Using identity structure analysis (ISA) to investigate female entrepreneurship

The process of founding a business is for most people a period of transition entailing taking on a new role. Such a transition will often result in a change of values and beliefs. For some women, values ascribed to the entrepreneur will conflict with conventional feminine values. Previous researchers have classified women in accordance with their degree of attachment to entrepreneurial values and conventionally defined masculine-feminine values (Goffee and Scase 1985, Cromie and Hayes 1987), but to date there has been little attempt to examine the process of change in women's values and beliefs as a result of business start-up.

This paper reports on the first attempt to use Identity Structure Analysis (Weinreich 1980/1986/1988) to investigate entrepreneurship: in this case, specifically female entrepreneurship.     

Does price uncertainly really reduce private investment? A small model applied to Chile

The recent literature emphasizes the negative impact of price uncertainly on private investment as result of a higher risk premium-the price to wait. This paper argues that the uncertainly concerning the cost of capital should be compared with uncertainly in the price of output. Using a simple analytical model, we conclude that the efficiency of policies aimed to reduce the price of capital, or the basic accelator between investment and output growth, may be enhanced if(1)the volatility of the output price is greater than the volatility of the cost of capital,and(2)there is a positive correlation between changes in the cost of capital prices. In both cases, private investment will be more responsive beacuse firms will minimize profit flutuations. In the second part of the paper, the model is applied to the case of chile over the 1980–90 period. This country has earned earned the reputation of being the ‘sucess story’ of Structural adjustment and has acheived fairly stable growth in the past eight years.     

South African Women in Business and Management: Transformation in Progress

This study identifies three conceptual and theoretical frameworks (free market, social engineering, and social transformation) within which the significance of gender and race to entrepreneurship and business are examined, particularly within the South African context. There are no comprehensive data sets on ownership patterns by gender and race for salaried workers or the millions of micro- and small-scale entrepreneurs in the “second” (informal) economy during and after the apartheid era in South Africa, but most agree there has been little change. However, due to government compliance programs, such as Black Economic Empowerment in the 2000s, and good monitoring of its fulfillment, there have been advances for women and blacks in formal-sector private companies and state-owned enterprises, as illustrative data given here show. The conclusion is that the social transformation (political economy) approach best captures the complex interplay of these factors, especially on gender issues and entrepreneurship, where fundamental social change becomes a possibility.     

Water and growth in an agricultural economy

We present a model of economic growth of an agricultural household that is faced with an exogenous water availability constraint. We examine the long‐run investment and consumption choices under two scenarios: (i) when the water availability constraint is binding and (ii) when it is not binding. We then compare the two scenarios to derive conditional convergence hypotheses regarding the impact of water availability on long‐run agricultural growth. Panel data from Wyoming are used to test these conditional convergence hypotheses. We find that Wyoming counties exhibit strong conditional convergence in agricultural growth. Our theoretical and empirical results demonstrate that water availability is not a determinant but can be a constraint on long‐run agricultural growth. Higher water use leads to higher growth in agricultural yield per capita but when water rights constrain water use in a county, as we found in southeastern Wyoming, there are significant losses in agricultural growth.     

Agrarian Poverty,Nutrition and Economic Class – A Study of Gujarat,India

This paper analyses poverty and calorific undernourishment in the Indian state of Gujarat, where high and market‐led industrial growth has resulted in rapid economic improvement. The study is carried out through a combination of secondary and survey‐based data. We conclude that the neoliberal agenda of uncontrolled, outward‐looking growth has not resulted in significant reduction of poverty or malnourishment in rural areas. Furthermore, while land ownership is officially used as a proxy for wealth distribution, class position appears a better predictor of poverty status in the rural areas than landownership per se. At the policy level, there is a need to revive the agrarian economy and create new non‐agricultural assets, and the primary focus in the state must shift to the distribution of created assets rather than a single‐minded focus on growth.     

Cost consequence analysis of use of a balloon expandable vascular access system and standard vascular sheath for transcatheter aortic valve implantation

Abstract

Background: Vascular complications are an important complication of transcatheter aortic valve implantation and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality as well as cost. The Solopath device is an expandable vascular access system that has previously been shown to be associated with lower rates of vascular complications. This study sought to evaluate the impact of the use of this system on vascular complications and costs in a decision model analysis.

Methods: A cost-consequence analysis was undertaken utilizing event rate data from the PARTNER trials and a published retrospective analysis of the Solopath device. The decision model estimated costs and benefits in a hypothetical cohort of patients with aortic stenosis undergoing TAVI using either a standard sheath or Solopath. The modeled analysis compared the occurrence of vascular complications and mortality at 30 days and 1 year using TreeAge Pro.

Results: The decision model demonstrated that use of the Solopath sheath resulted in 36 fewer major vascular complications, three fewer deaths at 30 days, and five fewer deaths at 1 year, resulting in a discounted cost savings of $846 CDN. Results were sensitive to decreasing rates of vascular complications with newer generation devices, however maintained modest cost-savings.

Conclusions: Reduction in vascular complications is an important part of improving care for TAVI patients. The Solopath vascular access device offers an alternative to standard sheaths with a potential reduction in complications and cost-savings.     

Valuation and Performance of Reacquisitions Following Equity Carve‐Outs

While existing literature reports a positive market reaction to parent companies conducting carve‐outs, we find that the response to carve‐outs that are ultimately reacquired is negative or insignificant. Reacquired units perform considerably worse than those that are not reacquired. Thus, parents may perceive that the market does not recognize the potential of these poorly performing units, and reacquires them to capitalize on the parents' private information. The reacquisition announcement results in a favorable market reaction for the parents and the units. However, parents experience negative long‐term buy‐and‐hold abnormal returns when they reacquire less than 100% of units' shares.