Robust determinants of health care expenditure growth

Our aim is to disclose robust explanatory variables for health care expenditure (HCE) growth by introducing to this field of research a method that is especially well suited for situations of ‘model uncertainty’: the Extreme Bounds Analysis (EBA). We analyse data for 33 OECD countries over the period 1970–2010 and include – as far as it is statistically feasible – all macroeconomic and institutional determinants of HCE growth in the EBA that have been suggested in the literature. Furthermore, we analyse to what extent outliers in the data influence the results. Our results confirm earlier findings that GDP growth and a variable representing Baumol’s ‘cost disease’ theory emerge as robust and statistically significant determinants of HCE growth. Depending on whether or not outliers are excluded, we find up to six additional robust drivers: the growth in expenditure on health administration, the change in the share of inpatient expenditure in total health expenditure, the (lagged) government share in GDP, the change in the insurance coverage ratio, the growth in land traffic fatalities and the growth in the population share undergoing renal dialysis.     

Evolving networks of inventors

In this paper we develop a model of R&D alliance formation. Pairs of firms combine their knowledge in an attempt to innovate. Whether this attempt is successful depends in part on whether the pair has been successful in the past: accumulated experience teaches a pair of firms how to innovate together, but at the same time increases the similarity of their knowledge stocks. A tension exists between the desire for a familiar partner, and desire for a partner with complementary knowledge. How this tension is resolved depends on the nature of the innovation process itself, and the elasticity of substitution of different types of knowledge inputs in knowledge production. From the alliance-innovation process, a variety of networks form. In different parts of the parameter space we observe isolated agents, a dense, connected network, and small worlds.     

Tourenplanung mittelst?ndischer Speditionsunternehmen in Stückgutkooperationen: Modellierung und heuristische L?sungsverfahren

Zusammenfassung Mittelst?ndische Speditionsunternehmen arbeiten infolge zunehmender Globalisierung sowie gestiegener Kundenerwartungen verst?rkt in Stückgutkooperationen zusammen. Für die Kooperationspartner ergeben sich dadurch eine Vielzahl neuer Anforderungen bei der Erstellung eines Tourenplans. Neben der Berücksichtigung heterogener Fahrzeuge und Kundenzeitfenster sowie simultaner Auslieferung und Einsammlung sind z. B. ein mehrfacher Fahrzeugeinsatz vorzusehen und Belegungszeiten der Verladerampen im Depot zu berücksichtigen. Das resultierende Tourenplanungsproblem kann als gemischt-ganzzahliges lineares Programm formuliert und für kleine Probleminstanzen mit dem Solver ILOG CPLEX gel?st werden. Zur L?sung komplexer Instanzen werden in der Praxis h?ufig Entscheidungsunterstützungssysteme eingesetzt. Verfahren, die in einem solchen System zum Einsatz kommen, müssen in der Lage sein, in kurzer Zeit gute L?sungen zu generieren. Wir stellen dazu ein Sampling Verfahren, ein Lokales Suchverfahren und einen Genetischen Algorithmus vor, die in einer Performance-Analyse miteinander verglichen werden.

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Heuristic Algorithms for Vehicle Routing Problems of Less-Than-Truckload Carriers

Summary As a consequence of globalisation and increasing customer expectations, medium-sized less-than-truckload carriers operate together in cooperations. Each cooperative member faces a multitude of requirements when constructing a low-cost, feasible set of routes. Taking up this problem, we take into consideration among other aspects heterogeneous vehicles, time windows, simultaneous pick-up and delivery at customer locations, as well as the multiple use of vehicles and assignment of vehicles to loading bays at the depot. The resulting vehicle routing problem can be formulated as a mixed-integer linear program, and we use ILOG CPLEX to solve small instances. In order to solve practical problem instances, there is a need for decision support systems. Algorithms which are to be implemented in such a system must be able to quickly generate good solutions. For this reason, we present a sampling procedure, a local search and a genetic algorithm, which we compare in a performance-analysis.

     

Consumer cheating on service guarantees

Fear of opportunistic customers is an important reason why firms are reluctant to implement service guarantees. This article empirically tests potential drivers of cheating. Potential material gain and repeat purchase intent were tested across three studies, whereas satisfaction, ease of invoking the guarantee, morality, shame, self-monitoring, and Machiavellianism were each tested in a subset of the three studies. The results for potential material gain and repeat purchase intent were consistent across all three studies: potential material gain had no effect on consumer cheating, but repeat purchase intent reduced that tendency. Other findings suggest that high levels of satisfaction, morality, and self-monitoring reduce cheating, whereas high levels of Machiavellianism increase cheating. Furthermore, two three-way interaction effects were encountered. Specifically, Machiavellianism interacted with gain and ease of invocation, and with gain and repeat purchase intent. In both cases, individuals with high Machiavellianism took advantage of certain situational constellations. Jochen Wirtz (bizwirtz@nus.edu.sg) (Ph.D., London Business School) is an associate professor of marketing and academic director of the Asia-Pacific Executive MBA (APEX-MBA) Program, and academics co-director of the UCLA-NUS Executive MBA Program at the NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. His research focuses on service managementrelated issues including service guarantees, customer satisfaction, customer feedback systems, and revenue management. His recent work has been published in theCornell HRA Quarterly, theJournal of Business Research, theInternational Journal of Service Industry Management, theJournal of Consumer Psychology, theJournal of Retailing, theJournal of Services Marketing, andPsychology and Marketing. He is also a coauthor of the fifth edition ofServices Marketing (with Christopher Lovelock, Prentice Hall) andServices Marketing in Asia—Managing People, Technology and Strategy (with Christopher Lovelock and Hean Tat Keh, Prentice Hall). In recognition of his excel-lence in instruction, he has received several teaching awards, including the university-level Outstanding Educator Award 2003, the business school-level Outstanding Educator Award 2002, and the Award for Excellence in Instruction from the MBA Alumni. Outside academia, he has been an active management consultant working with a number of consulting firms in Asia and Europe, including Accenture, Arthur D.Little, and KPMG. Doreen Kum (doreenk@nus.edu.sg) is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Marketing, NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on consumer behavior issues such as categorization and branding strategies, as well as service guarantees. Her research has been published in theGeneral Management Review andJournal of Services Marketing.     

Uncertainty, Conventional Behavior, and Economic Sociology

A bstract    This paper addresses the problem of the conceptualization of social structure and its relationship to human agency in economic sociology. The background is provided by John Maynard Keynes's writings on uncertainty and conventional behavior on the stock market, and the analysis consists of a comparison of the social ontologies of the French Intersubjectivist School and the Economics as Social Theory Project in the light of these observations. The theoretical argument is illustrated with concrete examples from a prominent study of the stock market boom of the 1990s.     

European Labour Mobility: Challenges and Potentials

European Union economies are pressed by (i) a demographic change that induces population ageing and a decline of the workforce, and (ii) a split labour market that is characterized by high levels of unemployment for low-skilled people and a simultaneous shortage of skilled workers. This lack of flexible high-skilled workers and the aging process has created the image of an immobile labour force and the eurosklerosis phenomenon. In such a situation, an economically motivated immigration policy at the European level can generate welfare improvements. A selective policy that discourages unskilled migrants and attracts skilled foreign workers will vitalize the labour market, foster growth and increase demand for unskilled native workers. The paper summarizes the available economic insights, and suggests (i) the need to harmonize the single-country migration policies across Europe and (ii) that the European Union needs to become an active player on the international labour markets by providing competitive institutional settings for European companies. The author is President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), Director of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Professor of Economics at the University of Bonn, and Honorary Professor at the Free University of Berlin. Revised version of a paper presented at the high-level expert conference ‘Jobs for Europe’ on the Social Policy Agenda for the European Union on October 25–26, 2004 in Amsterdam. The author thanks Aart Jan Bette, Henk Don, Renske Gerstel, Klara Scheepers, Jan van der Velden and other members of the editorial committee of this conference as well as conference participants, two anonymous referees of this journal, and Amelie Constant, Don DeVoretz, Holger Hinte and Stephanie Wei Wang for many useful comments on earlier drafts.