California's Health Insurance Act of 2003: View of the Market

This “play or pay” mandate would have required California employers to either provide medical insurance for their employees or pay into a state insurance fund. Although the law ultimately did not go into effect, movements in shareholder wealth provide evidence about the differential effects of such health‐care mandates on various types of employers. Large or unionized firms had no negative effects; expected profits declined most for firms with 50–199 employees.     

Consumer Perceptions of Health Claims in Advertisements and on Food Labels

It has been hypothesized that consumers are more skeptical of health claims made in food ads than of health claims made on food labels. Therefore, the current research explores consumers' skepticism of health claims when the source of such claims is identified as a food ad or a food label. The study also examines whether consumers' beliefs are affected by nutrition information on food labels and whether health claims that have been challenged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and by consumer groups are more likely to affect consumers' beliefs than are unchallenged health claims. The findings have implications for understanding the role of education in reducing consumer misperceptions of health claims.     

Credit: the consumer perspective

The U.K. has seen a considerable expansion in the use of credit during the 1980s. Although the majority of consumers are able to manage their use of credit there are many whose borrowing leads to hardship. There are various ways in which the availability of credit can be controlled but there is a high degree of reluctance to do so, both on the part of government and the credit card companies. A mechanism for assessing credit worthiness and a properly resourced system for assisting those who experience difficulties through using credit is needed. The social and economic consequences for consumers of the overuse of credit cannot be underestimated.     

Aggregate efficiency measures and Simpson's Paradox*

Abstract. Much work has been directed to develop aggregate efficiency measures for firms or decision-making units (DMUs) in which we are able to observe only the outputs and inputs. Assuming that each DMU has the same type of observed outputs and inputs and using only this information, Farrell's technical efficiency and the CCR ratio can be used to assign an aggregate measure of efficiency to each DMU, which can then be used to compare the efficiency of the DMUs. This paper considers a subset of the general aggregate efficiency problem called the matched output/input case in which each output is matched to exactly one input, forming a subunit. Dividing the output by the input for each subunit within a DMU yields a subunit ratio that is the output per unit input. For a particular subunit, the subunit ratios for two DMUs can be compared directly. If all the subunit ratios of one DMU exceed the corresponding subunit ratios in another DMU, then we should reasonably expect that any aggregate efficiency measure has the efficiency of the first DMU greater than the efficiency of the other DMU. This requirement is defined as the Matched Output/Input Axiom, which is then shown to be violated for certain data sets satisfying Simpson's Paradox. Both Farrell's technical efficiency and the CCR ratio are then shown to violate the Matched Output/Input Axiom, which raises questions about the overall validity of both procedures. Résumé. Les travaux visant l'élaboration de mesures globales du rendement des unités décisionnelles ou des entreprises, dans lesquelles il n'est possible d'observer que les extrants et les intrants, sont nombreux. En supposant que le même type d'extrants et d'intrants est observé pour chaque unité décisionnelle et que cette information est la seule qui soit utilisée, le rendement technique de Farrell et le ratio CCR (Charnes, Cooper et Rhodes) peuvent être utilisés pour attribuer une mesure globale de rendement à chaque unité décisionnelle, mesure qui peut ensuite permettre de comparer le rendement des différentes unités. Les auteurs étudient un sous-ensemble du problème général de rendement global, le cas de concordance extrant-intrant, dans lequel chaque extrant est associé à exactement un intrant, pour former un sous-ensemble. En divisant l'extrant par l'intrant pour chaque sous-ensemble d'une unité décisionnelle, on obtient, pour chacun d'eux, un ratio représentant l'extrant par unité d'intrant. Pour un sous-ensemble particulier, les ratios de deux unités décisionnelles peuvent faire l'objet d'une comparaison directe. Si la totalité des ratios des sous-ensembles d'une unité décisionnelle excède la totalité des ratios des sous-ensembles correspondants d'une autre unité décisionnelle, on est en droit de s'attendre à ce que l'application d'une mesure globale du rendement, quelle qu'elle soit, indique que le rendement de la première unité est supérieur à celui de la seconde. Les auteurs démontrent que ce principe, défini comme étant l'axiome de concordance extrant-intrant, est transgressé pour certains ensembles de données répondant aux critères du paradoxe de Simpson. Ils démontrent également que le rendement technique de Farrell ainsi que le ratio CCR dérogent à l'axiome de concordance extrant-intrant, ce qui les amène à s'interroger sur la validité globale des deux procédés.     

THE MICROBIOLOGICAL SAFETY OF SLOW COOKING IN ELECTRIC CASSEROLES

Slow cooking is examined from the point of view of micro-biological safety. Temperature penetration rates are examined and related to bacterial numbers found in various meats during and at the end of the cooking period. Possible hazards are pointed out, and preventive measures suggested.