Consumer-Driven Health Plans: New Developments and the Long Road Ahead

The continued rise in U.S. healthcare spending, along with growth in the number of uninsured, has spurred the move toward consumer-driven health plans. We review new legislation covering such plans, analyze their penetration in the marketplace, and predict their growth. We also use current information about plans that are compatible with Health Savings Accounts to compare them to traditional Preferred Provider Organization plans. Next, we discuss some concerns about the impact of these plans on vulnerable populations, such as the poor and sick. Finally, we suggest how consumer-driven health plans may help to improve the functioning of the healthcare market, especially by producing more transparent information on cost and quality. JEL Classification I110, I180     

Economic Perspectives on Health Information Technology

It seems paradoxical that health care spending and examples of inferior health care have been rising rapidly at the same time. An important factor is the slow pace at which the health care system has adopted information technology (IT). This paper discusses the dimensions of the problems that could be mitigated by effective use of IT in the health care system, their consequences, and their potential solutions. It also discusses the economic and institutional barriers to deploying IT and how the inherent economies of scale in IT are likely to lead to new problems of competition within the health care system. Inasmuch as this paper was based on an address followed by a question-and-answer period, it also includes an edited version of the recorded questions and answers.JEL Classification I180, I190     

Financial Literacy and Retirement Preparedness: Evidence and Implications for Financial Education

Economists are beginning to investigate the causes and consequences of financial illiteracy to better understand why retirement planning is lacking and why so many households arrive close to retirement with little or no wealth. Our review reveals that many households are unfamiliar with even the most basic economic concepts needed to make saving and investment decisions. Such financial illiteracy is widespread: the young and older people in the United States and other countries appear woefully under-informed about basic financial concepts, with serious implications for saving, retirement planning, mortgages, and other decisions. In response, governments and several nonprofit organizations have undertaken initiatives to enhance financial literacy. The experience of other countries, including a saving campaign in Japan as well as the Swedish pension privatization program, offers insights into possible roles for financial literacy and saving programs. JEL Classification A2, G2     

International Trade and Health Policy: Implications of the GATS for US Healthcare Reform

This paper examines the implications of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), the World Trade Organization’s agreement governing trade in health-related services, for health policy and healthcare reform in the United States. The paper describes the nature and scope of US obligations under the GATS, the ways in which the trade agreement intersects with domestic health policy, and the institutional factors that mediate trade-offs between health and trade policy. The analysis suggests that the GATS provisions on market access, national treatment and domestic regulation, which are designed to eliminate ‘regulatory barriers’ to global trade in health services, limit the range of options that state and federal regulators and legislative bodies can employ to regulate the health sector and implement healthcare reforms. As such, the paper identifies the broader social and ethical implications of free trade policy.     

Health and Sickness: A Buddhist View and Implications for Social Marketing

It is known that while health-care issues are highly important consumer concerns and closely tied to well‐being and quality of life, the perspective on the consumer often becomes clouded amid increasingly complex processes. This paper explores how Buddhist principles can permeate the marketing strategies of health-care organizations to deliver a positive, healing influence and thoughtful and sensitive services with an ethnographic study of a Nichiren Buddhist organization. It offers a vision for health-care marketing in crafting a message for severely ill patients to find meaning in life and live as fully as possible while accepting the presence of the illness.     

The case for educated UK consumers: the National Consumer Council's consultation on consumer education

Consumer education is an integral part of the consumer empowerment mix. Over recent years the importance of consumer education as a vital tool for protecting consumers and making them better informed has been increasingly recognized in the UK. As part of the developing policy debate in the UK, the National Consumer Council (NCC), one of the key consumer champion bodies, has been arguing the case for a national strategy for consumer education. In order to establish whether a national strategy was needed and, if so, how a strategy could be structured and introduced, the NCC carried out a national consultation. In excess of 100 responses were obtained from a very broad range of organizations. This paper provides a review of the secondary data gathered for the NCC research. It was found that although there are many organizations and networks involved in consumer education in the UK, it lacks focus, is fragmented and is not efficient or coordinated. The research highlighted a need for a strategic approach to place educated and empowered consumers at the heart of the marketplace.     

The Labor Market and Long-term Health Care: A Perspective on Nursing Aides

The aging of the baby boom generation underlies anticipated rapid growth in jobs for nurses and support personnel for longer-term care. Research on help-wanted advertising shows strong recruiting activity for nurses. However, for nursing aides and related positions, there is substantially less intensity, although there are regional differences. This overall finding conflicts with demand-based expectations and may imply a market that will not adequately fulfill projected needs.JEL Classification J240, I120     

选择与选择成本——品牌降低选择成本的机制分析

本文通过对选择爆炸式增长的描述,抽象出一般选择过程模型,并深入分析这一过程中所发生的成本及构成,证明品牌正是通过降低消费者的选择成本提高了选择效率,而企业外部顾客的选择效率决定了处于过剩阶段企业的内部价值的实现和内部效率的高低。本文区分了交易费用与选择成本的差别,进一步深化了对"品牌经济学"分析范式的核心范畴——选择成本的认识。     

Inclusive apparel shopping experiences for older consumers in China: product attributes and retail environment

ABSTRACT

The study explored apparel shopping experiences of older Chinese consumers, which integrate apparel product and retail environment aspects from an inclusive strategy perspective. Research questions include: What factors contribute to older Chinese consumers’ satisfaction and dissatisfaction? What are the major implications of older consumers’ (dis)satisfying shopping experience? What role can fashion practitioners play to make the retail environment and apparel products more accessible to the aging segment? Critical Incident techniques were used for data collection at a community park in Beijing. A total of 151 usable critical incidents from 84 older Chinese informants (55 years and older) were included in the data analysis. Content analysis with deductive qualitative data analysis method was used. Findings suggest that the older Chinese consumers assess their shopping experiences largely based on shopping outcome achieved (product purchased). This is in contrast to the movement toward more experiential focus in the developed markets in the recent decades. A significant number of tangible product attributes (including design/styling, comfortability/fit, and material) and intangible attributes (such as price and product assortment) contributed to the older Chinese informants’ satisfying or dissatisfying shopping experience. Aspects related to retail environment, including retail atmospherics and service quality were also important, but to a lesser extent than product attributes. This study represents an early attempt to explore how the tangible and intangible aspects of product attributes and retail environment contribute to the aging Chinese consumer’s shopping experience. Findings of the Chinese older consumers’ utilitarian, rather than experiential focus in their shopping experience evaluation provide insights on this market segment and valuable implications are developed.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Consumers' Response to Health Information Complexity

This study develops and empirically tests a model for understanding food consumers' health information seeking behaviour. Data were collected from 504 food consumers using a nationally representative consumer panel. The obtained Lisrel results suggest that consumers' product-specific health information seeking is positively affected by general food involvement and by usability of product-specific health information. Moreover, product-specific health information seeking and product-specific health information complexity are both positively related to post-purchase health-related dissonance. This link between information complexity and post-purchase dissonance has implications for marketers of food products since our results suggest that consumers might avoid purchasing the same food item again if post-purchase dissonance is experienced.     

Experience,change and vulnerability: consumer education for older people revisited

Everyday consumer transactions have the same potential for unexpected consequence whatever the age of the consumers involved. Young and old alike can find that products and services fail to live up to performance claims and that they are left with problems not easily resolved, or costs that are difficult to recover. While not overlooking consumer heterogeneity – especially on the basis of age – older consumers are arguably distinguishable in terms of the social and financial context in which they make decisions and attempt to redress problems. In 1988, attention was drawn to the need for consumer education to look beyond generic objectives to the specific situation of older people and their transactions. More than a decade later, in an allegedly consumer‐oriented society, the issue is revisited here to assess the argument's current relevance. Despite the increased availability of information for decisions and consumer protection, difficulties persist in the way information is presented or accessed. Chameleon‐like, old problems become manifest in new unfamiliar ways and invalidate experience. Consumer education today is as important as it was in 1988. Arguably, technological change means that the need for a better understanding of dangers, rights and redress procedures is greater than ever and the needs of older people in increasingly complex private and public sector transaction environments are all the more pressing. However, a fundamental revision of the way we approach the design of products, services and environments is needed to improve prospects for older consumers.     

消费者选择对零供博弈结果的影响——基于心理经济学视角分析

文章在零供博弈背景下,利用卡托纳心理经济学分析模型,从心理经济学视角考察消费者的购物心理对零供博弈的影响.利用5点量表法对零供博弈结果中影响消费者购买决策的八个因素(自有品牌开发、新产品开发、促销、通道费、品牌专卖店、供应商品牌建设、零售商品牌建设和价格)进行问卷调查.在此基础上运用多元回归对问卷进行回归分析,以此来探寻消费者的购买决策及这些决策导致的零供博弈策略的社会效应.     

Health Care Matters: Supply Chains In and Of the Health Sector

Providing health care involves a complex enterprise, and the trade‐off between quality and cost has been particularly stark compared to other industries. However, a recent focus on health sector supply networks is now producing significant innovations and improvements. This Special Topic Forum illustrates for the academic and practitioner community how health care supply chain research can benefit from our evolving understanding of supply chains and help push that understanding even further. We classify health care supply chain research into two broad categories—supply chain in health care and supply chain of health care—to set an agenda for future research.     

Sustainable clothing: challenges,barriers and interventions for encouraging more sustainable consumer behaviour

Research with consumers has revealed limited awareness of the sustainability impact of clothing (Goworek et al., 2012). Semi‐structured interviews conducted with a range of experts in sustainable clothing to increase understanding of the challenges for sustainable clothing revealed that a focus on sustainability alone will not drive the necessary changes in consumers’ clothing purchase, care and disposal behaviour for three reasons: (i) clothing sustainability is too complex; (ii) consumers are too diverse in their ethical concerns and (iii) clothing is not an altruistic purchase. The findings identify the challenges that need to be addressed and the associated barriers for sustainable clothing. Interventions targeting consumers, suppliers, buyers and retailers are proposed that encourage more sustainable clothing production, purchase, care and disposal behaviour. These interventions range from normalizing the design of sustainable clothing and increasing the ease of purchase, to shifting clothes washing norms and increasing upcycling, recycling and repair.     

National branding strategies and economic development: Implications for NIEs and LDCs

As the four newly industrialized economies (NIEs), Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, continue to improve their economic development, there is an increasing realization of the need to create world class brands for global competition. This is because these four NIEs, largely dependent on manufactured products for highly export-oriented strategies, are facing threats from lower cost semi-NIEs and LDCs (less developing countries) that are adopting similar strategies. This article examines the important roles played by brands in securing market share. In particular, it highlights the experiences of Japan in the development of international brands. Lessons are then drawn for the NIEs and LDCs, especially with regard to the need to consciously develop world class brands as part of the overall economic growth and development. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

国家粮食安全：现实挑战与路径选择

尽管我国粮食生产实现了“九连增”,但粮食安全并非高枕无忧。由于工业化、城镇化不断发展和人口递增趋势未减,保障粮食安全面临着诸多挑战,粮食安全仍需要引起全社会的高度关注。从我国粮食安全面临的现实挑战入手,本文提出我国实现粮食安全的现实路径：严格保护水土资源,改善生态环境、节约资源;加强农业技术创新,提高粮食单产的技术支撑;增强政策支持,改善种粮的经济效益;粮食生产立足国内,粮食贸易多元自主发展。     

国外股权激励与经营者信息披露研究综述

近年来,国外的学者对股权激励与经营者信息披露问题进行了理论研究,同时也实证了国外上市公司股权激励与经营者信息披露之间的关系。随着美国上市公司财务舞弊案频频曝光,股权激励的负面效应已逐渐引起了国外学者的关注。通过对国外研究股权激励与经营者信息披露关系的理论与实证文献进行综述,可为国内研究股权激励效果的学者及政策制定者提供参考。     

公司控制权、信息不对称与并购支付方式

本文以1998-2007年间我国沪深两市的253起并购事件为对象,从公司控制权和信息不对称角度研究了并购支付方式的影响因素,研究发现:(1)当主并方大股东的持股比例位于中间水平(30～60%)时,为避免控制权转移,主并方一般选择现金支付(包括承债支付);而当持股比例较低或较高(超出30～60%)时则更倾向于股票支付;(2)交易双方的相对规模愈小,信息不对称愈小,主并方愈倾向于采用现金支付.但交易双方是否位于相同行业,对并购支付方式选择无显著影响.研究还发现,主并方的资金实力与现金支付正相关,而财务杠杆、投资机会、有形资产等因素与并购支付方式的关系不明显.