Determinants of Public Expenditure on Health in India: A Panel Data Analysis at Sub-National Level

This study explores whether political factors and fiscal capacity matter more in explaining the growth and variation in health expenditure than the state’s income in India. The findings suggest that with the widening of political participation and greater representation of diverse population groups in politics, one can see a concomitant rise in government expenditure on health, indicating state interventionism in health sector for political reasons. Government’s desire to increase health spending depends on the availability of financial resources with the states, failing which the probability of fulfilling expenditure obligations towards the sector would be low. In contrast to earlier estimates that income elasticity of health expenditure is nearly equal to or greater than one, the elasticity is found to be less than one which ranges between 0.16 and 0.59. Overall, coefficient estimates of most of these important covariates show an upward bias in terms of magnitude and precision due to the absence of unobserved control factors and of advanced robust estimation techniques.

     

INDEPENDENT FISCAL AGENCIES

Abstract.  There has been a considerable literature regarding the incentives of policymakers as a prime reason for persistent fiscal deficits and a variety of fiscal rules have been proposed as a remedy. However, the often inadequate flexibility of rules and the success of policy delegation in the monetary realm have motivated a small but growing number of studies that suggest delegating some aspects of fiscal policy to what will here be called 'independent fiscal agencies'. This paper surveys the related literature with a focus on three aspects: the motivation for the establishment of such agencies; their potential design; and the experience with these types of institutions.     

Toward a unified theory of consumer acceptance technology

In the last few decades, scholars and practitioners have increasingly tried to understand the factors that influence technology acceptance. Theories and models developed by scholars have tended to focus on the role of cognition and have rarely included affect. The few studies that have incorporated affect have tended to measure a single emotion rather than modeling it comprehensively. This research addresses that inadequacy in our understanding of technology adoption by merging two previously unrelated models: TAM (the Technology Acceptance Model) and PAD (the Pleasure, Arousal, and Dominance paradigm of affect). This study also examines an enhanced view of cognition. The product of this unified theoretical framework is referred to as the Consumer Acceptance of Technology (CAT) model. The results of a test using structural equation modeling provide empirical support for the model. Overall, the CAT model explains over 50% of the variance in consumer adoption intentions, a considerable increase compared to TAM. These findings suggest that substantial improvement in the prediction of technology adoption decisions is possible by use of this model with its integration of affect and cognition. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

打败低成本竞争者的市场策略

打败在市场上看不见的敌人要比打败那些看得到的敌人难度大得多.波澜壮阔的竞争浪潮每天都在各行各业涌动,为了打败竞争者,企业必须投入很多的人力、财力和宝贵的时间.与那些跟自己实力相当、策略相似、核心竞争力接近的公司竞争充满了挑战性.     

Circular economy to enhance sustainability of small and medium‐sized enterprises

The circular economy (CE) represents a major paradigm shift of moving from the concepts of linear to circular supply chains across multiple industries. Although some aspects of CE adoption within industrial supply chains have been researched extensively (particularly addressing challenges of design, implementation, and operations), the research that relates CE practices with sustainability performance to reveal the current state of CE practices within small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) is scant. The aim of this research was to facilitate SMEs to achieve greater sustainability through CE implementation. This research addresses three research questions—How are CE fields of action related to sustainability performance? What are the issues, challenges, and opportunities of adopting CE in SMEs? And what key strategies, resources, and competences facilitate effective implementation of CE in SMEs? This study adopts a mixed method approach (qualitative and quantitative) using survey research, focus group, and case studies; 130 randomly selected SMEs within the Midlands of the United Kingdom have been surveyed, and the responses are analysed using statistical tools along with findings from focus groups and case studies. The study reveals that all CE fields of action (take, make, distribute, use, and recover) of SMEs are correlated to economic performance, but only make and use are related to environmental and social performance. The study further derives strategies, resources, and competences for achieving sustainability across all the CE field of actions. Additionally, this research reveals the issues and challenges, strategies, resources, and competences required for implementing CE in SMEs.     

Economic geography and emerging market clusters: A co-evolutionary study of local and non-local networks in Bangalore

The presence of network ties within location plays a significant role in organization and evolution of clusters. This has proven to be particularly true for clusters specializing in knowledge intensive industries, where the organization of resources – people and technology – has been a primary driver for firm and regional performance. With the help of a longitudinal case study of the Bangalore IT cluster in India, we investigate the effect of local and non-local network ties on its evolution. We argue that networks – both local and non-local – play an important role in the development of cluster. We propose a non-linear relationship between cluster evolution phases and the type of network ties most prominent. Our study also outlines the role that embedding, expansion, and extension of ties plays in transitioning cluster from one phase to the other. The consideration of non-local ties is rather nascent in the cluster literature and promises to enhance the understanding of how clusters develop at both levels – policy as well as firm.     

Consumer Responses to Slice-of-Life Versus Slice-of-Death Advertising Appeals: Exploring the Role of Polysemy,Branding, and Culture

Prior research has not verified the theoretical or practical value of slice-of-life and slice-of-death advertising appeals in relation to advertising and branding constructs like advertising polysemy and consumer-based brand equity. The authors make conceptual, measurement, and managerial contributions to this research issue dealing with slice of life versus death advertising appeals. Across three studies, the authors measure, evaluate, compare, and contrast slice-of-life and slice-of-death (SOL/D) advertising appeals across British and American cultures. The authors demonstrate the interrelationships of SOL/D appeals with advertising polysemy, consumer-based brand equity, cultural differences in advertising attitudes, and purchase intentions. From a measurement perspective, the authors develop and validate parsimonious measures of slice-of-life and slice-of-death (SOL/D) advertising appeals. Furthermore, they test the assumptions that underlie these appeals for United States and British customers, and investigate how the cultural characteristic of uncertainty avoidance moderates the impact of SOL/D advertising attitudes on purchase intentions. Managerially, the research demonstrates that SOL/D appeals offer value in predicting (a) consumer-based brand equity through advertising polysemy, (b) consumers’ advertising attitudes across different cultures, (c) consumers’ intentions to purchase, and (d) advertising differences and varying consumer responses in the United States and Britain.     

Sovereign Risk: Are the EU's New Member States Different?*

This article examines whether rating agencies and investors perceive the sovereign risk of the new member states (NMS) of the European Union (EU) as different from that of other emerging markets. The results suggest the NMS have enjoyed favourable treatment since somewhere between 2002 and 2004, amounting to an advantage of 1.8 notches in ratings and 100 basis points in foreign currency spreads. We argue that, although several explanations of this effect are possible, it is most likely because of higher policy credibility bestowed by EU membership.     

An application of a new seasonal unit root test to inflation

In this paper, we apply the modified seasonal unit root test with seasonal level shifts at unknown time proposed by Popp (2007) to the G7 inflation rate. We also study the power properties of this test and generate critical values for a range of different break points and sample sizes. We find that there is a non-seasonal unit root in Canada's inflation rate, a semi-annual unit root in Germany's inflation rate, and no seasonal unit root at the annual frequency for any of the G7 countries.     

Hospitality crisis management practices: The case of Indian luxury hotels

This study examines hospitality crisis management practices within the context of the Indian hospitality industry. The study is a replication of a study previously conducted in Israel. The study employs a questionnaire that evaluates the importance and usage of four themes of practices: marketing, hotel maintenance, human resources and governmental assistance. The findings illustrate which practices managers consider important and which practices managers actually use during a crisis. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research and management of crises.