Health care reform and the number of doctor visits—an econometric analysis

This paper evaluates the German health care reform of 1997, using the individual number of doctor visits as outcome measure and data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel for the years 1995–1999. A number of modified count data models allow us to estimate the effect of the reform in different parts of the distribution. The overall effect of the reform was a 10% reduction in the number of doctor visits. The effect was much larger in the lower part of the distribution than in the upper part. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On how buyback and remanufacturing strategies affect the profitability of spare parts supply chains

The purpose of this paper is to provide a case-based framework to offer insights on the opportunity of recovering parts. We consider a two-stage spare parts supply chain, where independent repair shops are responsible for handling the repair process. There are two options to meet spare parts demand: repair shops may replace the part with a new one (ordered from the OEM) or they may use a part that they themselves repaired before. While repair shops achieve a larger profit by repairing parts, the OEM would prefer the use of new parts. However, he has no control over demand which might be obtained by offering buyback of broken parts. Furthermore, the OEM could recover these parts on a higher level, thus reducing production/procurement of new parts. The main contribution of this paper is the provision of a simple deterministic framework for answering the question whether a buyback option should be offered by the OEM to the repair shops, and which buyback price should be paid for each returned core. We further highlight the impact of remanufacturing performed at the OEM on the profitability of buyback.     

Shocks, Policy Reforms and Pro-Poor Growth in Bolivia: A Simulation Analysis

This paper analyzes how major external shocks and policy reforms affect Bolivia’s ability to achieve pro‐poor growth. Employing a recursive‐dynamic CGE model, it considers three different scenarios: an optimistic baseline scenario; a more realistic scenario that accounts for two important negative external shocks (declining capital inflows and El Niño); and a scenario that captures the combined effect of the shocks and two major reform projects (development of the gas sector and deregulation of the urban labor market). It turns out that the shocks are likely to impair Bolivia’s medium‐term development prospects, leading to marked increases in both urban and rural poverty. If the reform projects were implemented, the poverty increase caused by the shocks would be more than offset for urban households, but reinforced for rural households.     

Prospective NATO or EU membership and institutional change in transition countries1

This article quantifies the impact of incentives related to potential membership on institutional change as measured by the World Bank Governance Indicators. Based on a panel of 25 transition countries for the period from 1996 to 2008, we show that pre‐accession incentives provided by EU and NATO clearly matter for institutional development. In addition, path‐dependency determined by cultural norms may be overcome by economic liberalization, while foreign aid hampers institutional development.     

Assessing the predictability of future livelihood strategies of pastoralists in semi-arid Morocco under climate change

This study assesses the predictability of future livelihood strategies of transhumant pastoralists in semi-arid Morocco. A decrease in precipitation due to climate change will likely threaten their traditional livelihood strategy. We examine whether the pastoralists explicitly prefer certain alternative strategies or if their reactions will be contingent. Our analysis uses standardized interviews focussing on two aspects: firstly, which resources are necessary for the pastoralists to be able to choose a livelihood strategy? Secondly, to what degree are expectations of well-being satisfied by alternative strategies? To assign levels of predictability to all investigated strategies, we analyze the interviews using simple methods of partial order theory. We find that under perceived precipitation scarcity, 38% of pastoralists would explicitly opt for sedentarity and localized pastoralism as alternative strategy. Unclear preferences are given for 25% of the cases. Considering a policy scenario of enhanced access to education and capital, our analysis indicates commercial pastoralism as dominant alternative. However, such a scenario would increase the share of unclear preferences to 43%, which increases the likelihood of a contingent development. The method we propose can be considered as a mathematical basis for the concept of historical contingency.     

Tests of significance for the average square deviation from target in a finite lot

Consider lots of discrete items 1, 2, …,N with quality characteristicsx ₁,x ₂, …,x _N . Leta be a target value for item quality. Lot quality is identified with the average square deviation from target per item in the lot (lot average square deviation from target). Under economic considerations this is an appropriate lot quality indicator if the loss respectively the profit incurred from an item is a quadratic function ofx _i −a. The present paper investigates tests of significance on the lot average square deviationz under the following assumptions: The lot is a subsequence of a process of production, storage, transport; the random quality characteristics of items resulting from this process are i.i.d. with normal distributionN(μ, σ ²); the target valuea coincides with the process meanμ.     

Modern sector development: The role of exports and institutions in developing countries

A prospering modern sector is crucial for the successful long‐term development in developing countries as it provides income and job growth for large shares of society. While this idea is widely accepted, there is, perhaps surprisingly, far less analysis about the exact determinants of this economic modernization process. In this article we empirically investigate whether international trade and institutions, both much discussed in the debates on general growth and development, are particularly important for the diffusion of production in the modern sector within developing societies. In a large cross section time‐series sample, we provide robust estimation results that point to an important role of institutions and to a nonlinear impact of manufacturing exports. Our results, which are derived using a range of estimators and are ultimately less susceptible to endogeneity concerns, also provide interesting insights into the role of natural resources and official development aid.     

Less Developed Countries,Tourism Investments and Local Economic Development

This paper analyzes the forward linkages of a multinational's investment in a resort that kicks off tourism activity in a less developed country. We show that, under quite natural assumptions, overnight stays are increasing in the number of differentiated tourism‐related goods and services. These goods and services, if supplied by the local community, represent forward linkages of FDI in tourism. We investigate the multinational's incentives to promote, reduce or eliminate these forward linkages and the effectiveness of some policy instruments available to a local government to leverage on the presence of FDI and to stimulate domestic entrepreneurship.