Uncertainty and the Governance of Street Vending: A Critical Comparison Across the North/South Divide

Through a critical comparison of the spatial management of street vending in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and New York City, USA, we show how uncertainty enables the management of vending and urban space. By uncertainty, we mean a condition characterized by legal complexity and negotiable enforcement of laws and regulations. Putting New York and Ciudad del Este in dialogue, we demonstrate that these negotiated legalities are not limited to Southern urbanisms, nor are they remnants of unmodern social forms. We find similarities in how vendors experience and negotiate uncertainty, even as divergent mechanisms link uncertainty and inequality. By claiming streets as sites of work, vendors challenge dominant notions of global urbanism which conceive of sidewalks as sites of circulation, rather than livelihood. Especially in Ciudad del Este, vendors know the biases of law, and ground their claims to livelihood in ethics rather than legal compliance. Yet vendors’ claims can also reinscribe hierarchical relationships with frontline enforcers and reinforce exclusionary notions of rights based in productive citizenship. Understanding how uncertainty works as a logic of governing helps expose these unavoidable tensions and therefore to imagine and construct pathways toward more just urban economies.     

Applying conjoint analysis in economic evaluations: an application to menorrhagia

The increased demand for health care, coupled with limited resources, means that decisions have to be made concerning the allocation of scarce health care resources. This paper considers how conjoint analysis (CA) can be used to aid this decision making process. It is shown how the technique can be used to estimate marginal rates of substitution between attributes, willingness to pay (WTP) if cost is included as an attribute and overall utility scores for different ways of providing a service. The technique is applied to consider women's preferences for two surgical procedures in the treatment of menorrhagia: hysterectomy and conservative surgery. The results suggest conservative surgery is preferred to hysterectomy, as indicated by higher utility scores for the former and a marginal WTP of 7593 to have conservative surgery rather than hysterectomy. The internal validity of CA was also shown. It is concluded that CA is a potentially useful instrument for policy makers. However, numerous methodological issues need addressing before the technique becomes an established instrument within economic evaluations.     

Some issues in the application of closed-ended willingness to pay studies to valuing health goods: an application to antenatal care in Scotland

Limited resources coupled with unlimited demands means that decisions have to be made concerning the allocation of scarce health care resources. The economic instrument of willingness to pay (WTP) is one instrument that can be used to help this decision-making process. Recommendations from the environmental economics literature suggest that the closed end (CE) WTP approach should be used. This approach is just beginning to be used to value health goods. This paper addresses the sensitivity of the closed-ended WTP approach to three issues: the design of the bid vector; the upper and lower limits of integration; and the method of analysis. These are discussed with reference to a study looking at the value of alternative models of ante-natal care in Scotland. The results are discussed and conclusions made concerning the use of the CE WTP instrument for valuing health goods.     

Health-related quality-of-life,work productivity,and economic burden among patients with Parkinson’s disease in Japan

Abstract

Aims: This study aimed to characterize the burden of Parkinson’s disease (PD) by examining health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL), impairments to work productivity and daily activities, healthcare resource use, and associated costs among Japanese patients with PD.

Materials and methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study used data from the 2009–2014 Japan National Health and Wellness Survey (NHWS) (n?=?144,692). HRQoL (Short Form 36-Item Health Survey version 2), impairments to work productivity and daily activities (Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire), healthcare resource utilization, and annual costs were compared between respondents with PD (n?=?133) and controls without PD (n?=?144,559). The effect of PD on outcomes was estimated using propensity score weighting and multivariable regression models.

Results: HRQoL was lower in patients with PD compared to the control group, with reduced physical (41.3 vs 51.3) and mental (35.7 vs 45.4) component summary scores and health state utility scores (0.62 vs 0.77; p?<?.001 for all). Patients with PD also reported higher levels of absenteeism (19.3% vs 3.3%), presenteeism (45.2% vs 18.5%), overall work impairment (52.8% vs 20.3%), and activity impairment (49.6% vs 20.8%) than controls without PD (p?<?.001 for all). In addition, patients with PD had higher healthcare resource utilization, direct (¥3,856,921/$37,994 vs ¥715,289/$7,046), and indirect (¥2,573,938/$25,356 vs ¥902,534/$8,891) costs compared with controls without PD (p?<?.001 for both).

Limitations: Data were cross-sectional and did not allow for causal inferences. Although the NHWS demographically represents the Japanese adult population, it is unclear whether it adequately represents the adult population with PD in Japan.

Conclusions: PD was associated with poorer HRQoL, greater work productivity loss, and higher direct and indirect costs. The findings suggest that an unmet need exists among patients with PD in Japan. Improving PD treatment and management could benefit both patients and society.     

美国运通冲锋不止

身经百战的金融巨人美国运通打出了一张王牌──蓝卡，但这只是某互联网计划的一个小小的开端。     

LABOR INCOME INDICES DESIGNED FOR USE IN CONTRACTS PROMOTING INCOME RISK MANAGEMENT

We propose that labor income indices be used to define settlements in many contracts, such as labor contracts, indexed bonds, or income securities. We discuss the issues in producing labor income indices for such uses, and develop prototype indices using US. data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). People are grouped by a clustering algorithm based on an estimated transition matrix between jobs, by education level, and by skill category. The groupings are defined so that few people move between them. For each grouping we generate a labor income index (1968–87) using a hedonic repeated-measures regression method. The indices show substantial variability through time, confirming the potential importance of the use of such indices in contracts. There is also substantial variability across groupings, as for example between the agriculture/labor grouping and other groupings, confirming the importance of using the grouping indices rather than aggregate indices in contracts.     

Aboriginal tourism—a linear structural relations analysis of domestic and international tourist demand

This paper analyses data from 471 domestic and international visitors to Katherine, Northern Territory as to their levels of interest in Aboriginal tourism products. It finds that although 40% of visitors do have an interest in Aboriginal culture, for the great majority such an interest is part of a wider interest in the Northern Territory as a whole. There is little evidence that tourists might be described as ‘amateur anthropologists’—rather their interest is related to other aspects of the Territory, such as its landscape, flora and fauna, and opportunities for outback adventure. Additionally, it is argued that evidence emerges of some tourists re‐evaluating natural settings from an Aboriginal perspective. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Big is Beautiful: debunking the myth of small business,by Robert D. Atkinson and Michael Lind

Business Economics -