Nonseparable Utility and the Double Dividend Debate: Reconsidering the Tax-Interaction Effect

The literature on the use of environmental taxes inthe presence of distortionary (labor) taxes warns thata partial-equilibrium Pigouvian tax analysis is notappropriate because increasing the price of dirtygoods can futher aggravate the prexisting distortions. This argument is most frequently made assuming thatlabor is taxed to meet a fixed revenue requirement.When a dirty good is also taxed, others argue thatthis lowers workers' real wages, causing people toreduce their labor supply below its already suboptimallevel, aggravating labor market distortions. However,most papers ignore the effect that a cleanerenvironment can have on labor supply. That is, mostpast work has assumed that the quality of theenvironment is weakly separable in the utilityfunction. We argue that a cleaner environment canincrease labor supply, at least partially offsettingany incentive for workers to decrease their laborsupply. Further, we show explicitly how relaxing theseparability assumption affects the standardresults.     

Private equity bids in Australia: an exploratory study

In this study, we provide an insight into how private equity players choose their targets and the bid arrangements they prefer. We test our expectations of the unique features of private equity targets using a sample of 23 listed private equity target firms during 2001–2007. We find, relative to a benchmark sample of 81 corporate targets matched by year and industry, the private equity target firms to be larger, more profitable, use their assets more efficiently, more highly levered and have greater cash flow. Multivariate testing indicates that private equity targets have relatively greater financial slack, greater financial stability, greater free cash flow and lower measurable growth prospects. All conclusions are found to be robust to a control sample of 502 takeover bids during 2001–2007.     

When young soldiers drink: The impact of legal access to alcohol among U.S. Army soldiers

We study the impacts of legal access to alcohol on young U.S. Army soldiers. Regression discontinuity estimates reveal that soldiers report a large and significant increase in alcohol consumption after their 21st birthday; however, we precisely estimate that there are no meaningful impacts of legal access on any of the short-term outcomes we observe, including suicidal tendencies, depression, tobacco use, physical fitness, psychological health, fitness for combat deployment, and job-related infractions. Novel data on soldier's cognitive ability, psychological health, and family history allow us to explore whether the impacts of legal access vary by risk factors for alcohol abuse. While the increases in alcohol consumption were largest among those who had a family history of mental health problems, had better coping ability, and had higher cognitive ability, these subgroups did not uniformly experience adverse behavioral and physical outcomes upon gaining legal access to alcohol.     

Real-world cost of treatment for multiple sclerosis patients initiating and receiving infused disease-modifying therapies per recommended label in the United States

Abstract

Aims: The study evaluated the real-world cost of treatment in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients initiating infused disease-modifying-therapies (DMT) in the United States.

Materials and Methods: This retrospective cohort study using administrative claims data included adult patients with MS initiating index infusion DMT (ocrelizumab (OCR), natalizumab (NTZ) or alemtuzumab (ATZ)) from April 2017–September 2018 with 6-months pre/12-months post-index continuous enrollment. The primary cohort included patients who had prescribed annual dosing visits indicated by the approved product label (PL): 3 OCR, 5 ATZ, and 12–13 NTZ infusion visits within the first year of initiation. Annual treatment cost was the sum of all costs on index DMT infusion visit dates. Costs were summarized for a primary and secondary cohort of patients receiving additional doses than prescribed in PL (>3 OCR, >5 ATZ, and >13 NTZ infusion visits); and an overall cohort of patients who met minimum required annual dose (≥3 OCR, ≥5 ATZ, and ≥12 NTZ), further stratified by insurance type.

Results: For patients in the primary cohort (123 OCR, 18 ATZ, and 48 NTZ), mean (standard-deviation) annual cost of treatment with OCR, ATZ, and NTZ cohorts was $72,066 ($34,480), $121,053 ($51,097) and $93,777 ($38,815), respectively. Among patients initiating OCR and NTZ, 15 and 6% respectively, had additional infusion visits leading to greater costs. Mean annual costs of index infusion DMT treatment in the overall cohort (162 patients treated with OCR, 18 with ATZ, 56 with NTZ) were $80,582, $121,053, and $93,807, respectively. The mean costs for commercial enrollees were higher than those for MAPD enrollees.

Limitations: Small sample size, limited population generalizability, and cost-reduction for ATZ beyond the second year need to be accounted for.

Conclusions: Real-world infusion DMT treatment costs for commercially insured patients were higher than perceived expenditures based on wholesale acquisition cost and administration costs via a physician-fee schedule. Consideration of real-world costs in cost-effectiveness and treatment/coverage decisions is needed.     

Measuring new product and service portfolio advantage

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - The current study introduces the concept of new product and service portfolio (NPSP) advantage by creating and validating a three-dimensional...     

“I know I can,but I don't fit”: Perceived fit,self-efficacy,and entrepreneurial intention

While extant literature generally suggests a positive relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention, several moderators have been identified – suggesting possible boundary conditions on that relationship. This paper introduces perceived person-entrepreneurship fit to entrepreneurship and shows that it moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention. Three studies are conducted which illuminate the utility of randomized experiments and methodological approaches to address limitations in the interpretation of empirical results. Studies 1 and 2 are randomized experiments to examine causality; Study 3 contains two correlational surveys to triangulate the results by examining whether the proposed effects withstand the influence of confounding variables in real-life. The findings indicate that when a strong perception of fit with entrepreneurship is achieved, entrepreneurial intention is strongly predicted by entrepreneurial self-efficacy. In contrast, if one perceives a low level of fit or no fit, entrepreneurial intention will be low, regardless of entrepreneurial self-efficacy.     

Generation Z Perceptions of a Positive Workplace Environment

Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal - The most recent generation to enter the workplace, generation Z, has been stereotyped as being less engaged in the workplace, despite being highly...     

The business aviation industry: growth,contraction and consolidation

Business Economics - The most significant portion of revenue within the general aviation industry derives from business aviation. Since the mid-1960s, this industry segment has always been largely...     

Communicative Action and Corporate Annual Reports

Annual reports are an important element in the genre of corporate public discourse. The reporting practices mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for all publicly traded corporations are intended to render the annual reports a legitimate and trustworthy medium through which management communicates information related to the financial performance of the firm. The following discussion represents an inaugural attempt to investigate the ethical characteristics of the discourse found in corporate annual reports using Habermas' principles of communicative action. In preparing the Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A) portion of the report, managers are charged with providing narrative information for investors and other interested third parties relevant to assessing the firm's financial condition. Previous rhetorical studies of the narrative portions of annual reports argue that they serve as means for both legitimate and distorted communication. We investigate this communication medium through the lens of Habermas' norms for communicative action, which require communicators to be comprehensible, truthful, sincere, and legitimate. The study represents an initial attempt to operationalization Habermas' principles of communicative action and to employ a methodology that facilitates their application to research within a business context. From one perspective, consistent with agency theory as specified by neoclassical economics, it would seem that firms anticipating worse-than-expected financial performance would be less likely to exhibit the Habermasian principles necessary for undistorted communication because they would attempt to strategically influence the message being communicated about the firm's financial position. Instead, employing rhetorical analysis software, Diction 5.0, we found that firms expecting both good and bad earnings surprises exhibited a higher level of communicative action than a composite average firm. Although preliminary in nature, our findings suggest that firms anticipating large earnings surprises, either high or low, use the narrative portion of the annual report as a vehicle through which to communicate information about managements' veracity and trustworthiness as well as the firm's financial position.