International P/L insurance output,input, and productivity comparisons

This research provides (bilateral) divisia and multilateral divisia indexes of output, input, and productivity for the property-liability (P-L) insurance industry for the following countries: United States, West Germany, Switzerland, France, and Japan. The time period studied is 1975 to 1987. The results indicate that considerable diversity exists among different countries, with Japan showing the weakest productivity growth. The United States and West Germany are associated overall with high productivity.     

Natural Language in Banking

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of natural language technology in banking applications. The paper provides a brief review of natural language systems and technologies and then a summary of some of the banking systems that use natural language. The integration of natural language into broader-based bank information systems is also discussed.     

Wealth Accumulation and Distribution in the Midwest in the Late Nineteenth Century

It is well known that early settlers on the frontier reaped the benefits of development as population grew, especially through capital gains on real estate. But population turnover—so pervasive in the rural north in the nineteenth century as well as in contemporary settlement economies—also afforded early settlers an advantage: they knew local soil and market conditions better than those who settled later. Such location-specific human capital augmented the incomes, and therefore the wealth, of early settlers. Early settlers in Missouri had higher rates of wealth accumulation than later arrivals, and the contribution of location-specific human capital was at least equal to the contribution of capital gains.     

Analyst Earnings Forecast Revisions and the Pricing of Accruals

We investigate the relation between two market anomalies to provide insights into analysts role as information intermediaries. Prior research finds that accruals and analyst earnings forecast revisions predict future returns. We find that the accrual and forecast revision strategies generate hedge returns of 15.5% and 5.5% when implemented independently. Strikingly, a combined strategy that uses forecast revisions to refine the accrual strategy generates a hedge return of 28.5%. Firms with consistent accrual and forecast revision signals have less persistent accruals and earnings. We also find that accruals can be used to refine the forecast revision strategy—high accruals are associated with overoptimism in analyst forecasts. Our findings indicate that although forecast revisions reflect information about accrual and earnings persistence beyond that reflected in the level of current year accruals, investors do not fully incorporate this information into their valuation assessments.     

National Determinants of Family Firm Development? Family Firms in Britain, Spain, and Italy in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

We provide here a complement to recent work on family business,which has demonstrated the need to go beyond the generic definitionof the family firm to place personal capitalism in an appropriateinstitutional, historical, and cultural framework. By focusingon the nineteenth- and twentieth-century experiences in Britain,Spain, and Italy, we challenge the notion that in the nineteenthand twentieth centuries there was anything so simple as a Mediterraneanmodel for family business. Rather, we demonstrate the need toconsider family businesses in national and regional contextsif we are to understand their various capabilities and characteristics.We use similarities and differences in the experiences and responsesof families and firms in the three countries to support thisclaim.     

Case management: an evaluation at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles

This prospective, quantitative, and qualitative evaluation of the case management program at CHLA clearly demonstrated the value of professional service coordination of care for children with complex, special health needs. Most specifically, the program documented improvement in three discrete areas of evaluation: 1. Financial, with decreased unnecessary expenditures and increased revenue. 2. Patient satisfaction, documented with validated questionnaires. 3. Clinical process improvement, using quantifiable clinical outcomes. At the very least, case management is an extremely valuable service in the present managed health care environment, and may in fact be indispensable.