empirical analysis uses publicly available NYPD data. We find evidence that budgetary provisions are responsive to perceived social needs. In addition, task complexity is a pervasively important determinant of both budgetary allocations (a major cost-driver) and the effectiveness of the police department in achieving specific outcomes. The data also suggest that the department may rely extensively on budgetary slack to cope with rapid changes in demand. The nature of the outcome-generating activities of the organization is illustrated in the responsiveness of outputs and outcomes to increased inputs. These results illustrate both the feasibility and the potential usefulness of comprehensive performance evaluation in the not-for-profit sector. The next section of the paper provides background on the empirical research issues and a brief review of relevant academic research. The empirical model is developed in section II. Section III reports the results of the model estimation and hypothesis tests. We discuss the implications of the results in section IV.]

Presents an empirical model to examine the responsiveness of budgetary allocations to public demand for services in the New York City Police Department (NYPD). Resulting outcome-generating activities in the NYPD; Not-for-profit (NRF) organization efficiency and effectiveness; Analysis of NYPD data.

Reviews the book "Discovery Techniques: Obtaining and Analyzing Business Financial Data," by Martin Mellman, Steven B. Lilien and James M. Docherty.

We examine a sample of firms that reset the exercise prices on their executive options. These repricings follow a period of about one year of poor firm-specific performance in which the average firm loses one-fourth of its value. No other offsetting changes to option terms or compensation are made, and many firms reprice more than once. Without repricing, a majority of the options would have been at-the-money within two years. We find that when faced with circumstances in which repricing might be chosen, firms with greater agency problems, smaller size, and insider- dominated boards are more likely to reprice.