If You Build It Nearby and Keep the Price Low,Will They Come? Large-Scale Evidence on the Relative Roles of Access and Quality in Use of Healthcare in Low-and Middle-Income Countries

Health policy reform often emphasises improving access to healthcare. Recent studies highlight the role healthcare quality plays in determining which health providers individuals use and health outcomes. Yet, there is little standardised large-scale evidence on the importance of quality of care relative to access in determining healthcare use. This paper examines the relative roles of access and quality in whether individuals seek healthcare and how these vary with socioeconomic status in a sample of over 250,000 national household survey respondents from low- and middle-income countries. My results suggest that quality is as large a barrier as access. Among quality barriers, drug availability is as large a barrier as provider availability. Analyses of the barriers-socioeconomic status gradients indicate that the quality-SES gradient is much less steep than the access-SES gradient, highlighting that increasing incomes may not be sufficient to address quality barriers and that supply-side interventions may be necessary.     

‘In the best position to reap mutually beneficial results’: Sole-agency agreements and the distribution of consumer durables in inter-war Britain

This article uses a case-study approach to explore the use of exclusive sole-agency agreements in the distribution and retailing of specialty branded consumer durables in inter-war Britain, a neglected topic in the business history literature. Utilising an extensive correspondence between piano manufacturer Broadwood and Sons, and Liverpool-based musical instrument retailer Rushworth and Dreaper (with comparisons made with two smaller sets of manufacturer–retailer correspondence) we argue that the stability of a sole-agency agreement encouraged the emergence of a highly reciprocal and collaborative relationship that led to innovations in marketing, selling, branding and product development. We urge a reconsideration of the value and effect of sole-agency agreements.     

From immersion to intention? Exploring advances in prosocial storytelling

Little empirical work has explored the psychological processes triggered by immersive technologies and how they might lead to more effective desirable prosocial outcomes. Thus, the current study explores two different modalities for presenting 360 videos—YouTube and head-mounted display (HMD)—as strategies for engaging audiences with cause-related stories. Across three stories, using these technologies led to the highest levels of presence, but there was no association between presence and increased attitudes towards the story content. Only narrative engagement impacted prosocial attitudes towards the video content. Data suggest that regardless of the technology used, telling engaging narratives that increase the viewer's self-efficacy is key to behavioral intentions—immersive technologies help viewers feel closer to the physical location of the narrative, but not the narrative itself.     

Bilateral Tax Treaties and GDP Comovement

Using a 30‐year panel of quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) fluctuations from of a broad set of countries, we demonstrate that the signing of a bilateral tax treaty increases the comovement of treaty partners' business cycles by half a standard deviation. This effect of fiscal policy is as large as the effect of trade linkages on comovement and stronger than the effects of several other common financial and investment linkages. We also show that bilateral tax treaties increase comovement in shocks to nations' GDP trends, demonstrating the permanent effects of coordination on fiscal policy rules. We estimate trend and business cycle components of nations' output series using an unobserved‐components model in order to measure comovement between countries and then estimate the impact of tax treaties using generalized estimating equations.     

Using a distance measure to operationalise patent originality

We introduce a distance measure to operationalise Trajtenberg, Henderson, and Jaffe’s [1997. “University Versus Corporate Patents: A Window on the Basicness of Invention.” Economics of Innovation and New Technology 5: 19–50] originality construct (an ex-ante indicator of firms’ technological capabilities). Our measure captures (1) technological diversity, (2) technology distance from patent antecedents, and (3) degree of novelty per each patented innovation. The V-score measure uses the Derwent World Patent Index system to classify technologies hierarchically – making similarities and differences pronounced. Power is gained by using all of the technology-classification codes describing a focal patent’s claims when calculating whether its technology space was incrementally different or radical from those of its antecedent patents (and identifying whether its technology-class code combinations were commonplace at the time when the patent application was made). Our V-score’s prediction of firms’ performance is contrasted with Hall, Jaffe, and Trajtenberg’s [2001. Hall, B. H., A. B. Jaffe, and M. Trajtenberg. 2001. The NBER Patent Citations Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools. NBER Working Paper No. 8498] Herfindahl measure of the same originality construct. Results indicate that the distance measure of technological content produces differently signed results when evaluating patents’ performance effects or predicting a firm’s trajectory.     

Does a “Blue Revolution” help the poor? Evidence from Bangladesh

The rapid growth in aquaculture production, globally and in Bangladesh is well documented. Over 2000–2010, per capita production of aquaculture grew 76%, while the consumer price of fish declined 45%. Previous studies have suggested pro‐poor effects of aquaculture based on fish production and consumption patterns. This study attempts to quantify the contribution of aquaculture to income growth and poverty reduction in Bangladesh, using household survey data and a microsimulation approach based on an expanded version of Deaton's concept of net benefit ratio. We estimate that aquaculture's contribution to income growth between 2000 and 2010 was 2.1%, including both price and quantity effects. This income growth was translated into poverty reduction of 1.7 percentage points. Although these estimates seem small, they represent almost 10% of the overall poverty reduction in Bangladesh during the first decade of the 21st century. Put differently, of the 18 million Bengalis who escaped poverty during 2000–2010, about 1.8 million of them managed to do so because of the rapid growth in aquaculture, which contributed to rural income while making fish more accessible to consumers.     

The impact of the use of new technologies on farmers’ wheat yield in Ethiopia: evidence from a randomized control trial

In 2013, Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation Agency introduced the Wheat Initiative to increase smallholder productivity. In this article, we measure the impacts of the Wheat Initiative package of technologies, and its marketing assistance component alone, on yields among a promotional group of farmers. The package includes improved techniques, improved inputs, and a guaranteed market for the crop. Relying on crop‐cut measures and farmers’ own assessments, we find that full package led to an average 14% higher yields. Implementation of the Wheat Initiative was successful in making certified seed and fertilizer accessible to farmers and increasing their uptake, though only 61% of the intervention group adopted row planting and few farmers received marketing assistance. The measured yield difference may underestimate the true yield difference associated with the technology because of incomplete adoption of the recommended practices by intervention farmers and adoption of some practices by control farmers.     

Agriculture,trade openness and emissions: an empirical analysis and policy options

This article investigates the impact of sectoral production allocation, energy usage patterns and trade openness on pollutant emissions in a panel consisting of high‐, medium‐ and low‐income countries. Extended STIRPAT (Stochastic Impact by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology) and EKC (Environmental Kuznets Curve) models are conducted to systematically identify these factors driving CO2 emissions in these countries during the period 1980–2010. To this end, the study employs three different heterogeneous, dynamic mean group‐type linear panel models and one nonlinear panel data estimation procedure that allows for cross‐sectional dependence. While affluence, nonrenewable energy consumption and energy intensity variables are found to drive pollutant emissions in linear models, population is also found to be a significant driver in the nonlinear model. Both service sector and agricultural value‐added levels play a significant role in reducing pollution levels, whereas industrialisation increases pollution levels. Although the linear model fails to track any significant impact of trade openness, the nonlinear model finds trade liberalisation to significantly affect emission reduction levels. All of these results suggest that economic development, and especially industrialisation strategies and environmental policies, need to be coordinated to play a greater role in emission reduction due to trade liberalisation.     

Stock index futures hedging in the emerging Malaysian market

The paper investigates hedging effectiveness of dynamic and constant models in the emerging market of Malaysia where trading information is not readily available and market liquidity is lower compared to the developed equity markets. Using daily data from December 1995 to April 2001 and bivariate GARCH(1,1) and TGARCH models, the paper uses differing variance–covariance structures to obtain hedging ratios. Performance of models is compared in terms of variance reduction and expected utility levels for the full sample period as well as the three sub-periods which encompass the Asian financial crisis and introduction of new capital control measures in Malaysia. Findings show that rankings of the hedging models change for the in-sample period depending on evaluation criteria used. TGARCH based models provide better hedging performance but only in the period of higher information asymmetry following the imposition of capital controls in Malaysia. Overall, despite the structural breaks caused by the Asian financial crisis and new capital control regulations, out of sample hedging performance of dynamic GARCH models in the Malaysian emerging market is as good as the one reported for the highly developed markets in the previous literature. The findings suggest that changes in the composition of market agents caused by large scale retreat of foreign investors following the imposition of capital control regulations do not seem to have any material impact on the volatility characteristics of the Malaysian emerging market.