The importance of customer input in the development of very new products

This research explores the acquisition of customer input and its importance in the development of very new products. Data were gathered on 55 product development projects from the computer telephony integration industry – a new industry experiencing rapid technological change. The data were used to test hypotheses concerning the relationships between product newness, the importance of customer input in the development process, and the use of customer intensive market research methods. We found that the importance of customer input increases with market newness of a product up to a point and then drops off for very new products, whereas the importance of customer input increases with technological newness of a product without dropping off. We also found that the importance of customer input significantly increases the use of customer intensive market research methods; whereas, neither market nor technological product newness in themselves had much direct effect on research methods.     

Optimum and Risk-Class Pricing of Annuities

When information on longevity (survival functions) is unknown early in life, individuals have an interest in insuring themselves against moving into different 'risk-classes' as their life expectancy is revealed. The First-Best allocation involves transfers across states of nature. With symmetric information, competitive equilibrium separates different risk classes and cannot provide such transfers because insurance firms are unable to precommit . When utility is invariant to risk-class realisation, the optimum entails uniform consumption and optimum retirement age independent of risk-class and an optimum social security scheme is superior to competitive equilibrium. When preferences depend on risk-class, welfare ranking of systems becomes indeterminate.     

Note on the relation between quantity and price anomalies under externalities

Diamond and Mirrlees (1973) provided conditions to ensure that a good generating external economies (diseconomies) should increase (decrease) in aggregate quantity when moving from a competitive equilibrium to any Pareto optimum. We prove that the same conditions ensure that each individual's equilibrium quantity of this good decreases as its price increases.     

Social Security and the increasing longevity gap

Growth in overall life expectancy is straining the Social Security budget, and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is widening. Motivated by these facts, this paper does four things. First, we develop a simple way to summarize the degree of progressivity in a Social Security system. Second, we show that growth in the life expectancy gap over the last few decades unwinds three-quarters of the progressivity of the Social Security system. Third, we develop simple reforms to Social Security that maintain the progressivity of the system and restore fiscal solvency. Fourth, we estimate the welfare effects of these potential reforms.     

Privatization and Its Benefits: Theory and Evidence

Privatization has been a key component of structural reformprograms in both developed and developing economies. The aimof such programs is to achieve higher microeconomic efficiencyand foster economic growth, as well as reduce public sectorborrowing requirements through the elimination of unnecessarysubsidies. Microeconomic theory tells us that incentive andcontracting problems create inefficiencies due to public ownership,given that managers of state-owned enterprises pursue objectivesthat differ from those of private firms (political view) andface less monitoring (management view). Not only are the managers'objectives distorted, but the budget constraints they face arealso softened. The soft-budget constraint emerges from the factthat bankruptcy is not a credible threat to public managers,for it is in the central government's own interest to bail themout in case of financial distress. Empirical evidence showsa robust corroboration of theoretical implications: privatizationincreases profitability and efficiency in both competitive andmonopolistic sectors. Full privatization has a greater impactthan partial privatization and monopolistic sectors show anincrease in profitability that is above the component explainedby increases in productivity, which reflects their market power.From the macroeconomic perspective, no conclusive evidence canbe drawn, but the trends are favorable. (JEL D21, D61, D62,E65)     

Treatment patterns,healthcare resource utilization,and costs in patients with acute myeloid leukemia in commercially insured and Medicare populations

Objective: To describe the setting, duration, and costs of induction and consolidation chemotherapy for adults with newly-diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML), who are candidates for standard induction chemotherapy, in the US.

Methods: Adults newly-diagnosed with AML who received standard induction chemotherapy in an inpatient setting were identified from the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan (2006–2015) and SEER-Medicare (2007–2011) databases. Patients were observed from induction therapy start to the first of hematopoietic stem cell transplant, 180 days after induction discharge, health plan enrollment/data availability end, or death. Induction and consolidation chemotherapy were identified using Diagnosis-Related Group codes (chemotherapy with acute leukemia) or procedure codes for AML chemotherapy administration. AML treatment episode setting (inpatient or outpatient), duration, and costs (2015 USD, payers’ perspective) were described for commercially insured patients and Medicare beneficiaries.

Results: In total, 459 commercially insured patients and 563 Medicare beneficiaries (mean age?=?54 and 66 years; 53% and 54% male; respectively) were identified. For induction therapy, mean costs were $145,189 for commercially insured patients and $85,734 for Medicare beneficiaries, and median inpatient duration was 31 days (both). Following induction, 64% of commercially insured patients and 53% of Medicare beneficiaries had ≥1 consolidation cycle; 75% and 65% of consolidation cycles were in an inpatient setting, respectively. For consolidation cycles, in the inpatient setting, mean costs were $28,137 for commercially insured patients and $28,843 for Medicare beneficiaries, median cycle duration was 6 days (both); in the outpatient setting, mean costs were $11,271 for commercially insured patients and $5,803 Medicare beneficiaries, median duration was 5 days (both).

Limitations: Granular information on chemotherapy type administered was unavailable.

Conclusions: This is the first exploratory study providing a complete picture of recent AML treatment patterns and management costs among commercially insured patients and Medicare beneficiaries. There is substantial heterogeneity in the management and costs of AML.