A cross country explanation of performance of heath care systems: The consumer point of view using the Euro Health Consumer Index

This paper performs an empirical analysis based on a published assessment of several health care systems. This assessment, performed by the think tank Health Consumer Powerhouse, reports outcomes, and ranks accordingly several countries. In turn, this paper explores the ability of national data at explaining the differences observed in that ranking.The innovative features of this paper are mainly two. First, it shows how the Euro Health Consumer Index – which is comprised from 6 indicators – can be used as a single-outcome latent variable. This feature expands the possibilities of incorporating EHCI in future research. Secondly, this paper also serves as an example of the use of Partial Least Squares (PLS) and its characteristics.The analytical technique is PLS. The empirical analysis uses a set of 22 European countries (20 from European Union plus Norway and Switzerland) and departs from a model that relates four latent constructs, one representing National Performance (the aggregated measure of the EHCI) and the others representing financial investment in health care and human and physical resources.The final estimates provide very interesting results. The main result, or a judgment from the point of view of political implications of this research, is that a successful health care system needs mainly financial investment. Secondly, it also benefits – to a lesser extent – from physical capabilities. Finally, the way resources – namely human resources – are organized is possibly critical to the overall performance, measured from a consumer point of view.     

Can sustained growth be attained through trading exhaustible resources for foreign research?

We analyze the existence and the stability of a sustained balanced growth equilibrium (SBE) in a model of two non-homogeneous trading economies. A technological leader country which sells patents of new intermediate products in exchange for an exhaustible resource extracted by a technological follower trade partner. Considering a growth-essential resource, the ‘knife-edge’ assumption of exactly constant returns to scale (CRS) to manmade inputs can be alleviated, and the scale effects associated with R&D-based growth models overcome. A fully endogenous SBE is proven to exist, although its stability turns out to be a ‘knife-edge’ possibility. The long-run equilibrium is saddle-path stable assuming CRS in manmade inputs. Conversely, considering increasing returns to scale together with a completely specialized two-country trade, the equilibrium could be reached only if the two economies initially guard a particular relation, described by a particular subset of the state space.     

Analysing the determinants of US direct investment in Mexico

In this paper a simple model of foreign direct investment is developed and tested on investment flows from the USA to Mexico between 1967 and 1994 using cointegration analysis. Domestic demand and relative factor costs are found to influence direct investment flows, suggesting support for both the ‘cheap labour’ and ‘market size’ hypotheses. The short-run dynamics of the model indicate that exchange rate movements have an effect on the timing of the investment decision.     

Speed to Market for Innovative Products: Blessing or Curse?

The relationships among speed to market, quality, and costs are important to managers as they attempt to best establish incentives and set goals for new product development teams, allocate resources for new product development, or create positional advantage in the market. The existing literature suggests that the economic consequences of being late to the market are significant, including higher development and manufacturing costs, lower profit margins, and lessening of the firm's market value. Therefore, traditional logic has held that new product development managers need to manage the trade‐offs among speed to market, quality, and costs. While both scholars and managers have often acquiesced to performance trade‐offs among “faster, better, and cheaper,” this research attempts to improve understanding of the interrelationships between these objectives, and ultimately profit. Based on a survey of 197 managers, faster speed to market is shown to be related to better quality and lower costs; it is not necessary to sacrifice one of these outcomes. Further, the moderating roles of two dimensions of innovativeness (innovativeness to the firm and to the market) are examined on the relationships between speed and quality, as well as speed and profit. Both dimensions of innovativeness positively moderate the relationship between speed to market and quality. For more innovative products (both to the firm and the market), there is a stronger positive relationship between speed and quality than for less innovative products. Further, innovativeness to the firm negatively moderates the relationship between speed and profit. Thus, speed has a less positive impact on profit for highly innovative‐to‐the‐firm products compared with less innovative‐to‐the‐firm products. By being conscious of the projects’ levels of innovativeness (along with prioritizing various performance measures), managers can more rationally decide when to emphasize speed to market based on this study's findings.     

Virtual Design,Problem Framing,and Innovation: An Empirical Study in the Automotive Industry

This paper studies how problem framing by research and development groups, in particular the extent of problem decomposition, impacts knowledge replication processes conducted through the use of virtual simulation tools (VSTs). It presents the results of a comparative study of two research and development groups working on the design of hybrid propulsion systems. The research contributes to the literature on strategy and innovation in four ways. First, we identify three organizational and strategic factors affecting the problem framing decision. Second, we analyse the impact of problem framing on the use of VSTs and the related effect on knowledge replication processes. Third, we show the emergence of a new VST‐driven knowledge replication process, i.e. functional replication. Fourth, we explain how VST‐driven knowledge replication processes can attenuate the dangers related to the adoption of modular design strategies and address the replication vs. imitation dilemma.     

US stock market sensitivity to interest and inflation rates: a quantile regression approach

This article studies the sensitivity of the US stock market to nominal and real interest rates and inflation during the 2003–2013 period using quantile regression (QR). The empirical results show that the stock market has a significant sensitivity to changes in interest rates and inflation and finds differences across sectors and over time. Moreover, the effect of changes in both interest rates and inflation tends to be more pronounced during extreme market conditions, thus distinguishing expansion periods from recession periods.     

Consumer surplus bias and the welfare effects of price discrimination

Journal of Regulatory Economics - This paper examines the incentives for efficient pricing mechanism in markets with non-convexities. The wholesale electricity market is a prominent example....     

Why households buy bottled water: a survey of household perceptions in the Philippines

This study investigates the determinants of household buying decisions to purchase bottled water or purified water from refilling stations among households in Metro Cebu, Philippines. A survey of 360 households was conducted to obtain data on household sources of drinking water, household bottled water buying behaviour and perceptions of water quality. A binary probit model was used to examine the effects of socio‐economic and perception‐based variables on the likelihood that a household regularly bought bottled or purified water. Results show that households that perceived their primary source of water, whether from the tap or from other sources, to be unsafe were more likely to buy bottled or purified water. Education of household heads, the presence of children ages 0–5 years, household size and price were also found to have significant effects. Income, however, was not found to have influenced the decision to buy. Having piped access to the local water district and knowledge of government assurances about water safety were also not found to have a significant impact.     

EXTREME EVENTS AND OPTIMAL MONETARY POLICY

This article studies the implication of extreme shocks for monetary policy. The analysis is based on a small‐scale New Keynesian model with sticky prices and wages where shocks are drawn from asymmetric generalized extreme value distributions. A nonlinear perturbation solution of the model is estimated by the simulated method of moments. Under the Ramsey policy, the central bank responds nonlinearly and asymmetrically to shocks. The trade‐off between targeting a gross inflation rate above 1 as insurance against extreme shocks and targeting an average gross inflation at unity to avoid adjustment costs is unambiguously decided in favor of strict price stability.