Using Subjective Risk Adjusting to Prevent Patient Dumping in the Health Care Industry

We examine how to procure health care services at minimum cost while preventing suppliers from refusing to care for high-cost patients. A single risk-adjusted prospective payment is optimal only when it is particularly costly for the supplier to discover likely treatment costs. Cost sharing is optimal when these screening costs are somewhat smaller. When screening costs are sufficiently small, screening is optimally accommodated and subjective risk adjusting is implemented. Under subjective risk adjusting, the supplier classifies patients according to his personal assessment of likely treatment costs, and payments are structured accordingly. Optimal procurement policies are contrasted with prevailing industry policies.     

A Note on Attitude as a Factor in Learning Economics

Although one might naturally assume that students interested in economics will learn more in an introductory course than those not interested in the subject, this assumption had to be tested. Using a specially designed “Questionnaire on Student Attitude Toward Economics” on a pretest and posttest basis, and accounting for previous course work, the student's verbal and quantitative skills, and student program requirements, Karstensson and Vedder employed linear multiple regression analysis and found a positive relationship between precourse attitude and course grade. Changes in student attitude which occurred during the course were also analyzed.     

A strategic environmental assessment method for agricultural policy in the UK

There are a number of significant environmental impacts that arise from agricultural practices that may be influenced by policy. A Strategic Environmental Assessment Method (SEAM) is described which aims to assess the environmental impacts of agricultural policy and aid the development of more sustainable policy formulation. The method addresses the issues of selecting appropriate performance criteria and measurements, and makes use of effect-damage functions and targets to determine the significance of potential impacts in relation to sustainability. A set of profiles is produced, describing the environmental performance of a specific policy. A confidence assessment system (CAS) is also described which provides details about the quality of the assessment and areas of uncertainty. SEAM provides information about impacts in simple format that can be easily used in decision making. It can identify environmental trade-offs and provides a holistic view that is essential when making decisions that affect the environment.     

Trust or Not?

In recent press there have been various reports alluding to the conduct of foreigners in China.These have ranged from the disgraceful and unseemly,notably the behaviour of a British man who drunkly molested a Chinese girl,to the frivolous,best illustrated in the antics of a rude Russian cellist refusing to move his feet on a train - something that bewilderingly received nationwide coverage in a country the size of a continent.     

The regional impact of health care expenditure: the case of Italy

Decentralization invests the subcentral authorities of a country with autonomy in political and economic power the exercise of which may widen interregional divergence and inequality. This paper provides evidence demonstrating that in the case of Italy the central government's policies for rationalization and containment of the growth of health care expenditure in combination with decentralization in the administration and provision of health care have resulted in interregional inequality, aggravating the existing regional divergence.     

The Triumph of American Capitalism: An Assyrian Perspective

The collapse of communism, the success of the US economy and the rise of the internet have led many to argue that the rest of the world should adopt American capitalism. This article uses evidence from the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East to argue that the most successful form of capitalism in each area (and era) depends on the context of the time, the culture of the people and the history of the region.     

Sequential regulatory oversight

We examine a setting where a different regulatory commission controls the activities of a firm in each of two periods. Each commission is concerned primarily with the welfare of contemporary consumers. We examine the efficacy of three different regulatory charters in resolving the intertemporal conflicts that arise between commissions. These charters specify the extent to which the second-period commission is bound to promises made by its predecessor.     

A hard sell? The prospects for apprenticeship in British retailing

We consider the prospects for apprenticeship in British retailing in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with training and HR managers from 17 large employers. We find that AA is for the most part unpopular with large retailers, who prefer to acquire intermediate skills through the upgrade training of existing employees through bespoke, in‐house training programmes and, to a lesser degree, via the recruitment of skilled workers. The one exception to this rule is to be found in the convenience stores sub‐sector of retailing, where the breadth of skills supplied by AA fits in well with employers' requirements. Even here, however, the scale of Apprenticeship is limited both in terms of the numbers of Apprentices being trained and also in terms of employers' own investment in the training of their Apprentices.