Alternatives to traditional Medicare: Medicare Part C poised to prosper

Recent events indicate that Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) plans are poised to prosper. Yet many employers express hesitation to offer Medicare Advantage, formerly known as Medicare+Choice, plans to their retirees because they are concerned about the potential withdrawal of those plans if there is a reversal of federal funding rules. This article addresses those concerns. It provides a historical overview of Medicare Part C and describes the impact of the most recent agency guidance. The author cites plan trends, raises employer implications and concludes that Medicare Advantage plans will continue to expand, possibly facilitated by employers as they implement leading-edge retiree medical designs.     

The determinants of corporate divestment in the UK

It has been widely suggested that since the early 1980s many diversified firms narrowed the scope of their activities by refocusing on their core businesses, primarily through divestment activity. This study examines the extent and determinants of divestment across a large sample of UK firms over the period 1985–1989. Divestment is analysed using both a proportions and count data (Poisson and negative binomial regressions) approach. The results confirm that corporate divestment is not merely a reflection of managerial idiosyncrasies or mean reversion behaviour in the activities undertaken, but is a purposeful response to exogenous change in a manner broadly consistent with both the agency theoretic and strategic views of the firm.     

Examining the Impact of the 1986 Tax Reform Act on Corporate Dividend Policy: A New Methodology

This article introduces a new methodology to investigate the effects of the 1986 Tax Reform Act (TRA) on corporate dividend policy. The methodology employs a modified version of Rozeff's (1982) model to control for the potential effect of underlying influential variables. The empirical results show there is no widespread reaction to the 1986 TRA passage on the aggregate level of dividends and only modest support for an industry-related dividend effect. We also find that firm size does not play a significant role in dividend policy reaction to the 1986 TRA.     

The experience of forming business relationships in tourism

This study examines the formation of business relationships among tourism organisations. A phenomenographic study conducted with 25 managers drawn from regional tourism organisations in Queensland, Australia revealed three qualitatively different but interrelated ways of experiencing relationships: as competition, co‐operation and collaboration. Differences among experiences were accounted for by the way managers defined the meanings of several dimensions common to each experience. The results suggest managers' experiences can be developmentally ordered on a continuum of relationships that demonstrate progressively more complex and inclusive approaches to forming relationships. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What is the After‐Tax Price of R&D? An Interstate Comparison*

As of 2005, 31 US states offered corporate income tax credits on research and development (R&D) expenses in order to encourage more in‐state innovation activities. Empirical questions about the efficacy of such tax breaks at the state level persist, in part because the complexity of the tax laws means that simple credit‐rate comparisons across states do not fully capture the differential variation in effective after‐tax price incentives firms face in choosing where to locate R&D activities. We are unaware of any research analysing and comparing the effective prices of R&D faced by firms, across all US states and utilising micro‐level data. Using data extracted from detailed reading of individual firms' 10‐K and S‐1 filings and of state‐level tax credit rules, we estimate the effective after‐tax price of basic and qualified research expenditure each firm would have faced in each of the 50 states had they been located there. Our methodology simulates the effective tax price of each firm's marginal dollar of research expenditure, assuming the firm chose to move all of its R&D operations to each of the 49 other states. Through Monte Carlo techniques, we consider the sensitivity of our interstate comparative results to several modelling assumptions. We find significant variation in after‐tax R&D prices across states with quite different R&D tax laws. Prices range from $0.176 to $0.520 on a marginal dollar of R&D in Virginia and Washington State, respectively. We also find that the interstate variability is generally more important – indeed, much wider than we had anticipated before investigating state‐by‐state regulations – than the inter‐firm variability within states.     

An analysis of management buy-out failure

Management but-outs are an important aspect of corporate restructuring. In order to understand their longer-term impact there is a need to examine their effects in recessionary conditions. In this context, the paper analyses the factors which lead to management buy-out failure using both financial and non-financial information. The evidence is consistent with the view that some mechanisms introduced to deal with agency cost problems, particularly management incentives and undertaking restructuring activity in a timely fashion are associated with a lower probability of failure. Excessive leverage and delays in restructuring are associated with a higher probability of failure.     

Where is the opportunity in opportunity zones?

In December 2017, the U.S. Congress passed into law the Opportunity Zone (OZ) program. As an OZ, designated low-income census tracts provide considerable tax breaks to property investors, intending to attract investments and spur economic growth. As the success of the program is dependent on investors' responses, we analyze market reactions in a difference-in-differences framework. We identify two potential effects on property markets: tax breaks for investors and expected land value appreciation. Our results show that tax breaks are priced efficiently. Qualified properties increase by 7–20% in price, while vacant land increase up to 37%. In contrast, we find limited signs of expected land value appreciation.     

Proxy variable estimation of productivity and efficiency

We model productivity and inefficiency jointly, instead of modeling and estimating either only productivity or only inefficiency with many variable and quasi-fixed inputs. In the first model, we use a multi-step procedure. We use the proxy variable method based on the first-order condition (FOC) of expected profit maximization with respect to the single variable input to take care of the endogeneity problem arising from both productivity and inefficiency. To separate mean inefficiency from mean productivity we assume them nonparametric functions of different sets of exogenous variables. In the second model, we consider a novel system consisting of the production function and the FOCs of expected profit maximization for the multiple variable inputs. Distributional assumptions are made on all the random errors associated with the production function, the FOCs, productivity, and inefficiency functions in the second model. We use the Colombian food manufacturing data as an application of our model.     

IMAGINING A DECOLONIZED CITY IN AND FROM AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND

Imagining decolonized cities creates space to explore how urban places could strip away colonial dominance and restore the ability of Indigenous people to live, know and be. In this essay, we describe one attempt to create such space. While working in Porirua in Aotearoa New Zealand, we ran an urban design competition, hosted workshops with young people and held a symposium. Through all three phases we drew on utopian thinking to imagine beyond the current constraints of urban form in Aotearoa New Zealand to consider how cities might reflect the diverse realities of Māori. While this approach is an attempt at generating hopeful geographies, it also sat in tension with (post)colonial realities, such as racist attempts by white people to claim Indigeneity, and the ongoing need for land to be returned to Indigenous people. We argue that envisioning how cities might be decolonized is useful and needs to be rooted in the particular politics of place, but this imagining needs to be paired with action to confront persistent colonialism.