Capital budgeting in hospital management using the analytic hierarchy process.

In recent years, the health care industry has been experiencing change to a degree unprecedented since the inception of the Medicare program. With traditional in-hospital care on the decline, hospitals are being forced to compete for business. They must identify within their own systems feasible alternatives for dealing with these changes and then determine which ones will best accomplish the goals of the organization. This paper offers a procedure that utilizes the analytic hierarchy process--a multicriteria decision-making tool that helps arrange the possible alternatives in hierarchical order given the priorities of relevant decision makers. An application of the method to a mid-sized hospital is presented. Although the procedure is structured, it is flexible enough to be updated for the realities of any health care institution.     

On an absolute measure of distributional change

This paper tries to combine Kolm's ideas on the measurement of inequality with the recent work of Cowell on the generalized entropy families of income distribution and change indices. A ‘leftist’ measure of income distributional change is proposed, which is invariant to equal absolute changes in all incomes and which has other interesting properties.     

Time preference and capital asset pricing models

Results of the theory of individual optimal consumption-investment choice under uncertainty are extended to a class of intertemporally dependent preferences for consumption streams. These results are then used to show that with intertemporally dependent preferences, which are more realistic than the separable time-additive preference structure, Merton's (1973) multi-beta intertemporal capital asset pricing model is still valid, but it can no longer be collapsed to Breeden's (1979) single consumption-beta model.     

The CPE Aversion to Innovations: Alternative theoretical explanations

Conclusions Three competing theoretical approaches address the factors determining the low technological capability of the CPEs. One, here called the risk-reward explanation, focuses on the excessive riskiness of innovation to enterprises or the lack of sufficient rewards for taking on additional risk. Another theory, called the zero-price explanation, links their lackluster technological performance to the state's willingness to rescue failing enterprises. Finally, the closed-economy explanation relates the CPEs' incapacity to the autarkic nature of CPE systems.If one restricts discussion to internal matters, the zero price theory appears to be the most plausible. Where a permissive state offers help to any unfortunate or mismanaged enterprise, this weakens interest in efficiency and in pursuing innovations whose purpose is to economize on resources. The risk-reward explanation loses force if one assumes the presence of a permissive (or paternalistic) state because it implies little real risk for managers, which makes the size of rewards for innovative actions rather irrelevant.However, one can scarcely be satisfied with a discussion of the factors behind the lackluster performance of the CPEs that remains within the framework of a national economy. Technological changes in contemporary economies are highly international, so that developments in one country are very dependent on those occurring elsewhere. Therefore, what most undermines the CPEs' efforts is their limited degree of openness to the world market, which reduces enterprises' exposure to foreign competition and limits the inflow of foreign direct investment. Unfortunately, this closedness is not compensated for by their extensive—but bureaucratized—trade with one another in the CMEA.Parts of this article have been presented in Poznanski (1987). The author has benefited from comments by Irena Grosfeld.     

Evidence on the Extent and Potential Sources of Long Memory in U.S. Treasury Security Returns and Yields

Unlike equity returns, many fixed-income return measures appear to display long memory. We show that the extent of long memory differs strongly for gross and excess holding period returns on U.S. Treasury securities. Granger and others have argued that long memory may only reflect infrequent structural breaks. We explore the impact of structural instability on tests for long memory and find only weak indications that it lies behind the long memory in our return series. The evidence of long memory remains strong for yield and term premia series even after accounting for a series of potential underlying structural changes.     

THE EVALUATION OF TRADED OPTIONS PRICING MODELS IN AUSTRALIA

The aim of this paper is to report the results of an Australian empirical study which examined a number of testable implications of the original Black and Scholes (B-S) Option Pricing Model, and a variant of the model, that incorporates the dividends paid on the underlying security. The results do not support the notion that the B-S model prices options "correctly" within the Australian Options Market.     

THE AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS PROFESSION: AN APPRAISAL OF SOME CURRENT TRENDS*

Using the results of the first part of their 1994 membership survey, Ahmadi-Esfahani and Brakey (1996) examined the structure, conduct and performance of the Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society qualitatively. This paper extends that analysis by appraising some current trends in the Australian agricultural economics profession quantitatively. It concentrates on the second part of the survey to address a number of fundamental questions. A comparison of the US and Australian agricultural economics professions is made. The implications of the analysis for the product mix of the Society are explored.