Entwicklung des Nebeneinanders von Privat- und Sozialversicherung in den Niederlanden

In the Netherlands, a “dual system” with a public and private sector has been established for health insurance. The advantage of this system is that the positive aspects of a good social policy with room for the employer are combined in order to avoid the buroc-racy and rigidity of a purely public system. In spite of the good experiences with this system over the last years, the Public Health Service is changing and innovations must be given a chance. This explains the willingness of the Netherlands to exchange practical experience with other countries and to discuss with other EU members the possibility of a combined orientated development of the Public Health Service system within the EU.     

Developing a typology of organisational forms of cooperative purchasing

This paper develops a typology for purchasing groups. In the typology, five main forms of cooperative purchasing are distinguished based on seven main dimensions. The forms are positioned in a matrix according to two distinguishing dimensions. These two dimensions are the ‘influence by all members on the group activities’ and the ‘number of different group activities’. Underlying the two-dimensional matrix, there are five other dimensions that do not distinguish all forms from each other, but further detail the forms of cooperative purchasing. The typology can serve as a guideline for purchasing groups when a suitable organisational form needs to be chosen. In a suitable form, the dimensions of a group fit together. For all groups, it is recommended to find this best fit. This is something in which the typology may help. The paper concludes by emphasising the importance of clearly defining and positioning studied forms, because different forms imply different research models and have different advantages, disadvantages, and critical success factors.     

The Effect of Reimbursement on the Intensity of Hospital Services

We examine how hospital treatment intensity is affected by an exogenous change in average reimbursement for an admission. Theory predicts that treatment intensity would be most affected for highly profitable services but unaffected for unprofitable services. We use Medicare inpatient data from 11 states for 16 disease categories that vary in the generosity of reimbursement to test this prediction. Using the coefficients from quantile regressions, we calculate a difference-in-difference estimate of the effect of the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1998, comparing the pre- and post-BBA change in treatment intensity at high Medicare share hospitals to low Medicare share hospitals. We find that not-for-profit hospitals cut treatment intensity at the 50th, 75th, and 95th quantiles only for generously reimbursed services. Intensity at the 25th percentile was unaffected, regardless of generosity. We did not measure a statistically significant response at for-profit or public hospitals to the BBA.     

PRODUCTIVITY AND FIRM DYNAMICS: CREATIVE DESTRUCTION IN INDONESIAN MANUFACTURING, 1994–2000

This paper examines the entry and exit, and the labour productivity, of Indonesian manufacturing firms with 20 workers or more, using a firm-level panel dataset constructed for the years 1994–2000. Overall change in manufacturing labour productivity reached 27.2%—an average growth of 3.5% per annum—between 1994 and 2000, a period that includes the 1997–98 Asian financial crisis, which hit Indonesia hard. Vibrant firm dynamics characterised this period, in which about 10% of manufacturing enterprises were renewed in any one year. By 2000, one-third of all enterprises in existence in 1994 had closed, but the number of enterprises that closed was lower than the number that entered and survived up to the year 2000. The replacement of exiting firms with newly entering firms contributed significantly to increases in overall labour productivity. Regulatory reform in support of this process should lead to gains in productive employment for Indonesian workers.     

It is Time for National Action to Reach the Lisbon Goals

Summary During the second half of 2004, the Netherlands held the Presidency of the European Union. One of the conferences during the Presidency was titled ‘More people at work: Policies to activate Europe’s labour potential’. It was organised on October 25 and 26, 2004 at the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. The conference focused on four particular areas: the reconciliation of work and family life, activating social security systems, mobility and training. As a starting point for the discussions during the conference, academics who are experts in the specific policy areas were asked to write a paper. In this special edition of ‘De economist’ you will find a presentation of three of their papers. In my contribution I will explain why I have put the focus of this conference on increasing labour supply and more in particular why these four themes have been chosen as relevant for Member States and the Union. As time has not stopped after the Netherlands’ Presidency I will also take this opportunity to show that the conclusions of the conference have become an integrated part of the revitalised Lisbon strategy.     

THE EFFECT OF TRADED OPTION INTRODUCTION ON SHAREHOLDER WEALTH

Several authors suggest that the opening of a market in traded options constitutes a “feasibility-expanding” change. In this paper evidence on changes in the price of underlying stocks at the time of option listing is examined to determine whether option listing constitutes such a change. Evidence supports the hypothesis that call option listing is feasibility expanding, that put option listing is not feasibility expanding, and that call listings closer to the initiation of organized option trading have a larger impact relative to later listings.     

Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Global convergence of adaptive learning in models of pure exchange

Summary. This paper develops an adaptive learning scheme for a standard version of the OLG model with pure exchange. Perfect forecasting rules which generate perfect foresight orbits are approximated by cubic spline functions. These approximations are successively constructed using historical data only. Trajectories generated by this scheme converge to perfect foresight orbits globally for all initial conditions. This result holds for all parameterizations guaranteeing the existence of a monetary steady state and hence is independent of consumers' savings behavior. It generalizes to all one-dimensional models of the Cobweb type. Received: October 5, 2000; revised version: February 15, 2001     

Some Equity and Efficiency Considerations of International Tax Competition

The paper uses a dynamic 2-country equilibrium model with imperfections in the labour market calibrated for the US and EU economy to investigate dynamic efficiency and equity aspects of international tax competition. We focus on tax policy where governments can only decide on the levels of corporate and labour taxes, given a constant share of government consumption and transfers in GDP and a constant VAT rate. We find that the welfare effect of a tax shift from capital to labour depends heavily on the distortionary nature of labour taxes. In contrast to existing results we find substantial positive international spillover effects of corporate tax reduction in one country, with long term gains outweighing short term losses. Results are very different, however, if one goes beyond the representative agent framework. According to our results, a tax switch is most likely not Pareto improving since net wages tend to decline in both regions even in the long run.