Above board? Interlocking directorates and corporate contagion in 1980s Australia

The 1980s were an outrageous time in Australia's business history. This paper re-examines this era of misconduct, assessing the role of interlocking directorates for corporate governance of diversified business groups. Professional interlocked executives—those with professional training, executive status and mobility between member firms—enabled the takeover culture of the time, and allowed managers to ignore promised strategic benefits and redirect associated firms towards speculative share ownership. These results demonstrate the importance of board independence for corporate governance, and the way that expertise has been weaponised within managerial capitalism to encourage trust in risky and exploitative corporate structures.     

Consumer involvement in health research: a UK scoping and survey

Consumer involvement or patient and public involvement (PPI) in health research is a UK policy imperative and a prerequisite for many funders. PPI in research is defined as research carried out with or being carried out by the public (or service users), rather than research on patients and public as subjects or participants. Despite the clear policy driver, there is relatively little empirical evidence on the extent, processes and impact of user involvement in research. This paper aims to add to the international evidence base on PPI in research by providing a key overview of current trends and impacts. In order to understand the current extent and variation of PPI in research, a scoping exercise and survey were carried out on selected UK studies. Six research topic areas (cystic fibrosis, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and public health) were selected to ensure a range of designs, study populations and histories of PPI in research. A total of 838 studies (non‐commercial studies and not older than 2 years) were contacted. The response rate for the scoping was 38% and the survey 28%. In the scoping, 51% of studies had some evidence of PPI and in the survey 79%. The most common PPI activity was steering committee membership and reviewing patient information leaflets. There appeared to be some blurred roles with patients participating as research subjects as well as carrying out patient involvement roles. A major finding was the limited amount of available information about PPI in publicly accessible research documents. We suggest that the invisibility of this type of involvement and the lack of routinely collected information about PPI results in a lack of shared understanding of what optimal PPI in a study should look like, with important implications for practice. Furthermore, without a framework to review PPI it is difficult to know if different approaches to PPI have a different impact on key outcomes of the research.     

Money,exchange and division of labour in Rousseau's economic philosophy

Abstract

This paper examines the arguments advanced by Rousseau to explain his rejection of monetary exchange. First we show that the rejection of money as mean of exchange expresses a dismissal of any form of exchange, motivated by a need for independence. In Julie, the community of Clarens exemplifies an autarchic, paternalistic economy that is at once unequal and deceptive. To understand why Rousseau chose such a downbeat solution to the problems arising from the organisation of the division of labour, we make a parallel between the economic and amatory themes, showing in each case the dependence upon others produced by the development of amour-propre.     

The Economics of Private Business Jet Travel

The use of private air travel for business trips has expanded rapidly over the past few decades. We estimate that the number of U.S. domestic passenger trips per year on business aircraft exceeded 17 million in 2007, or a number equal to about 40 percent of combined domestic first-class, business-class, and full-fare coach airline trips—travel options for which passengers also pay a premium for timeliness, comfort, or privacy. Once a company determines that it can benefit from private business travel, it generally identifies the most cost-effective option, including the operating characteristics of the aircraft and the options for obtaining this service. This paper examines some of the factors that influence decisions on these options, with particular emphasis on the financial and program alternatives that are making it less costly for business travelers to take advantage of private jet travel, thereby expanding its use. Our findings indicate that the customary view of these options is oversimplified and ignores the new ownership (or non-ownership) models for obtaining use of a business aircraft.     

SECURITIZATION: A LOW-COST SWEETENER FOR LEMONS

Since the launching of the mortgage backed market in the early 1970s, securitization has experienced extraordinary growth and spread to a remarkable variety of receivables. But financial economists in the tradition of Miller and Modigliani have been hard pressed to explain such growth. When viewed within the context of an M & M world of “perfect markets,” securitization appears to be simply another way—and a highly complex and costly one, at that—for a company to carve up its operating cash flows and repackage them for investors. This article seeks to explain the growth of securitization by identifying reductions in costs that M & M assume out of existence. For some types of companies, the largest sources of the cost savings are fairly obvious. Most mortgage securitizations are effectively subsidized by the U.S. government, which contributed greatly to the launching of the securitization movement. And commercial banks forced to meet regulatory capital requirements have found securitization of loans to be a low-cost compliance strategy. But securitization appears to offer more than regulatory benefits. For example, higher rated companies with a variety of financing options appear to use securitization to diversify their funding sources and arbitrage small price differences in financial markets. But if such arbitrage profits can be significant, the non-regulatory benefits appear to be largest for companies with few financing alternatives—those firms that face what economists refer to as a “lemons problem.” Available information about such companies is often limited (as in the case of smaller companies), unfavorable (companies in financial distress), or particularly difficult to appraise (companies in volatile industries, or facing unstable political environments or potentially large liabilities). Especially in the case of such “lemons” companies, securitization may reduce overall financing costs by carving up the evaluation of a company's securities into tasks amenable to greater specialization. In so doing, it may reduce aggregate information costs for all its securities and thus increase total value.     

Developing a model of housing support: the evidence from Merseyside

This paper examines the complexities of providing housing support services for people who have experienced homelessness. The evidence is from a qualitative study of both those receiving and those providing support services for homeless people to resettle into the wider community from homeless accommodation in the Merseyside area. Different approaches of support are considered and using narratives, a model of successful support is established. The experiences of the majority of the service users strongly suggest that support has been critical in assisting a resettled way of life after being homeless. The paper contends that a critical prerequisite of successful support is the strength of desire of the homeless person to become resettled, coupled with a degree of motivation to engage with support services. The importance of such motivation should not be underestimated. Equally important to the success of resettlement is the relationship that most clients develop with a support worker. This relationship can initially develop while attempting to resolve practical difficulties of finding suitable, permanent accommodation. Through a mutual respect between worker and client and a high degree of empathy from a worker towards a client in tandem with an individualized support package aimed at independent living successful outcomes can occur. The paper concludes that support is successful when it is provided in a flexible manner thus relying on the skill and ability of a support worker to adequately judge the exact requirements of a service user. When this delicate balance between support and service user needs is achieved, the outcome is long‐term sustainable housing solutions.     

Certification of Origin as a Non-Tariff Barrier

This paper puts forward the opinion that the certification of origin constitutes another type of non‐tariff barrier. Indeed, certification of origin often combines both a quantity restriction and a sort of quality cost subsidy. We consider the canonical model of strategic trade policy, whereby two firms located respectively in the home country and in a foreign country are competing on the domestic market. In this framework, we show how certification can allow the domestic firm to position itself as a high quality producer. If, however, the certified firm offers the low quality good, then consumers’ surplus may be improved.     

A cost-effectiveness analysis comparing the originator follitropin alfa to its biosimilars in patients undergoing a medically assisted reproduction program from a French perspective

Objective: To assess the cost-effectiveness (CE) of the originator follitropin-α (Gonal-F) in patients undergoing a medically assisted reproduction (MAR) program in comparison to its biosimilars Bemfola and Ovaleap in a French context.

Methods: A CE model was developed for France with a National Health Service (NHS) perspective. Clinical, safety, and dosage data were derived from pivotal clinical trials that compared Gonal-F to Ovaleap and Bemfola. Costs pertaining to drugs, hospitalizations, specialist visits, and examinations were retrieved from the French Programme de Médicalisation des Systèmes d'Information (PMSI) hospital database, literature review, and French clinical experts using 2017?Euro tariffs. In order to test the robustness of results, deterministic one-way sensitivity analyses were carried out on the main variables to assess the impact of treatment cost, probability of birth, ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) rates, and dosage.

Results: The average incremental cost per live birth with OHSS and without OHSS was €259.56 and €278.39, respectively, for Gonal-F compared to the pooled biosimilars (i.e. Ovaleap and Bemfola). GONAL-F had an incremental efficacy of 0.06 over the pooled biosimilars. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for Gonal-F with OHSS ranged from €3,274.80 to €4,877.76 compared to the pooled biosimilars, owing to the additional live births reported with Gonal-F. Sensitivity analyses also supported results from the base case analyses, with Gonal-F being cost-effective or the dominant strategy in most cases.

Conclusion: Gonal-F seems to be a cost-effective strategy compared to its biosimilars Ovaleap and Bemfola, irrespective of the incidence of OHSS events, but further data are needed to confirm these results.     

Traditional Food Products: The Effect of Consumers’ Characteristics,Product Knowledge,and Perceived Value on Actual Purchase

The study demonstrates the importance of customer orientation in markets dominated by small food and drink manufacturers. The study evaluates the effect of consumers’ personal characteristics and perceptions on purchase and provides better understanding of their role in business development in specialty food markets. The United Kingdom’s Mediterranean food market was chosen as a context, focusing specifically on Greek feta. Two hundred seventy-three UK specialty food shoppers were surveyed online to determine what aspects of consumers’ cognition and what personal characteristics would affect purchase decisions. The findings reveal, through 3 models (R² = .26/.20/.19), that product knowledge (p < .01), country of origin (p < .10), perceived transactional value (p < .10), consumers’ life stage (p < .05), and available income (p < .01) are 5 critical factors affecting decision making. The managerial implications for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) lie in the need to create and deliver value to consumers by informing production decisions on consumers’ insight rather than on customers’ (wholesalers, retailers) specifications.