Reviews

TRENDS IN THE SERVICE SECTOR.

Howells, J. and Green, A. 1988: Technological Innovation, Structural Change and Location in U.K. Services. Avebury/Gower Publishing, £25.00.

Howells, J., 1988: Economic Technological and Locational Trends in European Services. Avebury/Gower Publishing, £22.50.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BASED ON THE COMMUNITY'S RESOURCEFULNESS.

Dauncey, G. 1988: After The Crash: The Emergence of the Rainbow Economy. Basingstoke: Greenprint, £6.99 paper.

Ball, C. 1988: If You Think the System is Working. Ask Someone Who Isn't! Bradford: Bradford Metropolitan Council for Voluntary Service, £235 paper.

Marsh, N. 1988: Jobs In Our Cities: Voluntary Employment and Training Projects Under the Urban Programme. London: National Council for Voluntary Organisations. £2.50 paper.

USING TECHNOLOGY POLICY FOR LOCAL ECONOMIC REGENERATION.

Dyson, K. (ed), 1988: Local Authorities and New Technologies: The European Dimension. Beckenham: Croom Helm, £25.00 cloth.

FOSTERING LOCAL BUSINESS IN EUROPE.

Sutton, A. S. (ed). 1967: Local Initiatives: Alternative Paths for Development. Maastrict: Presses Universitaires Europeennes (no price stated). Available from European Centre, PO Box 3073, 6202 NB Maastrict. The Netherlands.     

Expert explores avenues of economic alternatives

"Economics focuses on relevant alternatives," asserts this author, and in the context of fund raising management, they can be incorporated into the solicitation process necessary to raise those big dollars. This author discusses three.     

Global Force for Branding: A Study of Attitudes,Intentions, the Military,and the Wars Overseas

Through the years, the United States Armed Forces has advertized to the citizens of America in times of peace and war. The present study explores the attitudes and intentions regarding the military by two groups of study participants during the United States’ active engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq. One group of participants viewed a military ad and one group was asked to recall a military ad. Mediation analysis revealed partially mediated relationships among attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the military (where the military has “brand” characteristics), and the discussion of one's own intention to enlist in the armed forces as well as one's intention to recommend enlisting to friends and family. Post hoc analysis indicated that sex has a strong direct effect on enlistment discussion intentions. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

How family spending has changed in the U.S

Since the Monthly Labor Review began, the proportion of family expenditures allocated for food has dropped by half, the incidence of homeownership has doubled, and spending for transportation, medical care, and recreation has increased significantly.     

Peer‐group dependence in salary benchmarking: a statistical model

Although salary benchmarking is widely used to help set compensation, there has been a lack of attention to the statistical implications of this practice on compensation patterns of peer institutions. We adapt some empirical tools from spatial econometrics to analyze compensation decisions exhibiting peer‐group dependence, and apply the methods to compensation of administrators in Texas nursing facilities. We find evidence that this leads to dependence of administrators pay on average pay of administrators in ‘peer’ facilities, defined here as those having similar outlays on nursing services. This leads to a situation where changes in facility characteristics, such as the occupancy rate and the revenue received from Medicaid and from private‐pay residents, impact compensation of own‐institution administrators as well as that of administrators from other peer facilities. Our peer‐group model appears applicable to other areas of organizational, regulatory and behavioral research and can easily be implemented using publicly available software. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predictors for total hospital and cardiology cost claims among patients with atrial fibrillation initiating dabigatran or acenocoumarol in The Netherlands

Aims: The prevalence of atrial fibrillation (AF) has increased over the past years due to aging of the population, and healthcare costs associated with AF reflect a significant financial burden. The aim of this study was to explore predictors for the real-world AF-related in-hospital costs in patients that recently initiated anticoagulation with acenocoumarol or dabigatran.

Methods: Predictors for claimed total hospital care costs and cardiology costs in AF patients were explored by using hospital financial claims data from propensity score matched patient groups in a large Dutch community hospital. This study analyzed the total dataset (n?=?766) and carried out a secondary analysis for all matched pairs of anticoagulation naïve AF patients (n?=?590) by ordinal regression.

Results: Dabigatran was a predictor for significantly lower cardiology and total hospital care costs (Odds Ratio [OR]?=?0.43, 95% confidence interval (CI)?=?0.33–0.57; and OR?=?0.60, 95% CI?=?0.46–0.79, respectively). Female gender was a predictor for lower total hospital care costs. Predictors for an increase in total hospital care costs were the occurrence of stroke or systemic embolism, major bleeding, and minor bleeding. The costs predictors were comparable when limiting the analysis to patients that were anticoagulation naïve. Age and CHA₂DS₂-VASc were not predictors for either cardiology or total hospital care costs in both analyses.

Conclusion: Dabigatran treatment was as a predictor for lower cardiology costs and lower total hospital care costs in AF patients that initiated oral anticoagulation.