Socio-economic evaluation of mental health as a basis for financing health care in Sweden

The objective of this paper is to examine hypotheses about the relationships between socio-economic factors, risk factors in working life, and the occurrence of mental illness, together with the degree of quality of life and consumption of health care, costs for health care, and costs for social insurance. This is a prospective and longitudinal study of 1,347 individuals of an active working age, 18–64 years, who have been on sick leave for more than 30 days. The group is characterized by the prevalence of risk factors in their work environment and welfare losses, such as multiple health problems, poor quality of life, inability to work, and dependency on society's support from health care and social insurance. The costs for health care were just over 2.8 million SEK, or 30 percent higher for those with psychological distress as compared to the group without. The payments from social insurance also increased by approximately 15 percent. The relatively greater weighting of health care costs and sickness cash benefits were motivating factors to study whether this group had an optimal amount and quality of health care, or if the resources available for health care should be distributed in another way that better satisfies the needs of the group.     

Vacation decisions,activities, and satisfactions

Vacations are a major consumer expense category. People devote considerable attention to deciding whether to take one or not (generic decision), to making joint decisions as husband, wife, and children, and to acquiring information from different sources and media. Information functions to sensitize, persuade, heighten appreciation, and legitimize choices. Several vacation types can be distinguished. Life-style, as a broader concept, may server as a good basis of explanation for vacation behavior. Equity and attribution are important concepts in understanding vacationer (dis)satisfaction and complaint behavior.     

Optimal portfolios with minimum capital requirements

We propose a novel approach to active risk management based on the recent Basel II regulations to obtain optimal portfolios with minimum capital requirements. In order to avoid regulatory penalties due to an excessive number of Value-at-Risk (VaR) violations, capital requirements are minimized subject to a given number of violations over the previous trading year. Capital requirements are based on the recent Basel II amendments to account for the ‘stressed’ VaR, that is, the downside risk of the portfolio under extreme adverse market conditions. An empirical application for two portfolios involving different types of assets and alternative stress scenarios demonstrates that the proposed approach delivers an improved balance between capital requirement levels and the number of VaR exceedances. Furthermore, the risk-adjusted performance of the proposed approach is superior to that of minimum-VaR and minimum-stressed VaR portfolios.     

The short-run impact of fluctuating primary commodity prices on three developing economies: Columbia,Ivory Coast and Kenya

Computable general equilibrium models are used to study the short-run impact of fluctuating primary commodity prices on the economies of Columbia, Ivory Coast and Kenya. The results indicate that these economies are destabilized by primary commodity price fluctuations unless governments act to hold real domestic absorption constant. To achieve this, however, would require foreign exchange reserves in excess of the level normally available to these governments for the purpose of stabilizing domestic economic activity.     

Book reviews

New Advanced Materials: Economic Dynamics and European Strategy.

New Technology in Context: The Selection, Introduction and Use of Computer Numerically Controlled Machine Tools.

Management Strategies for Information Technology.

Managing Information Technology in Insurance: A Guide to the Key Issues.     

Prahu Shipping in Eastern Indonesia in The Interwar Period

During the interwar period, prahu (sail) shipping in Eastern Indonesia experienced first decline and then dramatic resurgence. This paper explains this pattern in terms of the interaction between competitive pressures from the modern sector and the impact of the Depression.     

Explaining Managed Trade as Rational Cheating

Postwar “managed-trade” policies feature low baseline tariffs combined with selective nontariff protection. This paper interprets managed trade as a rational strategy to undermine trade-liberalization agreements in the absence of credible external enforcement. Analyzing the Kennedy GATT Round, I explore the calculus that led the United States to undermine across-the-board tariff reductions selectively by introducing nontariff barriers in industries with rapidly rising import demand. I show empirically that nontariff barrier dynamics across 216 industries support a rational-cheating interpretation of managed-trade policy.     

Connecting Eastern and Western Perspectives on Management: Translation of Practices Across Organizations,Institution and Geographies

The exchange of academic knowledge increasingly flows in both directions, from West to East and East to West. The result is a rich and ever increasing development of theory and understanding of practice, which is expected only to gain further momentum in the future. This paper seeks to help establish a foundation for further development of this fertile exchange of ideas between East and West. We reflect on the research focus of the main theories in management studies in East and West. We discuss the topics of East and West in selected areas of management studies, including competitive strategy, strategic leadership, and the human resource management to offer avenues for future research. Translating practices between the two contexts creates institutional, leadership, strategy and organizational challenges while providing new promising research avenues and opportunities to integrate East and West perspectives. We also offer a more critical view on the relationship between West and East, focusing specifically on the role of power and power relations in making sense of how management and organization studies treat issues of cultural, institutional and philosophical divergence.