THE EFFECT OF TAX PREFERENCES ON HEALTH SPENDING

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the tax preference for health insurance on health care spending using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 1996-2005. We use the fact that Social Security taxes are only levied on earnings below a statutory threshold to identify the impact of the tax preference. Because employer-sponsored health insurance premiums are excluded from Social Security payroll taxes, workers who earn just below the Social Security tax threshold receive a larger tax preference for health insurance than workers who earn just above it. We find a significant effect of the tax preference, consistent with previous research.     

Consumer perspectives on the African sharptooth catfish in rural and urban areas of the Northern Province

This study evaluated consumer behavioural patterns in relation to meat products, with special reference to the African sharptooth catfish, in the Northern Province. Personal interviews were conducted in rural Ga‐Mamphaka and urban Giyani. The major meat type purchased was found to be chicken (71 per cent in the rural and 46 per cent in the urban community). The sharptooth catfish was found to be acceptable to the majority of respondents, both urban (69 per cent) and rural (57 per cent). Most respondents also indicated that they would like to purchase canned catfish. A potential market for catfish would seem to exist at a price competitive with that of chicken.     

On the economics of trials: adversarial process, evidence, and equilibrium bias

The adversarial provision of evidence is modeled as a game inwhich two parties engage in strategic sequential search. Anaxiomatic approach is used to characterize a court's decisionbased on the evidence provided. Although this process treatsthe evidence submissions in an unbiased way, the equilibriumoutcome may still exhibit bias. Bias arises from differencesin the cost of sampling or asymmetry in the sampling distribution.In a multistage model, a prodefendant bias arises in the firststage from a divergence between the parties' stakes. Finally,the adversarial process generates additional costs that screenout some otherwise meritorious cases.     

Auctions of divisible goods: on the rationale for the treasury experiment

We compare a sealed-bid uniform-price auction (the Treasury'sexperimental format) with a sealed bid discriminatory auction(the Treasury's format heretofore), assuming the good is perfectlydivisible. We show that the auction theory that prompted theexperiment, which assumes single-unit demands, does not adequatelydescribe the bidding game for Treasury securities. Collusivestrategies are self-enforcing in uniform-price divisible-goodauctions. In these equilibria, the seller's expected revenueis lower than in equilibria of discriminatory auctions.     

Book reviews

Strategic Leaning in Action Tony Grundy London, McGraw-Hill, 1994, 218 pp. ISBN 0-07-707825-X.

The Knowledge-creating Company Ikujiro Nonaka & Hirotaka Takeuchi Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995, 382pp, £24.95 (hbk), ISBV 0-19-509269-4.

The Challenge of the 21st Century: Managing Technology and Ourselves in a Shrinking World Harold A. Linstone with Ian I Mitroff Albay, Ny, State University of New York Press, 1994, 406 pp, $19.95 (hbk) ISBN0-7914-1949-5.

Practical Steps for Aligning Information Technology with Business Strategies: How to Achieve a Competitive Advantage Bernard H. Boar New York, John Wiley, 1995, 241 pp, ISBN 0-471-07637-6.

Strategic Innovation: An International Casebook on Strategic Management Charles Baden-Fuller & Martyn Pitt (Eds) London, Routledge, 1996, 461 pp, £16.95 (pbk), ISBN 0-451-12870-6.