A Study of Marketing Standardization and Performance of Australian,Japanese, and U.S. Firms

Given the continued importance of the globalization era, there is an ever-increasing interest in the correlation between marketing mix standardization and the firm's market performance. This issue focuses on the firm's pursuit of global markets in an environment conditional to internal and external market factors. The research examines factors on multinational firm's marketing mix (program and process marketing) from Australia, Japan, and the United States and the impact on market performance. The results are mixed providing some support for marketing standardization and profit performance.     

Clinical burden and healthcare resource utilization among patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism,overall and by adequately vs not adequately controlled disease: a multi-country chart review

Abstract

Aims: To assess the real-world clinical burden and healthcare resource utilization (HRU) among patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism, overall and by adequately controlled (AC) vs not adequately controlled (NAC) disease, informed by guideline-recommended clinical management targets, including biochemistry and symptoms.

Materials and methods: In this retrospective online chart review, endocrinologists in the US, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain were randomly selected to review the medical charts of adult patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism receiving calcium and activated vitamin D. Patients’ demographics, disease characteristics, symptoms, comorbidities, and hypoparathyroidism-related HRU during the 1 year before the review date were assessed. Clinical burden and HRU were compared between patients with NAC and AC hypoparathyroidism.

Results: Of 614 patients with hypoparathyroidism (AC, N?=?442; NAC, N?=?172), the mean age was 43.6?years, and the majority were female (61.6%), Caucasian (78.8%), and had post-surgical hypoparathyroidism (74.4%). Mean duration of hypoparathyroidism was 46.0?months. Hypoparathyroidism-related symptoms and comorbidities were reported in 59.4% and 46.7% of patients, respectively; 90.7% of patients had ≥1 hypoparathyroidism-related HRU event. More patients with NAC (57.6%) vs AC (42.5%) hypoparathyroidism experienced ≥1 comorbidity including calcium/phosphate imbalances, and brain, cardiovascular, metabolic, and renal disorders (all p?<?0.01). More patients with NAC vs AC hypoparathyroidism incurred ≥1 hypoparathyroidism-related hospitalization (27.9% vs 16.3%) and emergency room visits (47.7% vs 38.5%), and patients with NAC vs AC hypoparathyroidism had a higher number of outpatient visits (3.6 vs 2.6; all p?<?0.05), in the 1-year observation period.

Limitations and conclusions: Limitations of this online chart review include possible under-estimation of disease burden, limited sample size, and the inability to rule out selection bias. Findings indicate that patients with chronic hypoparathyroidism experience substantial symptomatic and comorbid burdens resulting in frequent HRU, suggesting an unmet need, particularly in NAC disease.     

National and regional factors in the foreign direct investment decision: the case of canada

This paper examines the location decision of foreign investors in Canada. Their motives are surveyed on the country level and on the regional level. The results on the national characteristics are comparable to previous studies; firm motivations are directly related to profitability concerns. We do note that there are some differences across industries and country of origin, but not by competitive advantage. When choosing a specific location within Canada, firms seek to be in close proximity to customers. The analysis further indicates that cost of production is an overriding concern independent of how the data are analyzed. These costs are apparent in an ex post facto evaluation of the investment. Firms investing in Canada see taxes and political stability as overriding concerns.     

The incidence and intensity of wage indexation: an empirical analysis

Variables suggested by theoretical studies of indexation are considered with a view to examining their utility in the context of the decision to index (incidence) and the desired degree of indexation when escalator clauses are put into effect (intensity). The Tobit model, which can address both of these issues, suggests that most of the effects of explanatory variables on the regressand occur by modifying the incidence of indexation, not its intensity. However, the Tobit model is itself rejected in favour of separate Probit and Truncated Regression investigations of incidence and intensity, respectively. The results obtained indicate that the standard list of explanatory variables, which one thinks of in the context of the theoretical literature as dealing primarily with intensity, perform well in explaining incidence but very poorly in accounting for the non-limit observations. The latter are influenced by bargaining power proxies such as the unemployment rate and union density; a very clear trade-off between indexed and non-contingent wage adjustment can also be discerned. These results call for more theoretical attention to the distinction between indexation incidence and its intensity.     

Private consumption,public consumption and liquidity constraints in developing countries: some empirical evidence

This paper extends the empirical work of Giovannini (1983, 1985) in seeking to identify the elasticity of substitution in consumption in developing countries using the Euler equation approach. Allowing for liquidity constraints in capital markets which force a percentage of aggregate consumption growth to track income growth to track income growth, we report static and time-varying estimates of this percentage and the elasticity of intertemporal substitution, as well as estimates of substitution between private and public consumption and implied utility function parameters. Our results suggest that liquidity constraints are a pervasive feature of developing country consumption data and that the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is near-zero for the majority of countries considered.     

Characterising a technology development at the stage of early emerging applications: nanomaterial-enhanced biosensors

We devise future-oriented technology analyses tools to investigate a technology at an interesting development stage of early emerging applications. At this stage, technologies show great potential with little established commercialisation. Future development pathways are highly uncertain and heavily dependent on contextual interactions. We apply R&D profiling, R&D-to-applications cross-charting, and technology delivery system modelling to help understand the phenomena that bear upon development prospects. We develop our approach through a two-tier case study: general treatment of nanomaterial-enhanced biosensors, followed by more specialised treatment of one subset of those. Results convey the importance of considering technological and social context factors together to understand likely innovation pathways.     

Money demand in the Dominican Republic

This paper investigates a demand for money relationship for the Dominican Republic. The financial system of the Dominican Republic is underdeveloped, and there are no suitable domestic data on the opportunity cost of holding money. Economic links with the USA suggest a possible role for a foreign interest rate effect and a currency substitution effect in the demand for domestic money. A long-run demand for money relationship is developed from the perspective of alternative estimation methodologies, and it is shown that a 'literature standard' specification augmented by foreign monetary variables is robust. The ensuing short-run dynamic model is adequate, stable and suggests an important role for expected inflation, and a real bilateral exchange rate with the USA. A number of policy implications for the Dominican Republic are drawn from the results.     

Estimating statistical properties of political economic decisions

Revelation of criteria implicit in setting policy is addressed in a political economic framework that includes identification and estimation of unknown parameters in the presence of multiple sources of uncertainty. Policy formation is viewed as an optimization process under which the government maximizes a criterion function subject to market constraints. A method for estimating political criterion function weights and their associated standard errors over multiple time periods is presented. The approach is illustrated with an empirical example from Japanese rice and wheat trade policy.     

Prospective measures of competitive balance: application to money lines in major league baseball

This study examines competitive balance in Major League Baseball (MLB) by looking at the money lines for the games during the regular season. The assertion is that the closer the money lines are to indicating that each team has an equal chance of winning each game, the more competitive balance there is in the league. This study extends the model developed by Bowman et al. (2012), which used point spreads to assess competitive balance in the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA). In this study, money lines for the 1999–2011 seasons were used to develop several measures of competitive balance. The results indicate that competitive balance increased rather substantially during this period. A by-product of this research is to identify the most highly rated team and pitcher. In 2002, New York Yankees were the highest rated team and from the year 2000 Pedro Martinez was the highest rated pitcher.