Impact of Market Concentration on Employment and Wages: a Look at the Insurance Industry

Atlantic Economic Journal - The falling share of labor in national income is a global concern. This study examined the impact of changes in market concentration ratios in the insurance industry on...     

The Impact of Entrepreneurial Orientation,Technological Capability,and Consumer Attitude on Firm Performance: A Multi‐Theory Perspective

Despite the maturing entrepreneurial orientation literature, limited advance has occurred in the theoretical aspect of entrepreneurial orientation–firm performance relationship, and wide‐ranging empirical investigations are few. The authors address these concerns by testing a comprehensive model and by extending the theoretical boundary. Specifically, drawing on dynamic capability theory, core competence perspective, and consumer theories, we argue that technological capability is central for growth and financial performance of an entrepreneurially oriented firm. We introduce a construct called consumer attitude dynamism. We reason that this variable influences the growth of entrepreneurial firms. Our theory and empirical results primarily contribute to the entrepreneurship literature.     

Existence of a continuous utility function with path monotonicity: the Wold approach

Summary This paper uses the approach of Wold to prove the existence of a continuous utility function on a subset ofR ⁿ with a path monotonicity assumption. This result is then extended to a Banach space.The research for this paper was begun while visiting the University of Cambridge and the London School of Economics in 1988. I should like to thank Dr. A. Beardon, Professor M. Desai, Professor L. Foldes and Dr. A. Horsley for their hospitality. Also, I am grateful to an anonymous referee for comments that led to an improvement in the exposition.     

The effect of telehealth insurance mandates on health-care utilization and outcomes

This paper uses panel data techniques to investigate the impact of state mandates to cover telehealth services on private insurance premiums and enrollment, health-care utilization, and health outcomes. There is evidence that telehealth insurance mandates are associated with an increase in primary care, but no significant changes in overall health outcomes. However, there is evidence of a reduction of secondary care and improvement in health outcomes in non-metropolitan areas. The results provide useful information regarding the potential of telehealth to reduce health-care costs as well as to reduce disparities in access to health care and in health outcomes.     

Further remarks on totally ordered representable subsets of Euclidean space

We introduce the property of ? -norm-boundedness on totally ordered subsets of Euclidean spaces. We show that when a closed subset X of the Euclidean space ⁿ, endowed with a continuous total order ?, is ? -norm-bounded, the order topology and the induced Euclidean topology must coincide on X. This generalizes a recent result by Beardon, proved on connected totally ordered subsets of Euclidean space, because on totally ordered closed subsets of ⁿ connectedness is a particular case of ? -norm-boundedness. We also analyze necessary and sufficient conditions for the coincidence of both topologies, and discuss some extension to the infinite-dimensional context.     

The adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards in a non-colonized developing country: The case of Nepal

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic and rigorous analysis of the accounting environment in Nepal. Based on the accounting ecology framework developed by Gernon and Wallace (1995) and interviewing selected key stakeholders, it critically examines issues related to the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Nepal. It contributes to the literature by examining issues associated with the adoption of IFRS in a non-colonized developing country. This study finds that the decision to adopt IFRS in Nepal is not driven by the needs of local organizations and is rather imposed by donor organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The findings of this study provide evidence that the adoption of IFRS is likely to be problematic due to the country's contextual environment. Specifically, there is a severe lack of qualified accountants in Nepal and the accounting profession is not ready to adopt IFRS. The study also finds that social problems such as widespread corruption and fraud are likely to cause problems for the adoption of IFRS.     

Open gaps,metrization and utility

Summary It is shown that each of the Debreu Open Gap Theorem and the Debreu Continuous Utility Representation Theorem can be used in order to prove the other. Furthermore, it is proved that the classical Alexandroff-Urysohn Metrization Theorem implies Debreu's Continuous Utility Representation Theorem and, thus, all known results on the existence of continuous utility functions.     

A remark on a utility representation theorem of Rader

Summary In this note we consider some problems involved in proving the existence of a continuous real-valued utility function representing a preference relation. We claim that there is an error in the classical Rader proof of the existence of an upper semicontinuous utility function. We also pose some open questions regarding some problems in utility theory.The work for this paper was begun while I was visiting the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Cambridge in 1992. I thank the Department for its hospitality. I should also like to thank A. F. Beardon for some extremely valuable discussions about the general nature of utility functions.     

Utility and entropy

Summary. In this paper we study an astonishing similarity between the utility representation problem in economics and the entropy representation problem in thermodynamics. Received: May 17, 1999; revised version: October 16, 2000