Characteristics of UK firms related to timing of adoption of Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 20

This study examines whether the timing of adoption of the UK Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 20 ‘Foreign Currency Translation’ depended on firms’ financial characteristics. Consistent with US studies, we find that early adopters tended to be larger firms, and that variables, such as growth options, profitability, leverage and management payout, have strong predictive power. In general, the decision to adopt the Statement of Standard Accounting Practice No. 20 did not appear to adversely affect the profitability measures or dividend payout. Firms tended to adopt when the adverse economic consequences of the adoption were likely to be minimal. They also appeared to defer the adoption of the standard to influence their financial performance and, hence, to achieve certain corporate financial objectives.     

Evolution of cooperation in asymmetric commons dilemmas

Field experiments with asymmetric commons dilemmas have shown that groups who are able to derive high social efficiency also had higher equity compared to groups who were not able to derive significant levels of social efficiency. These findings resemble the high productivity in long-lasting irrigation systems based on self-governance. We present an agent-based model based on cultural group selection that shows that the patterns observed in the field experiments can be evolved in cases where agents participate regularly in less challenging symmetric public good dilemmas. These results indicate that cooperation in asymmetric dilemmas can evolve and persist when the agents contend with other social dilemmas than the asymmetric dilemmas.     

Freedom and International Migration

Economic and political freedoms are regressed on a bilateral cross section of international migrant stocks using ordinary least squares and Tobit techniques. A positive relationship between these variables is found. Economic freedom is statistically significant even when controlling for income per capita and political freedom. In addition, the impact of these freedoms on migration flows into OECD countries between 2001 and 2006 using fixed effects estimations is analyzed. The panel data analysis mostly corroborates the cross‐sectional analysis. The notable exception is that political freedom appears to have had a negative impact on migration flows during this period.     

Double Deflation and the Measurement of Output and Productivity in UK Manufacturing 1979–89

The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of applying double deflation methods to the measurement of productivity growth in UK manufacturing between 1979 and 1989. A number of alternative indicators of output growth are considered and it is argued that double deflated value added is the superior concept to employ for the measurement of productivity. It is shown that output measured by double deflated value added fell by 0.05% over the period between 1979 and 1989 whereas the official series indicates that output rose by 12.2% over the period. Measuring productivity as output per person employed, the double deflated value added measure indicates that between 1979 and 1989productivity increased by 34%> whereas the official series indicates an increase of 51 %. Whereas the latter may indicate a productivity miracle the former does not     

Employee attitudes toward drug testing: Effects of individual characteristics and employment setting

Testing for the presence of drug continues to gain popularity as a method for controlling drug use in the workplace. It is important that employers understand how potential applicants and current employees will react to the various types and purposes of drug testing. Employees (n = 529) were interviewed to investigate the role of attitudes toward drugs and work setting characteristics in explaining acceptance or rejection of drug testing. Individuals believing users should be held responsible for becoming dependent on cocaine, who felt the primary cause of cocaine addiction was weak moral character, and those who felt cocaine users should be treated as criminals were more supportive of drug screening and the testing of current employees.     

Burden of venous leg ulcers in the United States

Objective:

To estimate the annual incremental per-patient and overall payer burden (2012USD) of venous leg ulcers (VLU) in the US.

Methods:

Beneficiaries with and without VLU were identified using two de-identified insurance claims databases: aged 65+ from a 5% random sample of Medicare beneficiaries (2007–2010: n?～?2.3 million); and aged 18–64 from a privately-insured population (2007–2011: n?～?8.4 million). The index date was selected as the date of a VLU claim with no other VLU diagnoses in the preceding 12 months for the VLU cohort and as the date of a random medical claim for the non-VLU patients. These groups were matched using propensity scores to account for differences in demographics, comorbidities, resource utilization, and costs in the 12 month pre-index period. Medical resource use and costs incurred during the 12 month follow-up period were calculated for both payers. Drug costs and indirect work-loss due to disability and medically-related absenteeism were estimated for the privately-insured sample only. Annual VLU incidence rates were also estimated for both payers.

Results:

Data for 58,672 matched VLU/non-VLU pairs of Medicare and 22,476 matched pairs of privately-insured patients were analyzed. Relative to matched non-VLU patients, VLU patients used more medical resources and incurred annual incremental medical costs of $6391 in Medicare ($18,986 vs $12,595), and $7030 ($13,653 vs $6623) in private insurance ($7086 including drug costs). Compared with non-VLU patients, privately-insured VLU patients had more days missed from work (14.0 vs 10.0), resulting in 29% higher work-loss costs (comparisons significant at p?Limitations:

Findings did not account for out-of-pocket payments or other indirect costs (e.g., lost productivity), and relied on accuracy of diagnosis and procedure codes contained in claims data.

Conclusion:

These findings suggest an annual US payer burden of $14.9 billion.