The role of human capital in identifying the drivers of product and process innovation: empirical investigation from Italy

Quality & Quantity - Economists recognize that the local availability of higher human capital represents significant knowledge spillovers, especially for innovation process. This research...     

Hospital competition under pay‐for‐performance: Quality,mortality, and readmissions

Health outcomes, such as mortality and readmission rates, are commonly used as indicators of hospital quality and as a basis to design pay‐for‐performance (P4P) incentive schemes. We propose a model of hospital behavior under P4P where patients differ in severity and can choose hospital based on quality. We assume that risk‐adjustment is not fully accounted for and that unobserved dimensions of severity remain. We show that the introduction of P4P which rewards lower mortality and/or readmission rates can weaken or strengthen hospitals' incentive to provide quality. Since patients with higher severity have a different probability of exercising patient choice when quality varies, this introduces a selection bias (patient composition effect) which in turn alters quality incentives. We also show that this composition effect increases with the degree of competition. Critically, readmission rates suffer from one additional source of selection bias through mortality rates since quality affects the distribution of survived patients. This implies that the scope for counterproductive effects of P4P is larger when financial rewards are linked to readmission rates rather than mortality rates.     

The effects of environmental taxes and quotas on the optimal timing of emission reductions under Choquet–Brownian uncertainty

The effects of two environmental policy options for the reduction of pollution emissions, i.e. taxes and non-tradable quotas, are analyzed. In contrast to the prior literature this work endogenously takes into account the level of emissions before and after the adoption of the new environmental policy. The level of emissions is determined by solving the firm's profit maximization problem under taxes and fixed quotas. We find that the optimal adoption threshold under taxes is always larger than the adoption threshold under fixed quota, even in a setting characterized by ecological uncertainty and ambiguity – in the form of Choquet–Brownian motions – on future costs and benefits over adopting environmental policies.     

Modelling user perception of bus transit quality

This article evaluates how bus users perceive the quality of their public transport service. In particular it looks at how perception of quality varies according to the available information. The experiment compares an overall evaluation of service quality before and after making passengers reflect on the importance of certain fundamental system variables which they may not have previously considered.Focus groups were used to individualise the most relevant variables. A quality survey was carried out both on-board buses and at bus stops and the overall service quality was related to the aforementioned variables using ordered probit models. The perception of quality is shown to change with the category of user and that there tends to be more criticism towards variations in overall quality until the users are stimulated into thinking more deeply about other influential variables. The application of this methodology may provide operating companies with valuable information for planning marketing policies aimed at different categories of user, in order to improve the service quality and attract more passengers to using public transport.     

The bargaining set of a large game

We study the equivalence between the Mas-Colell bargaining set and the core in the general context of TU games with a measurable space of players. In the first part of the paper, we study the problem without imposing any restriction on the class of games we consider. In the second part, we first introduce a new class of exact games, which we call thin games. For these games, we show not only that the Mas-Colell bargaining set is equal to the core, but also that it is the unique stable set in the sense of von Neumann and Morgenstern. We then study the relation between thin games, exact non-atomic market games and non-atomic convex games. Finally, by further developing “thinness” related ideas, we prove new equivalence results for a class of non-exact market games as well as a class of non-exact, non-market games.     

The role of trust in the 2008 financial crisis

Financial transactions require trust. This paper analyzes the role of trust in the context of the 2008 financial crisis. In order to find a role for trust, we need to find a role for trust in a standard economic model which differs from the rational expectation of the equilibrium outcome. It is argued that trust dropped dramatically in the Fall of 2008. The consequences and effects of this drop in trust are discussed.     

Hospital Competition and Quality with Regulated Prices*

We analyse the effect of competition on quality in hospital markets with regulated prices, considering the effect of both introducing competition (monopoly versus competition) and increasing competition through either lower transportation costs (increased substitutability) or a higher number of hospitals. With semi‐altruistic providers and a fairly general cost structure, we show that the relationship between competition and quality is generally ambiguous. In contrast to the received body of theoretical literature, this is consistent with, and potentially explains, the mixed empirical evidence.     

Estimating welfare changes from efficient pricing in public bus transit in India

Three different and feasible pricing strategies for public bus transport in India are developed in a partial equilibrium framework with the objective of improving economic efficiency and ensuring revenue adequacy, namely average cost pricing, marginal cost pricing, and two-part tariffs. These are assessed not only in terms of gains in economic efficiency, but also in changes in travel demand and consumer surplus. The estimated partial equilibrium price is higher in all three pricing regimes when compared to the current price. As a result, consumer surplus falls in all three cases. The price increase is much larger with average cost pricing compared to marginal cost pricing or two-part tariffs, and hence a larger fall in demand and consumer surplus occurs due to average cost pricing. While there is a gain in economic efficiency from marginal cost pricing and two-part tariffs, this improvement comes at the expense of reduced public bus transit demand and consumer surplus, given the price inelastic public bus transit demand estimated for India. Given the mobility needs and the developmental concerns of a growing economy such as India, the challenge for policy makers is to balance the gains in economic efficiency in the public bus transit sector against other social, political, and developmental goals.     

The environmental benefits of changing logistics structures for fresh vegetables

The transport phase is one of the crucial stages that can be improved to reduce the environmental impact of the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain. In this paper, we calculate the environmental impact of feasible logistic alternatives for the above-mentioned supply chain so as to identify the type of transportation that incurs the lowest environmental costs. Specifically, we consider the early potato supply chain as a case study, as it involves one of the main fresh vegetables exported from Italy. Consumers' willingness to pay for the environmental impact of different logistic chains was obtained through life cycle assessment. Our results show that rail transport could reduce environmental impact in terms of tons of oil equivalent, environmental loads, and fuel consumption while ensuring reasonable shipment times. Development of an efficient rail transport system would be positively considered by consumers, enhancing their preferences for Italian products.