Remittances in temporary migration: A theoretical model and its testing with the Greek-German experience

Zusammenfassung Gastarbeiterüberweisungen bei befristeter Emigration. Ein theoretisches Modell mit einem Test anhand der griechisch-deutschen Erfahrungen. - W?hrend das Schrifttum über internationale Arbeitskr?ftewanderungen die Wirkungen der Gastarbeiterüberweisungen für das Herkunftsland betont und die überweisungen als Transfers von Ersparnissen behandelt, die angeblich vorwiegend durch Finanzvariable beeinflu\t werden, betrachtet das hier entwickelte Modell die überweisungen als eine endogene und verbindliche Entscheidung im Rahmen eines Familienbeschlusses über eine befristete Emigration. Der Wanderarbeiter soll emigrieren mit dem Zweck, eine Summe Geldes anzusammeln und dann zurückzukehren. Dabei ist er gehalten, seine t?glichen Ausgaben im Gastland zu beschr?nken und ein Minimum an finanzieller Unterstützung für die Familie daheim zu sichern. Das Modell wird vorwiegend mit Daten über befristete Wanderbewegungen zwischen Griechenland und der Bundesrepublik getestet und liefert gute Ergebnisse. Seine Gültigkeit wird best?rkt durch einen zus?tzlichen Test mit Daten über die Auswanderung von Griechen in die USA, die eher permanenter Natur ist und daher den grundlegenden Pr?missen des Modells widerspricht.

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Résumé Remises de la migration temporaire: un modèle théorique et son test par l’expérience grecque-allemande. - La littérature sur la migration internationale souligne l’effet des remises dans le pays du travailleur émigré et traite des remises comme transferts d’épargne. Elle pose l’hypothèse que les remises sont principalement affectées par des variables financières. En contraste, le modèle développé dans cet article traite des remises comme facteur endogène dans le processus d’une décision familiale de laisser émigrer temporairement un membre de famille. Le migrateur décide d’émigrer avec le but d’accumuler un montant de capital et puis de retourner. Pendant ce temps il est obligé de supprimer ses dépenses de vie dans le pays de h?te et de garantir un soutien minimum financier à sa famille. Le modèle qui est testé particulièrement par des données de la migration temporaire grecque-allemande se conduit très bien et sa validité est renforcée par un test supplémentaire par des données de la migration permanente grecque-américaine qui contredit ses prémisses principales.

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Resumen Transferencias con migración temporaria: un modelo teórico y un test del caso greco-alemán. - Mientras que en la literatura sobre la migración internacional se enfatiza el impacto de las transferencias en el país de origen de los emigrantes y se considera a las transferencias como ahorro influenciado particularmente por variables financieras, el modelo de este trabajo concibe transferencias como un factor endógeno y central en el proceso de decisión familiar con respecto a la migración temporaria. Se le encarga al emigrante la tarea de emigrar con el fin de acumular una suma de capital y de volver a su casa. Durante el período de migración el emigrante tiene la obligación de controlar el costo de su nivel de vida y de asegurar una contribución financiera mínima a la familia que queda en el país de origen. El modelo responde muy bien a un test con datos del caso greco-alemán de migración temporaria. Su validez es aumentada por un test suplementario con datos del caso grecoamericano de migración permanente basado sobre premisas opuestas.

     

Creative Problem Solving in GSS Groups: Do Creative Styles Matter?

Creative groups drive innovation and organizational change and collaborative systems can be used to pool creative team members across the globe. How individual creative preference impacts the group’s creative performance across different creative problem solving phases in a GSS environment is not well understood. The objective of this exploratory study was to understand if there are differences in group performance when groups with varying member creative styles interact solely via GSS. We conducted a quasi-experimental study that compared the performance of groups with two alternate member styles interacting only via group support systems during a creative problem solving process. Ideator and Evaluator groups were compared on their divergent and convergent phase performance. Significant differences were found between the Ideator groups and Evaluator groups on idea fluency, idea flexibility, idea novelty, idea elaboration and solution cost-effectiveness. No significant differences were found between the performance of the two groups on solution feasibility and novelty. Results indicate that member creative styles play an important role in determining the performance of technology-supported groups. These results aid researchers and practitioners by improving their understanding of the performance of creative teams interacting solely via collaborative support systems for creative problem solving tasks.     

Costs and effectiveness of fingolimod versus alemtuzumab in the treatment of highly active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in the UK: re-treatment,discount, and disutility

Objective: Patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) treated with disease modifying therapies (DMTs) who continue to experience disease activity may be considered for escalation therapies such as fingolimod, or may be considered for alemtuzumab. Previous economic modeling used Markov models; applying one alternative technique, discrete event simulation (DES) modeling, allows re-treatment and long-term adverse events (AEs) to be included in the analysis.

Methods: A DES was adapted to model relapse-triggered re-treatment with alemtuzumab and the effect of including ongoing quality-adjusted life year (QALY) decrements for AEs that extend beyond previous 1-year Markov cycles. As the price to the NHS of fingolimod in the UK is unknown, due to a confidential patient access scheme (PAS), a variety of possible discounts were tested. The interaction of re-treatment assumptions for alemtuzumab with the possible discounts for fingolimod was tested to determine which DMT resulted in lower lifetime costs. The lifetime QALY results were derived from modeled treatment effect and short- and long-term AEs.

Results: Most permutations of fingolimod PAS discount and alemtuzumab re-treatment rate resulted in fingolimod being less costly than alemtuzumab. As the percentage of patients who are re-treated with alemtuzumab due to experiencing a relapse approaches 100% of those who relapse whilst on treatment, the discount required for fingolimod to be less costly drops below 5%. Consideration of treatment effect alone found alemtuzumab generated 0.2 more QALYs/patient; the inclusion of AEs up to a duration of 1 year reduced this advantage to only 0.14 QALYs/patient. Modeling AEs with a lifetime QALY decrement found that both DMTs generated very similar QALYs with the difference only 0.04 QALYs/patient.

Conclusions: When the model captured alemtuzumab re-treatment and long-term AE decrements, it was found that fingolimod is cost-effective compared to alemtuzumab, assuming application of only a modest level of confidential PAS discount.     

British relative economic decline revisited: The role of competition

This paper examines the role of competition in British productivity performance over the period from the late-nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. A detailed review of the evidence suggests that the weakness of competition from the 1930s to the 1970s undermined productivity growth but since the 1970s stronger competition has been a key ingredient in ending relative economic decline. The productivity implications of the retreat from competition resulted in large part from interactions with idiosyncratic British institutional structures in terms of corporate governance and industrial relations. This account extends familiar insights from cliometrics both analytically and chronologically.     

Effects of adjustment of the green drachma to its current exchange rate

Between 1981 and 1988, the drachma has devalued by 62.5% against the ECU. Until mid-1985 any devaluation of the drachma was followed by a corresponding devaluation of the ‘green drachma‘. After that period, the green rate either remained unchanged or changed by a substantially smaller percentage, resulting in farmers' income loss and consumers' gain. The aim of this paper is to investigate the welfare effects on production/producer, consumption/consumer and budgetary flows from and to FEOGA assuming that an adjustment of the green drachma to its current exchange rate was realized. For this purpose partial analysis methodology is employed. The main findings are that, following a simultaneous adjustment of both rates, the gains to producers and in exchange flows more than make up for the corresponding consumers' losses for all products except beef.