Does financial reporting misconduct pay off even when discovered?

Review of Accounting Studies - Experts and popular belief contend that it pays to engage in financial misconduct. We hand-collect data on three subsamples of severe misconduct cases, between 2003...     

Potential savings from the adoption of nurse practitioner technology in the Canadian health care system.

An investigation is reported of the potential for reducing aggregate medical costs by the introduction of nurse practitioners into the Canadian health care system to an extent consistent with demonstrated safety and effectiveness. A cost model is developed for this purpose and estimates of its parameters are provided. The cost model is coupled with a demographic projection model and potential cost reductions are simulated over the period 1980-2050, under alternative assumptions. Results suggest that savings could have been in the range 10-15% in 1980 for medical services as a whole, and 16-24% for ambulatory services. The estimated savings percentages are quite insensitive to projected changes in the age structure of the Canadian population.     

On the socially optimal size of a life-saving facility

The paper examines the simultaneous problem of finding an optimal size of an intensive care unit and an optimal amount of social investment in preventive medicine. The “demand” for ICU services is assumed stochastic. The approach used is to minimize social costs involved in operating the facility and social loss stemming from deaths of untreated patients.

After deriving the optimality conditions the results are applied to recent British data     

Financial reporting fraud and other forms of misconduct: a multidisciplinary review of the literature

Financial reporting fraud and other forms of financial reporting misconduct are a significant threat to the existence and efficiency of capital markets. This study reviews the literature on financial reporting misconduct from the perspectives of law, accounting, and finance. Our goals are to establish a common language for researchers interested in this line of research, describe the main findings and challenges in these literatures, and provide directions for future research. Although research on financial reporting misconduct faces challenges, those challenges provide significant opportunities to advance the literature, as the answers to many questions on financial reporting misconduct remain unsettled.     

The diffusion of medical technology: a "prisoner's dilemma" trap?

Medical technology diffusion and its effect on the modern hospital and on the rising costs of medical care is an issue which receives considerable attention from economists and policy analysts. In this paper a different approach is used to understand this phenomenon. We present the decision of a single hospital, whether or not to adopt an advanced technology system, using the concept of a noncooperative, nonzero sum game. Such presentation provides us with more insight on the conflict in which hospitals find themselves; the "catch" which pushes them to purchase more and more sophisticated and expensive technology in the hope that they will be able to successfully compete with other hospitals. The situation is further complicated by the existence of another "hidden" player--society, whose goals may differ from those of any individual hospital and even from the collective interests of the hospital sector. Possible conflicts that may exist and suggested solutions for each participant are presented and their policy implication are discussed.     

Economic Evaluation of Health-care Programmes: Is CEA Better than CBA?

It has been noted earlier that during the same period that the contingent valuation (CV) method evolved and became the most commonly used method of valuing environmental projects, the development in health economics was instead been towards cost–effectiveness analysis (CEA). Recently there has been a growing interest in the use of CEA, where QALYs (quality-adjusted life-years) are used as a measure of effectiveness, as the method of evaluation for environmental projects. The purpose of this paper is to answer the question – is CEA a superior method to CBA (both theoretically and empirically) to provide information to decision makers for use in decisions on resource allocation in health. The paper deals with the following topics: the underlying theoretical foundation for CEA; is CEA free of income distribution considerations?; is QALY a superior measure to WTP?; the usefulness of incremental CE ratio (ICER) to determine resource allocation. The paper concludes that there is neither theoretical nor practical support for the claim about the superiority of CEA.     

An empirical evaluation of two assessment methods for utility measurement for life years

Measurements of utility functions over life years provide useful information for decision making in the health care field. However, biases in the assessment procedures of utility functions is a well-known and documented phenomenon. In this paper we investigate possible biases in the assessment of utility functions when two different methods (direct and indirect assessment) are used. More specifically, we examine the estimation of utility functions over different lengths of life. The main findings, obtained from an empirical investigation in which the two assessment techniques were applied to a sample of students, are: (a) the use of the different methods does not lead to significant differences in the utility evaluation from a social point of view (health program evaluation); (b) the use of the different methods does lead to significant differences in the utility evaluation from an individual point of view (clinical decision making); (c) in both methods risk aversion was found to be common for shorter periods of time while risk prone behavior, when it exists, was found mainly for longer periods of time.     

Business or Basic Needs? The Impact of Loan Purpose on Social Crowdfunding Platforms

Journal of Business Ethics - Crowdfunding has created new opportunities for poor microentrepreneurs. One crucial question is the impact that the purpose of a loan—either business investment...     

The cost implications of an early versus delayed invasive strategy in acute coronary syndromes: the TIMACS study

Background:

The Timing of Intervention in Acute Coronary Syndromes (TIMACS) trial demonstrated that early invasive intervention (within 24 hours) was similar to a delayed approach (after 36 hours) overall but improved outcomes were seen in patients at high risk. However, the cost implications of an early versus delayed invasive strategy are unknown.

Methods and results:

A third-party perspective of direct cost was chosen and United States Medicare costs were calculated using average diagnosis related grouping (DRG) units. Direct medical costs included those of the index hospitalization (including clinical, procedural and hospital stay costs) as well as major adverse cardiac events during 6 months of follow-up. Sensitivity and sub-group analyses were performed. The average total cost per patient in the early intervention group was lower compared with the delayed intervention group (?$1170; 95% CI ?$2542 to $202). From the bootstrap analysis (5000 replications), the early invasive approach was associated with both lower costs and better clinical outcomes regarding death/myocardial infarction (MI)/stroke in 95.1% of the cases (dominant strategy). In high-risk patients (GRACE score ≥141), the net reduction in cost was greatest (?$3720; 95% CI ?$6270 to ?$1170). Bootstrap analysis revealed 99.8% of cases were associated with both lower costs and better clinical outcomes (death/MI/stroke).

Limitations:

We were unable to evaluate the effect of community care and investigations without hospitalization (office visits, non-invasive testing, etc). Medication costs were not captured. Indirect costs such as loss of productivity and family care were not included.

Conclusions:

An early invasive management strategy is as effective as a delayed approach and is likely to be less costly in most patients with acute coronary syndromes.