Health-related ad information and health motivation effects on product evaluations

This study tests the effect of health-related ad information on perceived product healthfulness and purchase intention. Also, the study investigates whether consumers' health motivation moderates the effects, because of the way health motivation affects processing of health-related information in ads. Three types of health-related ad elements are distinguished: functional claims, process claims and health imagery. These elements were combined in mock ads and an online experiment was run to test the study hypotheses. Results show that health imagery has the largest impact on consumers' product evaluations, while functional claims and process claims have much smaller effects. Health motivation shows significant interaction with process claims on product evaluations.     

The Myth of Market Neutrality: A Comparative Study of the European Central Bank’s and the Swiss National Bank’s Corporate Security Purchases

ABSTRACT

Monetary policy operations in corporate security markets confront central banks with choices that are traditionally perceived to be the prerogative of governments. This article investigates how central bankers legitimise corporate security purchases through a comparative study of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). As we show, central bankers downplay the novelty of corporate security purchases by relying on familiar pre-crisis justifications of Central Bank Independence. Citing an ideal of ‘market neutrality’, central banks present corporate security purchases as pursuing a narrow objective of price stability and obfuscate their distributive consequences. In this way, central bankers depoliticise corporate security purchases: they reduce the potential for choice, collective agency, and deliberation concerning both the pursuit of corporate security purchases and the choices made in implementing these policies. We also describe the undesirable democratic, social and environmental dimensions of these practices, which we propose to address through enhanced democratic accountability.     

Cost-effectiveness of switching to insulin degludec from other basal insulins in real-world clinical practice in Italy

Abstract

Aims: The costs associated with insulin therapy and diabetes-related complications represent a significant and growing economic burden for healthcare systems. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of switching to insulin degludec (degludec) vs continuing previous basal insulin, in Italian patients with type 1 (T1D) or type 2 (T2D) diabetes, using a long-term economic model.

Materials and methods: Data were retrieved from a real-world population of patients from clinical practice in Italy. Clinical parameters included in the base-case model were change from baseline in HbA_1c, rates of hypoglycemia, and basal and bolus insulin dose, at 6?months following switch to degludec. Costs of treatments were taken from official Italian pharmaceutical list prices and costs of hypoglycemia were based on the literature. The data were used to populate a long-term (lifetime) IQVIA CORE Diabetes Model to evaluate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) – cost per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY). The robustness of these results was tested with extensive sensitivity analyses by varying the time horizons and abolishing each of the treatment differences and previous basal insulins.

Results: The total incremental cost for degludec vs previous basal insulin was €–6,310 and €–2,682 for patients with T1D and T2D, respectively; the switch to degludec resulted in a QALY gain of 0.781 and 0.628. The long-term ICER for degludec vs continuing the previous basal insulin regimen showed that degludec was dominant for both T1D and T2D, meaning that patient health was improved in terms of QALYs with lower healthcare costs. Sensitivity analyses showed that degludec remained dominant in most scenarios including after elimination of any benefit in non-severe hypoglycemia and insulin dose, in both T1D and T2D.

Conclusions: Under routine care, switching to degludec is dominant, compared with continuing previous basal insulin, in Italian patients with T1D or T2D.     

Grunderwerbsteuer im Länderfinanzausgleich: Umverteilung der Zusatzlast der Besteuerung

Apart from Bavaria and Saxony, all Federal States in Germany have considerably raised property transfer taxes in recent years. There is empirical evidence that increasing property transfer taxes leads to lower turnover on real estate markets. The corresponding negative fiscal impact is partly counterbalanced in the German fiscal equalisation scheme. This paper explicates the relationship between tax hikes and the transfer volume and calculates the responses of the fiscal equalisation scheme in various scenarios.     

Forecasting in an Extended Chain‐Ladder‐Type Model

Reserving in general insurance is often done using chain‐ladder‐type methods. We propose a method aimed at situations where there is a sudden change in the economic environment affecting the policies for all accident years in the reserving triangle. It is shown that methods for forecasting nonstationary time series are helpful. We illustrate the method using data published in Barnett and Zehnwirth (2000, pp. 245–321). These data illustrate features we also found in data from the general insurer RSA during the recent credit crunch.     

CEO pay incentives and risk-taking: Evidence from bank acquisitions

We analyze how the structure of executive compensation affects the risk choices made by bank CEOs. For a sample of acquiring U.S. banks, we employ the Merton distance to default model to show that CEOs with higher pay-risk sensitivity engage in risk-inducing mergers. Our findings are driven by two types of acquisitions: acquisitions completed during the last decade (after bank deregulation had expanded banks' risk-taking opportunities) and acquisitions completed by the largest banks in our sample (where shareholders benefit from ‘too big to fail’ support by regulators and gain most from shifting risk to other stakeholders). Our results control for CEO pay-performance sensitivity and offer evidence consistent with a causal link between financial stability and the risk-taking incentives embedded in the executive compensation contracts at banks.     

The affine arbitrage-free class of Nelson-Siegel term structure models

We derive the class of affine arbitrage-free dynamic term structure models that approximate the widely used Nelson-Siegel yield curve specification. These arbitrage-free Nelson-Siegel (AFNS) models can be expressed as slightly restricted versions of the canonical representation of the three-factor affine arbitrage-free model. Imposing the Nelson-Siegel structure on the canonical model greatly facilitates estimation and can improve predictive performance. In the future, AFNS models appear likely to be a useful workhorse representation for term structure research.     

Asymmetric Taylor reaction functions of the ECB: An approach depending on the state of the economy

We introduce a new approach to estimate asymmetric Taylor reaction functions where asymmetries depend crucially on the state of the economy which is in the Taylor rule framework the combination of inflation and output deviations. Thus we categorize the sample into four subsamples which correspond to all possible combinations concerning inflation and output deviations. Moreover we introduce a quadratic term of inflation and the output gap in the estimation equation for each state in order to capture possible non-linearities within each state. The approach is tested using data for the ECB because the ECB has communicated an explicit inflation target.     

First-price equilibrium and revenue equivalence in a sequential procurement auction model

We analyze first-price equilibrium bidding behavior of capacity-constrained firms in a sequence of two procurement auctions. In the model, firms with a cost advantage in completing the project auctioned off at the end of the sequence may enter the unfavored first auction hoping to lose it. Equilibrium bidding in both auctions deviates from the standard Symmetric Independent Private Value auction model due to opportunity costs of bidding created by possibly employed capacity. For this sequential auction model with non-identical objects, we show that revenue equivalence applies.