Public–Private Partnerships in the Health Care Sector: A systematic review of the literature

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become popular worldwide as a way of improving health care service delivery. In order to enhance our knowledge of PPPs in the health care sector, we conduct a systematic review of forty-six articles published in peer-reviewed journals for the period of 1990–2011. Six lines of research in the PPP domain are identified: effectiveness, benefits, public interest, country overview, efficiency and partners. The main findings suggest that although PPPs are used to address internationally emerging public health issues, questions as to their actual effectiveness, efficiency and convenience, still remain unanswered. We propose viable recommendations and ideas for future research.     

Taxes,economic conditions and recent trends in male self-employment: a Canada–US comparison

North American workers have increasingly turned to self-employment since the 1970s. Using microdata for the period 1983–1994 from Canada and the United States, I assess the importance of macroeconomic conditions and the tax environment in explaining the trends in male self-employment in these two countries. My findings suggest that higher income tax and unemployment rates are associated with an increase in the rates of self-employment among North American men. Changes in the tax environment account for a considerable amount of the secular trends in male self-employment over this period, while changing economic conditions played a smaller role in determining these trends.     

The relation between the equity risk premium and the bond maturity premium in the UK: 1900–2006

Using a rich data set for the UK for over a century, we find that the relation between the equity risk premium and the government bond maturity premium is nonlinear and subject to stochastic regime switching. We identify a regime in which both premia are jointly characterized by low volatility and another regime in which both premia are characterized by high volatility. The occurrence of the high volatility regime chronologically coincides with major changes in the pound exchange rate. The low volatility regime has a higher probability of turning up over two consecutive years than the high volatility regime, but it is not perceived by investors to be an absorbing regime. The lagged maturity premium is a strong predictor of the equity risk premium only in the regime of low volatility. In addition, the lagged equity premium is a predictor of the maturity premium also in the low volatility regime. This result on regime-dependent bidirectional predictability is robust to alternative definitions of the equity premium, and to the inclusion of real interest rate and real growth effects.

Public–private wage gap in Latin America (1992–2007): A matching approach

Using matching methods, we estimate the public–private wage gap for urban workers in eleven Latin American countries for the 1992–2007 period. These methods do not require any estimation of earnings equations and hence no validity-out-of-the-support assumptions; furthermore, this approach allows us to estimate not only the average wage gap but also its distribution. Our main findings indicate that the average public sector worker earns more than his/her private counterpart, and that this differential increased over the 1992–2007 period. Important differences along the wage distribution are also shown in the results; in fact, public servants in the highest percentiles of the wage distribution generally earn less than their private sector equivalents. Nonetheless, the percentile at which a positive wage gap becomes a wage penalty shifted over the period as the average wage gap experienced by most countries widened. Still, the most qualified public sector workers do face a wage penalty. Furthermore, indicators of government effectiveness show no relationship with the country ranking according to the public–private wage gap.     

Cultural boundaries of self-justification and prospect theories in escalation of commitment: a US–Mexico comparison

The interplay among managers' cultural origin (i.e. Mexican vs. the USA), decision context and framing was investigated to test the cultural boundaries of self-justification and prospect theories in escalation of commitment. An experimental design indicated that, although a negative decision frame had a greater impact on escalation of commitment among Mexican managers, a positive frame had a greater impact on escalation of commitment among American managers. Moreover, a pattern indicating that framing had an opposite effect in each country emerged when the decision context was negative. Specifically, when the incoming information is positive, US decision-makers escalate their commitment to a failing course of action, whereas it is negative incoming information that leads to escalation for Mexican decision-makers.     

Financial crisis and relative productivity dynamics in Korea: evidence from firm-level data (1992–2003)

We have estimated the relative TFP growth at firm level and analyzed the firm dynamics in view of entry and exit of firms in Korea during 1992–2003, which includes the turbulent financial crisis of 1997–1998. Following Pyo and Ha, Hitotsubashi J Econ 48(1): 67–81, (2007), we have adopted a gross output model rather than a value added model of relative TFP analysis. We have found that the cyclical variation of productivity growth plays a dominant role in the decomposition effects before and after the 1997 financial crisis in Korea. Productivity growth is modest before the crisis and strong after the crisis owing to the recovering market efficiency. There is the likelihood that the productivity growth of stayers during the post-crisis period was significantly higher than new entrants. The net entry effect is found to be more sensitive in small business and export-based firms than in large business and domestic market-based firms. Our findings suggest that Korean firms have recovered a modest level of technical change after its severe financial crisis owing to the improvement of management transparency and the build-up of market efficiency during the IMF-mandated restructuring process. But since the entry effect is estimated to be still negative in Manufacturing and the exit effect is negative in Service sector after the crisis, the Korean economy has not fully recovered its metabolism in the post-crisis period and still lacks a creative destructive process to resume another round of sustainable growth path.     

Convergence of public and private enterprise wages in a transition economy: Evidence from a distributional decomposition in Vietnam, 2002–2014

We examine the transition of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Vietnam during the period 2002–2014 from a wage perspective by decomposing the differences in wage distributions between SOE employees and non-SOE employees. Although SOE employees received higher pay in 2002 because of differences in the characteristics and residuals, the differences in coefficients were minimal along the wage distribution during 2002–2014. The differences in characteristics decreased over time in the middle and middle-to-high wage distribution groups. University graduates were the main contributor to the difference in endowments. By 2014, the residuals difference vanished and the pay schemes between SOEs and non-SOEs converged.     

The actorness of the President of the Republic in Italian foreign policy: a quantitative narrative analysis of two case studies (1999–2013)

In this paper, we address the topic of policy actorness in Italian foreign policy to characterize the understudied role of the President of the Italian Republic (PoR). We apply quantitative narrative analysis (QNA) as the methodological tool of our study, answering two research questions to which the academic literature has so far produced limited responses: (a) whether the PoR can be considered a relevant actor in Italian foreign policy and (b) which factors can affect the Italian PoR’s relevance in foreign policy. Considering the Italian PoR’s Diary as the unit of analysis and source of data, we study the two crucial cases of Ciampi’s presidency (1999–2006) and Napolitano’s first presidency (2006–2013). QNA allows us to quantify and compare, while maintaining an actor-centred approach, the relations of the two PoRs with the most relevant actors in foreign policy. The results of our analyses highlight the relevance of the Italian PoR figure, identifying the main areas of influence of the Italian head of state and their changes over time. We conclude providing a few hypotheses to interpret the outcomes of our analyses on the PoR’s role in Italian foreign policy.

     

Film and ideology: narrative analysis of the student movement in Iranian Cinema (2001–2004)

Quality & Quantity - Cinema has a complex relation with the state and social reality in Iran. Between 2001 and 2004, Iranian cinema was under the control of the ideology of the Islamic Left....     

Accounting and the ‘Art of Government’: Margaret of Austria in Abruzzo (1539–86)

This paper analyses the accounting, accountability and disciplinary practices triggered by the Ordinances of 1571 in the feudal State of Abruzzo, whose sovereign was Margaret of Austria, daughter of Emperor Charles V. In a scenario stimulated by the ascent of mercantilist discourse and police schemes, new ‘technologies of government’ were forged to optimize the State's collection of receipts and to minimize fraud, rendering public officers accountable and their activities visible and controllable ‘at a distance’. Using the ‘governmentality’ framework, this paper analyses the Ordinances that disciplined the activities of the primary finance/accounting and police officers in Abruzzo. The paper complements and extends the previous literature by illustrating the wide array of accounting- and non-accounting-based disciplinary techniques enforced by the sovereign in order to shape, align and even seduce the behaviour of officers/functionaries working in the State apparatus, and the general population. The analysis goes beyond the existing literature by unveiling the implementation of the hitherto undisclosed disciplinary double system of gratification–punishment advocated by Foucault, that also involved the population in the ‘State control of the mechanisms of discipline’. In a related vein, the accounting system applied displays representational, translational and distributive properties, along with novel incentive schemes.     

The StoNED age: the departure into a new era of efficiency analysis? A monte carlo comparison of StoNED and the “oldies” (SFA and DEA)

Based on the seminal paper of Farrell (J R Stat Soc Ser A (General) 120(3):253–290, 1957), researchers have developed several methods for measuring efficiency. Nowadays, the most prominent representatives are nonparametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) and parametric stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), both introduced in the late 1970s. Researchers have been attempting to develop a method which combines the virtues—both nonparametric and stochastic—of these “oldies”. The recently introduced Stochastic non-smooth envelopment of data (StoNED) by Kuosmanen and Kortelainen (J Prod Anal 38(1):11–28, 2012) is such a promising method. This paper compares the StoNED method with the two “oldies” DEA and SFA and extends the initial Monte Carlo simulation of Kuosmanen and Kortelainen (J Prod Anal 38(1):11–28, 2012) in several directions. We show, among others, that, in scenarios without noise, the rivalry is still between the “oldies”, while in noisy scenarios, the nonparametric StoNED PL now constitutes a promising alternative to the SFA ML.     

The effect of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment in the presence of growth options: Evidence from listed companies in China (1998–2019)

We empirically investigate the effect of oil price uncertainty on corporate investment in the presence of growth options using the financial data of listed firms in China from 1998 to 2019. We reveal three key findings in this paper. First, we find that oil price uncertainty has a U-shaped nonlinear effect on corporate investment. In periods of low uncertainty, oil price uncertainty negatively influences corporate investment. However, in periods of high uncertainty, oil price uncertainty positively influences corporate investment. Second, research has found that the U-shaped nonlinear effect is moderated by the irreversibility and growth opportunities of investment decisions. Third, further analyses reveal that this U-shaped nonlinear effect can be changed by a firm’s characteristics. Specifically, this nonlinear effect can only be observed in non-state-owned enterprises and small firms. We test the robustness of our findings and propose several policy suggestions.     

Work–family conflict/family–work conflict,job stress,burnout and intention to leave in the hotel industry in Quebec (Canada): moderating role of need for family friendly practices as “resource passageways”

Abstract

This study examines how the need for family friendly practices contribute in increasing the effects of work–family conflict (WFC) and family–work conflict (FWC) on job stress, burnout, and intention to leave in the hotel industry in Quebce (258 staff). The essential results indicate that the perception of a need for childcare moderates the relationship between FWC, job stress, and burnout. Also, employees wanting to have a compressed workweek and part time measures are exposed to more stress related to WFC/FWC. Finally, the four measures can constitute resources passageways in order to reduce the work-family interference, job stress, burnout and therefore the intention to leave. Theoretically, he results extend this line of theorizing by highlighting the importance of subjective needs for family friendly policies, as ‘resource caravan passageways’, in the work–family interface and job outcome processes. The perception of a desire or need for these measures offers a new understanding of these practices. Practically, identifying who is more sensitive to family friendly measures would enable organizations or employers to allocate supportive resources more adequately by targeting those employees who are most in need of such practices.