Leapfrog standards: implications for nursing practice

Annually, thousands die unnecessarily as a result of preventable medical errors. Medical literature supports use of evidence-based standards to increase safety and improve the quality of health care. Nursing implications from three imposed standards are examined.     

东南亚地区的跨国并购现状与影响

一、东南亚地区跨国并购概况 20世纪90年代初以来,全球范围内的跨国并购不断发展,并成为外国直接投资(FDI)的主要形式.联合国贸发会议(UNCTAD)的统计结果显示,跨国并购特别是发达国家公司的并购驱动了外国直接投资的近期增长.     

The merger paradox in a mixed oligopoly

This paper examines the set of surplus maximizing mergers in a model of mixed oligopoly. The presence of a welfare maximizing public firm reduces the set of mergers for which two private firms can profitably merge. When a public firm and private firm merge, the changes in welfare and profit depend on the resulting extent of private ownership in the newly merged firm. When the government sets that share to maximize post merger welfare as assumed in the privatization literature, the merger paradox will often remain and the merger will not take place. Yet, we show there always exists scope for mergers that increase profit and increase (if not maximize) welfare. Interestingly, these mergers often include complete privatization.     

外资并购在中国

<正> 我国《国民经济和社会发展第十个五年计划纲要》中明确提出把吸引外商直接投资作为利用外资的重点,“鼓励外商特别是跨国公司参与国有企业的改组改造,鼓励有条件的企业对外发行股票,积极探索采用收购、兼并、风险投资、投资基金等各种方式,促进利用外资和国有企业产权制度改革。”2002年,中国加入WTO,中国经济与世界经济全面接轨,为应对经济全球化下的全球竞争,我国政府自去年开始就大幅度放宽了金融、电信、能源等领域对外资并购的限制,2002年国家又将国企500强中的部分企业向跨国公司开放,致使跨国集团纷纷选择并购方式实施在华投资战略。自2001年下半年以来,一些全球知名跨国公司已成功收购了中国的大型名牌企业,如法国阿尔卡特收购上     

Approximations in power transmission planning: implications for the cost and performance of renewable portfolio standards

Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) are popular market-based mechanisms for promoting development of renewable power generation. However, they are usually implemented without considering the capabilities and cost of transmission infrastructure. We use single- and multi-stage planning approaches to find cost-effective transmission and generation investments to meet single and multi-year RPS goals, respectively. Using a six-node network and assuming a linearized DC power flow, we examine how the lumpy nature of network reinforcements and Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law can affect the performance of RPSs. First, we show how simplified planning approaches that ignore transmission constraints, transmission lumpiness, or Kirchhoff’s voltage law yield distorted estimates of the type and location of infrastructure, as well as inaccurate compliance costs to meet the renewable goals. Second, we illustrate how lumpy transmission investments and Kirchhoff’s voltage law result in compliance costs that are nonconvex with respect to the RPS targets, in the sense that the marginal costs of meeting the RPS may decrease rather than increase as the target is raised. Thus, the value of renewable energy certificates (RECs) also depends on the network topology, as does the amount of noncompliance with the RPS, if noncompliance is penalized but not prohibited. Finally, we use a multi-stage planning model to determine the optimal generation and transmission infrastructure for RPS designs that set multiyear goals. We find that the optimal infrastructure to meet RPS policies that are enforced year-by-year differ from the optimal infrastructure if banking and borrowing is allowed in the REC market.     

The welfare economics of a health plan merger

Recently, two large health maintenance organizations (HMOs) in Minneapolis merged to form a single company with over half of the total Twin Cities HMO enrollment. This paper strongly suggests that the merger will have adverse consequences for consumers. I use a model of health plan rivalry and empirical demand functions to predict that health insurance premiums in 6 Twin Cities firms will rise by as much as 19 percent after the merger. Next, I show how to calculate the loss in consumer surplus in a discrete choice model and predict that the merger will reduce surplus by 4.4% on average. Several objections to these conclusions are considered but, on the whole, the analysis raises serious concerns for public policy toward HMO mergers.     

The triggers and clustering properties of merger waves

This article studies the triggers and the agglomeration of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity within clusters constituted by time, market and industry. Based on almost 500,000 individual transactions, we find that industry factors play a significant role in triggering activity and that M&A agglomerates strongly across related industries. While clustering in time turns out to be insignificant, stock market effects can be either an attracting or a repelling force, depending on the type of deal examined. This supports the view that merger waves are largely driven by industry shocks.     

International convergence in regulation: The case of measurable standards

Recent literature on competition in regulation concludes that the iterative adjustment that may start with mutual recognition is an open-ended process. This paper shows that, even without acceptance of reciprocal minimum standards, a process of iterative adjustment may be triggered by the coexistence of foreign goods with high standard levels and domestic goods with relatively low standard levels. Focusing on the case of international heterogeneity of levels of a specific standard, the paper offers an intuitive counter-argument to the fear that free trade necessarily implies a “race to the bottom“ of standard levels.     

MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL BEHABIOUR:The Analysis of AOL & Time Warner merger

the massive job loss in the intervening year of the newly merged company and being desperation on falling stock prize. More important, as a frequent top manager turnover and a continuing dramatic capital and shareholder value loss (Klein,2003). Finally, in December 2009, Time Warner spin-off AOL entirely (Time Warner, 2009), the mega-merge between Time Warner and AOL announced their failure. To counter this severe situation, the AOL Time Warner indeed took a lot of measures, such as shipped off its co-chief operating officer and reduced its valuable assets (Peers & Angwin, 2003). However, with the manifestation of continuing and irretrievable loss, the fortune of the merger was doomed to end. As the universal statement for the main reason of this historic catastrophe, the merger was due to synergistic failure (Arango, 2010), which mainly due to inappropriate leadership approaches and lack of value congruence. The inappropriate leadership approaches can be classified into two categories- competencies perspective of leadership and contingency perspective of leadership. The value incongruence can be understanded in terms of organisational conflicts. This report will primarily focus on the fundamental organisational contributions that how the executives of this newly merged company moving forward in a different direction and the culture conflicts within two firms result in this unprecedented stumble.     

“Fifty in five”: The prospects for merger in the electric utility industry

By analyzing four case studies of merger attempts between electric utilities, we conclude that there are not strong incentives for a wave of combinations in the industry. Potential synergy gains do not provide a strong motivation since they are likely already being captured through joint ventures and coordination agreements. Those that still exist would most likely be distributed to rate payers by regulatory decisions. Managerial incentives of the bidder are countered by the desire of target management to remain independent. Potential gains to the financial community from a wave of mergers are large, but the regulatory process provides a dampening of this otherwise strong incentive.     

The missing equation: The wedge model alternative

This article develops an alternative method for solving the problem of the “missing equation” by including the market-nonmarket decision for factors and capital-labor mix decision for producers. The result is a wedge or supply-side model of the economy. This general equilibrium macro model describes the interaction between the product and factor markets, describes both the income and substitution effects of government actions, and provides new insights into the full impact of the government sector.     

Strategic merger waves: A theory of musical chairs

This paper proposes an explanation of merger waves based on the interaction between competitive pressure and irreversibility of mergers in an uncertain environment. A set of acquirers compete over time for scarce targets. At each point in time, an acquirer can either postpone a takeover attempt or raid immediately. By postponing the takeover attempt, an acquirer may gain from more favorable future market conditions, but runs the risk of being preempted by rivals. First, a complete information model is considered and it is shown that the above tradeoff leads to a continuum of subgame perfect equilibria in monotone strategies that are strictly Pareto ranked. All these equilibria share the feature that all acquirers rush simultaneously in merger waves. The model is then extended to a dynamic global game by introducing slightly noisy private information about merger profitability. This game is shown to have a unique Markov perfect Bayesian equilibrium in monotone strategies and the timing of the merger wave can thus be predicted. Last, the comparative dynamics predictions of the model are related to stylized facts.     

A note on merger in mixed duopoly: Bertrand versus Cournot

In this note we analyze the incentives to merge in a mixed duopoly if firms compete in prices or quantities. Our model framework mainly follows Barcena-Ruiz and Garzon (J Econ 80:27–42, 2003) who set up the model with quantity competition. We extend their analysis by analyzing the case of competition in prices. Further we compare the incentives to merge with Bertrand and Cournot competition. Comparing quantity with price competition we can show that a merger is more likely with Cournot competition than with Bertrand competition.     

Time series explanations of merger activity: some econometric results

Existing papers which have attempted to test explanations of time series patterns in merger behaviour suffer from the defects that, first, they usually consider only one hypothesis and, secondly, none use a moderm econometric methodology. Consequently, their results may be subject to the spurious correlation problem. In this paper we argue that four well-known approaches to explaining time series data in acquisitions (Gort's disturbance theory, King's Trapped Equity model, disequilibrium hypotheses and ad hoc approaches) can all be nested within a capital budgeting decision-making framework. Using a co-integration methodology, a long-run relationship was found between the quarterly number of acquisitions and the growth rate of GDP, Tobin's Q, the balance of payments, the unemployment rate and share prices. Some of the previously proposed theories were found to explain the short-run dynamic variation in acquisition activity. No support was found for Gort's disturbance theory or for King's Trapped Equity model. Conclusions for antitrust policy are suggested.     

The Load Model: an alternative to QALY

Background: QALYs are widely used in health economic evaluation, but remain controversial, largely because they do not reflect how many people behave in practice. This paper presents a new conceptual model (Load Model) and illustrates it in comparison with the QALY model.

Methods: Load is the average annual weight attributed to morbidity and mortality over a defined period, using weightings based on preference judgements. Morbidity Load is attributed to states of illness, according to their perceived severity. When people are in full health, Load is zero (no morbidity). Death is treated as an event with negative consequences, incurred in the year following death. Deaths may be weighted equally, with a fixed negative weight such as ?100, or differ according to the context of death. After death, Load is zero. In a worked example, we use the standard gamble method to obtain a weighting for an illness state, for both Load and QALY models. A judge is indifferent between certainty of 1.5 years’ illness followed by death, or a 50/50 chance of 1.5 years’ full health or 1-year illness, each followed by death. The weightings calculated are applied to a hypothetical life, 72 years in full health followed by 3 years with illness then death, using both models. Three other hypothetical outcomes are also compared.

Results: For an example life, the relative size of the morbidity component compared with the mortality component is much higher in the Load model than in the QALY model. When comparing alternative outcomes, there are also substantial differences between the two models.

Conclusions: In the Load model the weight of morbidity, relative to mortality, is very different from that in the QALY model. Given the role of the QALYs in economic evaluation, the implications of an alternative, which generates very different results, warrant further exploration.     

The dynamics of edi standards development

This paper explores the development of standards for electronic data interchange (EDI), which are needed to allow the inter-organizational exchange of structured information between computer system. It focuses on the EDIFACT message development process which began informally as a mechanism for developing international standards for EDI. Since its inception, the rapidly growing scope of the process—in terms of the numbers of message being developed., geography and range of industrial sectors—has forced the process to become increasingly formalized. As the process has widened outside Europe, it has become necessary for it to accommodate a wider range og business practices and reconcile the competing objectives of user groups. For many user groups, the focus of their interest in message develpment has moved from the development of EDIFACT standard message to agreement on the use of subsets of these message. A particular issue has been teh moves in the US to align the national EDI standard ANSI X12 with EDIFACT, where, in addition to the technical changes required to satisfy the EDIFACT syntax, participation in EDIFACT represents a culture change from a domestic consensus process to an international delegated hierarchy. The paper describes how the EDIFACT process has adapted to these pressures through the formalization of its internal structures and processes, and considers whether or not there is a future for EDIFACT as a global process.     

The Greek economic crisis: causes and alternative policies

The Greek economic crisis is primarily structural and the result of an international economic impasse that developed in 2007, with devastating implications for the struggling peripheral economies of Europe. This article suggests that falling profitability led to the stagnation of profits, which in turn discouraged new investment, decreased production and increased unemployment. The resulting recessionary economic environment, in conjunction with the mounting public debt and the austerity policies imposed on the Greek economy by the so-called ‘troika’ of creditors in 2010, has decimated the Greek economy even further, causing one of the worst economic crises since the Second World War. The article also provides some broad guidelines for an alternative economic policy.     

The merger of populations, the incidence of marriages, and aggregate unhappiness

Let a society??s unhappiness be measured by the aggregate of the levels of relative deprivation of its members. When two societies of equal size, F and M, merge, unhappiness in the merged society is shown to be higher than the sum of the levels of unhappiness in the constituent societies when apart; merger alone increases unhappiness. But when societies F and M merge and marriages are formed such that the number of households in the merged society is equal to the number of individuals in one of the constituent societies, unhappiness in the merged society is shown to be lower than the aggregate unhappiness in the two constituent societies when apart. This result obtains regardless of which individuals from one society form households with which individuals from the other, and even when the marriages have not (or not yet) led to income gains to the married couples from increased efficiency, scale economies, and the like. While there are various psychological reasons for people to become happier when they get married as opposed to staying single, the very formation of households reduces social distress even before any other happiness-generating factors kick in.