The searchers,II: How consumers can find cost-effective,quality health care

The original "Searchers" article appeared in the March 2000 issue of Employee Benefits Journal. It described the use of a patient satisfaction survey at Southwest Texas State University (SWT) to assist employees at the annual open enrollment period to better select their managed care organization (MCO). This article revisits that process, but further describes the subsequent publication of a recommended list of preferred physicians and the use of the peer review to report consumer concerns about the performance of individual physicians.     

Proactive planning and valuation of transmission investments in restructured electricity markets

Traditional methods of evaluating transmission expansions focus on the social impact of the investments based on the current generation stock which may include firm generation expansion plans. In this paper, we evaluate the social welfare implications of transmission investments based on equilibrium models characterizing the competitive interaction among generation firms whose decisions in generation capacity investments and production are affected by both the transmission investments and the congestion management protocols of the transmission system operator. Our analysis shows that both the magnitude of the welfare gains associated with transmission investments and the location of the best transmission expansions may change when the generation expansion response is taken into consideration. We illustrate our results using a 30-bus network example. An erratum to this article can be found at     

The Minimum Wage and the Cause of Democracy

Too often the minimum wage is conceived of as a small policy measure that will be of benefit to only a small segment of the labor market while imposing costs on another segment of the labor market. Unexplored, however, are the larger philosophic questions that such a small measure may actually raise. One such issue is the relationship between the minimum wage and democratic principles. In this paper I argue that the minimum wage furthers the ends of democratic society in that low-wage workers may achieve greater equality of standing with their piers to the extent that income inequality is at all lessened; their autonomy as individuals is enhanced through higher wages, which in turn enables them to claim the benefits of citizenship and participate more effectively in the democratic process; and it fosters greater economic development in that it raises the overall structure of a region and perhaps the productivity of that region.