An innovation to improve health outcomes in Amajuba district,KwaZulu-Natal,South Africa

Systems’ thinking places high value on understanding the context. This study focused on the collection of disaggregated data in order to understand the context, to facilitate improvement of health outcomes. The aim of this article was to assess the implementation of municipal ward-based health data collection (disaggregated data) and health care workers’ perceptions of this data collection process. This cross-sectional study used mixed methods in Amajuba district. The participants were professional nurses at the Primary Health Care level. Of the 131 respondents, 123 (93.9%) collected municipal ward-based health data, and found it useful. Opportunities for improving data collection were identified. Disaggregation of the data at ward level contributes to a better understanding of the target population’s health, assists planning for health needs and enables provision of targeted interventions in order to improve health outcomes, to prevent financial regression and waste of health resources.     

中国医疗保险体系中的自选择与医疗费用——基于灵活就业人员参保行为的研究

我国社会医疗保险已实现全覆盖,现阶段的主要问题在于医保基金能否实现可持续运行。在现行制度安排下,灵活就业群体参加城镇职工医疗保险可能存在逆选择问题,随着就业形态日趋多样化,这将加剧基金运行的不平衡。本文基于2012-2014年中国家庭追踪调查数据(CFPS),利用中国特有的制度特征,在实证上将逆选择效应同道德风险相区分,验证了选择参加城镇职工医保的人群是医疗费用较高的人群。估计表明,自愿选择参加城镇职工医保的人群医疗支出明显高于强制参保群体,大约高78%;而选择参加城镇职工医保的人群医疗支出比选择参加城乡居民医保高约45%。灵活就业人员参加城镇职工医保提升了他们的福利,但如何规避潜在的基金运行风险,是医保制度设计中不可忽视的问题。     

董事责任保险、董事会治理与企业创新

董事责任险是企业治理领域的热点问题。基于2006-2015年我国沪深上市公司数据，实证检验董事责任险对企业创新的影响及其治理职能发挥路径。研究发现，董事责任险作为独立治理机制，对企业创新不具有显著影响；董事责任险治理职能被董事会特征激活，即二者间存在显著交互影响关系，说明董事责任险通过董事会特征等治理机制对企业创新产生影响；董事责任险的引入助长了企业机会主义行为，从而抑制了企业创新。     

Factors influencing purchase intent in virtual worlds: a review of the literature

Previous empirical studies have identified several factors that seem to play a role in determining purchase intent in virtual worlds; three-dimensional online environments in which users interact while represented by their avatars. So far however, a clear overview of these factors is lacking, and the question that remains is what factors affect purchase intent most. Therefore, this study aims to create an overview of factors that influence users’ purchase intent in virtual worlds, and to subsequently identify the most influential factors. To conduct this review, relevant literature was gathered using a variety of search engines and keywords. An article had to explicitly study factors influencing purchase intent in virtual worlds in order to be included in this review. This search method resulted in a selection of twelve relevant articles that were used for further analysis. Results show that perceived enjoyment, social influence, customization and ease of use are important factors that influence purchase intent in virtual worlds. Enjoyment of the virtual world, beliefs and attitudes of others, avatar customization, and easy-to-use virtual world applications can thus increase users’ willingness to purchase products in the virtual world. Practical implications as well as limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Health and political regimes: Evidence from quantile regression

This study investigates how political regimes affect health conditions such as infant and child mortality rates and life expectancy using data from 180 countries observed between 1960 and 2013. Panel quantile regression is used to examine the effects at different intervals throughout the distribution of health outcomes. The estimation results indicate that democracy has significant positive effects on health outcomes and that its impacts are greater when health outcomes are worse. These results are robust to different democracy and health indices. The effects of different types of democracies and dictatorships are also considered, that is parliamentary, mixed (semi-presidential) and presidential democracies, and civilian, military and royal dictatorships. The parliamentary form of democracy has the largest positive impact on health outcomes at the worst quantile of health outcomes, although the difference in the impacts of the three types of democracies is not necessarily large. Furthermore, all types of dictatorships have a negative impact on health outcomes, with military dictatorship having the worst outcome when health outcomes are worse. Finally, the effects of democratization on health outcomes are significantly positive when the health outcomes are worse.     

The changing place of fraud in seventeenth-century public debates about international trading corporations

Abstract

This article surveys the changing role of fraud (dishonest and immoral commercial practices) in public justifications for corporate management of overseas trade in England across the seventeenth century. It argues that the perceived likelihood of fraud in international commercial settings played a critical role in public justifications for trading corporations at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The article suggests that these justifications were challenged from the 1690s. It explores three aspects of this challenge: first, the ways in which agents of the East India Company convinced the Company to liberate private trade (an activity previously defined as fraudulent by the Company and the Courts); second, the arguments from the 1680s that depicted the joint-stock corporation as an unaccountable, soulless entity whose claim to public trust looked less credible; third, how decades of accumulated experience of international trading contexts (and interactions with non-European merchants) prompted pamphleteers to promote the possibility (and reality) of unregulated trade in those settings. All three helped to erode the former association between private individual trade in international contexts as likely to encourage dishonesty, immorality, and fraud. This change therefore led to the corporate body itself becoming a possible vehicle for fraud rather than the individual international merchant (who the corporation was meant originally to regulate). The article analyses public deliberations about fraud and corporations to make interventions in the history of economic thought, the history of trading companies, and the history of economic crime (and especially its rhetorical role in debates about the regulation of trade).     

企业应收账款管理研究

我国经济已由高速增长阶段转向高质量发展阶段,“提升治理能力,实现高质量发展”是我国面对新变化、新趋势再一次作出的明确路径选择。如何加强应收账款的管理,已经成为现代企业管理中不容回避的问题。论文通过对LD公司应收账款管理的研究,提出改进方案和实施保障措施,有助于解决LD公司应收账款管理的实际问题,顺应企业高质量发展需求,提高应收账款管理能力,推动企业朝着更高质量、更可持续的方向发展。     

供给侧改革视角下科技保险 “供需双冷”困境及其化解

在供给侧改革背景下，科技保险肩负着为科技创新保驾护航的历史使命。然而，科技保险试点10年来，依然面临需求低迷与供给不足并存的发展困境。其主要根源在于：严重的信息不对称造成市场失灵、“跛行”的财政支持政策不能形成有效激励以及不成熟的行业环境制约。要想走出这一困境，仅仅从需求方着力是远远不够的。科技保险的正外部性和科技保险市场高度的信息不对称，决定了必须从财政支持、产品创新、机制创新、中介培育及信息服务等方面进行供给侧改革。为此，提出应当构建供需并重的差异化财政支持机制、加大与需求侧相匹配的科技保险产品供给、创新科技保险契约模式及运行机制、搭建科技保险中介服务和信息支持平台等建议。     

预期寿命、生育率变动与基本养老保险统筹账户调整

在构建三期世代交叠模型的基础上，通过选取相关制度指标来模拟分析在未来预期寿命和生育率变动下，基本养老保险统筹账户如何基于参数调整来维持收支平衡。研究结果表明：（1）我国居民预期寿命增长过快，统筹账户收支平衡受预期寿命变化影响较大；（2）在现阶段的预期寿命和生育率条件下，统筹账户能实现自身收支平衡，而且可在短期内通过阶段性降低缴费率来促进制度长远发展；（3）在长期内需通过提高缴费率或降低养老金替代率来保证统筹账户收支平衡，预期寿命为87.828岁且总和生育率为1.79作为参数调整临界点；（4）以现有制度设计为基准，参数调整临界点之前保证35%的基础养老金平均替代率不降，临界点之后保证20%的缴费率不升可以最大程度促进经济和社会发展。     

TrAffic LIght system for systemic Stress: TALIS3

For the purposes of financial stability, identifying financial institutions that, when in distress, could have a significant adverse impact on financial markets is important. A TrAffic LIght System for Systemic Stress (TALIS-cube) is proposed that provides a comprehensive color-based classification for grouping companies according to both the stress reaction level of the system when the company is in distress and the company’s stress level. TALIS³ can integrate multiple signals from the interaction between different risk metrics. Starting from specific risk indicators, companies are classified by combining two loss functions—one for the system and one for each company—evaluated over time and as a cross section. An aggregated index is also obtained from the color-based classification of companies. TALIS³ can be used to enhance the performance and robustness of existing systemic risk measures. An empirical analysis of the U.S. market is also provided.