The pregnant applicant: normal alterations in physiologic parameters and testing

Pregnancy affects virtually every organ system, and "baseline" normal laboratory test levels change throughout gestation.     

Cocaine revisited

Insurance companies often test applicants for the presence of cocaine. Because a positive test may automatically preclude further consideration, such cases often never reach the medical director. The negative impact of cocaine use on insurability is reviewed.     

The predictive ability paradox in behavioral accounting research

The purpose of this brief paper is to illustrate a problem with certain “types” of behavioral experiments predicated on a test of predictive ability. Such studies possess the following common characteristics: (1) They employ the implicit prediction models of individual human subjects; (2) They utilize as criteria for assessing predictive usefulness events whose outcomes cannot be independent of expectations about them (e.g. bankruptcy); (3) They use historical values for both criterion events and treatment factors. The difficulty with such experimental designs lies in the necessity to assume unalterable prior behavior in order to utilize a known value for the criterion event. Such an assumption makes it difficult to demonstrate the predictive usefulness of any information treatment factors.     

Characteristics determining the efficiency of foreign banks in Australia

The factors determining foreign bank efficiency are investigated using a three stage research method. It is found that host market incumbency reduces efficiency of foreign banks in Australia, resulting in over use of inputs. Factors underlying the limited global advantage hypothesis of Berger et al. [Berger, Allen N., DeYoung, Robert, Genay, Hesna, Udell, Gregory F., 2000. Globalisation of financial institutions: Evidence from cross-border banking performance. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Financial Service 3, 23–120] are identified, in that nationality specific factors represented by dummy variables are not significant once other relevant effects are controlled for. Parent profitability is not found to result in increased host nation efficiency, while parent credit rating effects are mixed. Some evidence is presented that banks from more financially sophisticated nations are more efficient. The implications of these results are explored from the perspectives of bank management and bank regulators.     

Future play: tourism,recreation and land use

Recent changes in land use for tourism and recreation have been driven by socio-demographic shifts, increases in disposable time and incomes, technological changes, transport developments, and emerging systems of policy and governance. Combined with changes in consumption preferences, these have led to general but differentiated increases in tourism and recreation. Outbound tourism has grown more rapidly than inbound, which has led to some displacement of land use demands. In the case of recreation, there are shifts between at home and outdoor recreation, and changes in the content and location of each. The resulting land use trends can be understood in regional, intra-regional (urban versus rural versus coastal) and temporal terms. Future trends are considered in terms of how this broad set of drivers and the relationships between them are being and are likely to be transformed.     

The role of image in service promotion: focusing on the influence of film on consumer choice within tourism

This paper presents a review and discussion of the role image plays in service promotion and consumer choice in the context of film‐induced tourism. Consumers can be very sensitive to images which are important determinants of what a service customer purchases. In relation to image, the medium of film can have a very influential impact on its audience. Consumers may make purchase choices in a range of areas as a result of what they have seen in the movies. An expanding body of literature suggests that film can influence people's travel decisions and entice them to visit particular destinations they have seen on the cinema screen (reinforced through repeat viewing on video, DVD and television). Tourism is a service industry. Does the image of a destination and how it is represented help overcome some of the challenges of service marketing? Many regions throughout the British Isles have seen their consumer appeal improve because of their links with respective film and television productions. Although they have benefited tourism‐wise from this, in many cases there still has not been enough real support from tourist authorities to this growth phenomenon, and as such, the full potential of film to tap into the consumer psyche has not yet been fully realized. Academic discourse from several disciplines is examined in this communication culminating in a conceptual model of destination enhancement through film‐induced image, featuring the conscious and unconscious communication factors at work on two sets of consumers (film consumers and destination consumers). As a ‘work in progress’, the paper sets the scene for further empirical research in this interesting area of study.     

Employer-Provided Training and Tenure-Earnings

This article examines the tenure-earnings profiles and suggests that the more training is provided to the individual by the employer, the steeper is the tenure profile of earnings. The provision of training by the employer is modelled as endogenous and subject to choice decisions using an ordered probit model corresponding to three levels of training. The earnings equations of three groups of employees are then adjusted for potential effects of bias due to selectivity by using Lee's procedure, and heterogeneity bias using the Altonji and Shakotko instrumental variable procedure.