Announcements.

• Position: Southern Economic Association to announces new members

The results of the Southern Economic Association elections were announced at the Southern Economic Association meeting in Washington, D.C., in November 2008. The new officers are as follows:

President-Elect: William F. Shughart II, University of Mississippi

Vice-President: Arthur Goldsmith, Washington and Lee University (two-year term)

Board of Trustees: Gail M. Hoyt, University of Kentucky (four-year term).

The Southern Economic Association Nominating Committee members for the 2008 slate of officers are as follows:

Catherine C. Eckel (Chair), University of Texas at Dallas (eckelc@utdallas.edu)

Gary Hoover, University of Alabama (ghoover@cba. na.edu)

Bruce K. Johnson, Centre College (johnsonb@centre. edu).

Georgescu-Roegen Prize in Economics

The award is given to the author or authors of the article selected by the prize committee as the best to appear in the Southern Economic Journal in the previous volume year. This year's winners are "Will Competitive Bidding Decrease Medicare Prices?" by Brett Katzman and Kerry Anne McGeary and "Economic Incentives and Foster Care Placement" by Brian Duncan and Laura Argys. The articles appeared in the January 2008 issue, Volume 74, Number 3, and the July 2007 issue, Volume 74, Number 1, respectively.

The two papers selected to share the Georgescu-Roegen Prize for Best Article have a number of things in common. Both address important economic issues. Both provide findings that will be helpful to policy makers. And both illustrate basic economic principles: the first shows that prices matter, and the second shows that institutions matter.

In "Will Competitive Bidding Decrease Medicare Prices?" Brett Katzman and Kerry Anne McGeary examine the effects of recent attempts to reduce Medicare spending by the use of competitive bidding in the determination of reimbursement prices. They first provide a theoretical analysis of several competitive bidding experiments that have been set up by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. They show that the specific auction process employed is susceptible to "gaming," and that as a result it is inefficient, leads to price increases, and may cause decreases in the quality of services. In short, overly complex rules for choosing winners and setting prices distort the incentives that bidders face. Using preliminary results from the experiments, Katzman and McGeary provide empirical evidence that supports the predictions of their theoretical analysis and recommend...