Focus on practice service process innovation in the Brazilian electric energy sector

Service outsourcing has become widespread in the electric energy sector in Brazil. In this article, we present a case study of an innovative model for outsourcing management designed by a large electric energy distribution organization in Brazil, which outsources core and support business processes. This article reports how this company faced the challenges imposed after suffering serious operational problems with outsourcing companies and the innovative approach that was taken in order to improve performance and reduce safety risks. Post-implementation results corroborate the positive financial and operational consequences of the innovative model.     

The Bernanke and Blinder Model in an Open Economy: The Italian Case

Abstract. This paper analyzes the functioning of monetary policy transmission mechanisms in Italy from 1984 to 1998, highlighting the role performed by the credit system. We extend the Bernanke and Blinder model (1988) to the case of an open economy under a quasi‐fixed exchange rate regime, deriving analytically the conditions for the functioning of the three monetary policy channels generally identified in the literature (‘money’, ‘exchange rate’ and ‘credit’). These conditions explain the partial effectiveness of monetary policy in achieving price and income targets, while maintaining external equilibrium. By means of a structural VECM analysis, we evaluate the effectiveness of the transmission of monetary policy through the three channels.     

Model-free hedge ratios and scale-invariant models

A price process is scale-invariant if and only if the returns distribution is independent of the price measurement scale. We show that most stochastic processes used for pricing options on financial assets have this property and that many models not previously recognised as scale-invariant are indeed so. We also prove that price hedge ratios for a wide class of contingent claims under a wide class of pricing models are model-free. In particular, previous results on model-free price hedge ratios of vanilla options based on scale-invariant models are extended to any contingent claim with homogeneous pay-off, including complex, path-dependent options. However, model-free hedge ratios only have the minimum variance property in scale-invariant stochastic volatility models when price–volatility correlation is zero. In other stochastic volatility models and in scale-invariant local volatility models, model-free hedge ratios are not minimum variance ratios and our empirical results demonstrate that they are less efficient than minimum variance hedge ratios.     

My Family Memories of Marjorie Grice‐Hutchinson in Malaga,Southern Spain

Abstract . Marjorie Grice‐Hutchinson is well‐known for her contributions to economic science. However, very few people outside Malaga (the city in the south of Spain where she lived most of her life) are aware of the philanthropic activities that she and her father undertook in the years that preceded and followed the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Thanks to the efforts of Marjorie and her father, many survived political murder during the Spanish Civil War, tuberculosis, or starvation. Besides, thanks to the charity school that Marjorie and her father opened, many girls of the area received some education, overcoming the secular analphabetism and misery lasting generations. These lines are meant to honor the memory of a prestigious economist from a different perspective and with the purpose that future generations know the way she helped other human beings (including my own family) in a totally unselfish way.     

The cost-effectiveness of 5-FU-SA in the treatment of actinic keratoses of the face and scalp in the UK secondary care setting

Objective: The objective of this analysis was to estimate the relative cost-effectiveness of Actikerall¹ (5-FU-SA) vs cryotherapy in a secondary care setting in the UK, for lesion-directed treatment in patients with actinic keratoses (AK) of the face and scalp.

Methods: The model was a simple decision tree, with a 6-month time horizon. The perspective was that of the UK National Health Service (NHS). Modeled treatment effects included reported per-patient histological clearance and recurrence rates. Cost inputs comprised professional consultation time and cost of medication. Health-related utility estimation followed previously published methodology. Adverse events were not modeled. The key data and model structural assumptions followed expected UK practice. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess structural and parameter uncertainty.

Results: 5-FU-SA was found to be less costly (?£204) and more effective (+0.001 QALY) in base case and sensitivity analyses. In the probabilistic analysis there was 100% probability of being cost-effective over cryotherapy at £20,000 willingness to pay. Cost of professional time was a key driver of the model outcome. 5-FU-SA remained dominant across a range of scenario analyses, including exploration of assumptions around setting of care.

Limitations: The time horizon of the analysis was short and data were not extrapolated beyond the duration of the clinical trial; however, this approach is consistent with likely follow-up of an AK patient. The clinical outcomes observed in the trial were based on a large proportion of cryotherapy patients undergoing an additional cycle of treatment; this may not occur or be required in an experienced secondary care setting.

Conclusion: 5-FU-SA could be considered as a cost-effective choice for treatment of AK lesions of the face and scalp in secondary and mixed care settings in the UK. Use of 5-FU-SA in patients who would otherwise be managed with cryotherapy has the potential to result in cost savings.     

Inflation targeting credibility and reputation: The consequences for the interest rate

The measurement of credibility and reputation is fundamental for the analysis of countries which adopted inflation targeting. Under this perspective, the objective of this article is to illustrate which measures of credibility and reputation are most useful in predicting variations of interest rates. Given a specific inflation target, this relationship is valuable for central bankers as well as for private agents trying to predict the central bank's policies. Due to the fact that Brazil represents a potential laboratory experiment in which the effects of an adoption of inflation targeting after more than a half decade can be observed, an analysis through several indices and its relation with the basic interest rate is made. The findings denote that the credibility indices based on reputation represent an alternative in the cases where the series of inflation expectation are not available. Furthermore, the empirical evidence confirms the hypothesis that higher credibility implies lower variations in the interest rate for controlling inflation.     

ICT introduction in the city councils. A regional analysis

The peculiarities and heterogeneity of city councils hinder the homogenous implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in all Spanish regions. This study investigates some city council websites and its aim is to enhance the degree of ICT integration, relating it to municipality size. The websites of six Spanish regions have been analyzed and aspects such as accessibility, e-participation, transparency, website design, and use of channels as well as the usefulness to the user have been investigated. In certain aspects, some regional differences and deficiencies have been observed, particularly in small municipalities. Other issues such as participation or use of languages besides the official ones do not seem to be related to size.     

Small and medium size firm’s marketing competitive advantage and environmental initiatives in the Middle East

The paper explores Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia within the context of environmental sustainability. The objective of the study is to examine whether SME’s sustainable marketing competitive advantage through environmental initiatives can positively associate to a firm’s environmental (green) best practices and stakeholder influences; similarly, it also identifies if best practices mediate environmental costs and competitive advantage. A sample of 181 responses are obtained and are analysed using factor analysis, multiple regression and their interaction effects. The findings show that the association between firms that have competitive advantage due to environmental initiatives were found to be significant for best practices and indirect stakeholder influences. Furthermore, the results identified that by using environmental best practices, SMEs can lower their environmental costs to gain marketing competitive advantage. These findings highlight the function of environmentalism and how it can influence practitioners.     

The Economic Significance of the Film Business: An Empirical Analysis of the Italian Market

Most studies indicate Hollywood's economic and financial leadership in the movie markets from the 1910s onward. There is a shortfall in the literature concerning the analysis of the efficacy of other minor film industries. This article examines the Italian film industry in the 1990s and beginning of the twenty‐first century. The research suggests that the Italian film industry is very risky and unpredictable, but while the extreme uncertainty surrounding the business is offset by the considerable economic success that Hollywood movies achieve at the box office, as indicated by previous literature contributions, a different business scenario emerges in Italy. The value of this article is first represented by the data used—provided by the Osservatorio of Cinecittà—which is unique and has not been published before. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Civil economy: definition and strategies for sustainable well-living

The civil economy paradigm presented in this paper has two main characteristics. First, it identifies the philosophical roots of the limits of our socioeconomic system in the reductionist views of human beings, corporations, and well-being. The three reductionist views not only fail to capture an important part of the reality, but also produce poverty of sense of life (also defined as eudaimonic well-being) and of life satisfaction, thereby generating a suboptimal level of well-being. The civil economy paradigm proposes an alternative where it is acknowledged that (1) part of the individuals depart from purely self-regarding preferences and develop other-regarding and relational skills enabling them to overcome social dilemmas, (2) part of the productive system depart from the profit maximization paradigm and aim to satisfy the interests of a wider range of stakeholders beyond shareholders, and (3) well-being is, beyond GDP, the stock of cultural, environmental, spiritual, and economic resources that a community can enjoy. The second qualifying point of the civil economy paradigm is that it proposes a richer four-hand approach to political economy (as an alternative to the traditional two-hand approach) where actions of the traditional invisible hand of the market and the visible hand of institutions in solving failures are complemented and supported by the complementary action of the two additional hands of grassroot citizens’ participation and socially and environmentally responsible companies. In our paper, we explain and document that these two additional hands are already at work, thereby confirming that the reductionist hypothesis on individuals and corporations is rejected by empirical evidence. In the paper, we argue that the civil economy paradigm, by increasing social participation and generativity of all actors, has the power of bridging the gap between the current suboptimal and the socially optimal sense of life (well described in the concept of “common good”). We as well provide evidence showing that the paradigm is far from being unrealistic and that its sprouts are already working in several fields of our society, preparing a more thorough transformation and full replacement of the old paradigm at a theoretical level that is near to come.