Competition and physician-enabled demand: The role of managed care

Recent organizational changes in the health care sector promote greater patient participation in their treatment decisions. How physicians respond to patient-initiated requests for treatment is an issue of considerable policy interest. To study this phenomenon, we introduce the notion of physician-enabled demand and examine empirically whether this behavior responds to competitive pressures in the market and financial incentives associated with different physician payment mechanisms.We find that physician-enabled demand increases with more competition under fee-for-service reimbursement, but decreases with greater competition under managed care. This asymmetric response is quite consistent with our conceptual framework and at odds with alternative interpretations.     

A Statistical Interpretation of Student Evaluation Feedback

This article deals with the same basic subject—student evaluation of teaching—covered by Marlin and Niss in this issue. Dilts's approach is quite different, however. Readers will want to compare the model he used with that suggested by Marlin and Niss. One of Dilts's major findings is that “student course evaluations are directly associated with grade expectations and inversely associated with the degree to which the course is required.” In his paper he proposes a method that should help “to control for factors that distort evaluation.”     

在转型中迷失：通往资本主义道路上的生活满意度

在上世纪90年代东欧从社会主义向资本主义转型过程中,生活满意度随GDP的暴跌和回复而同步下降和上升,但其回复是与GDP的回复程度不相称的。2005年,在GDP比上世纪90年代初期平均高出25％的情况下,生活满意度却仅仅回复到其转型初期的水平,很可能仍低于转型前的水平。生活满意度在因物质生活水平的改善而提高的同时,却也因工作、保健和家庭生活而有所下降。在整个90年代,生活满意度的差异扩大,其中受冲击最大的,是受教育较少的人和年龄超过30岁的人;男人和女人同等受害。     

Price and quality components of imports of food products into the UK

This paper analyses the principal factors responsible for the growth in the value of imports of the UK food sector, during the period 1985-90. On the basis of estimates of translog multilateral price indices it assesses the relative contribution of changes in the quality of imported products and factors other than quality to growth in import values of food products. The main conclusion is that growth in quality appears to be the principal reason for the growth in unit values of imports and the trade deficit incurred by the food manufacturing sector.     

Vasectomy bonuses and completed family size in India

This paper discusses the consequences in rural India of a certain rational household decision function on the number of children born in the family when birth control opportunities are available. Households are assumed to choose whether or not to practice birth control after each child is born on the basis of maximising expected utility as a function of the consumption per head and the number of members in the family. Uncertainty arises on account of the different evaluation of children of different sexes. The model is then used to predict how completed family size would change if a government agency paid bonuses for smaller families.