The effects of health aid on child health promotion in developing countries: cross-country evidence

Although epidemiological knowledge in relation to child health has improved in the last few decades, around 3 million children die each year in developing countries from preventable diseases. The international development community views increased immunization coverage for children as an important step in eliminating or reducing these deaths. Many developing countries have very limited resources to tackle major health problems and have to rely on external finance. This article examines the impact of foreign aid devoted to the health sector on child health promotion in developing countries. Two proxies for child health promotion are used: (a) immunization against measles and (b) immunization against Diphtheria–Pertussis–Tetanus (DPT). A range of model specifications and panel data econometric techniques are applied to data covering the period 1990 to 2005. This article finds a positive and statistically significant link between health aid and the measures of child health promotion.     

Reassessing retiree benefits: the new challenge

For most employers, uncertainty about the future shape of the U.S. health care system, rising health care costs and FAS 106 accounting rules mean it is important to manage retiree medical costs. Survey data shows many employers are taking steps to manage their future retiree health care costs. These steps include reducing benefit levels, introducing service-related contributions and introducing managed care elements to retiree medical plans.     

Earnings quality: Some evidence on the role of auditor tenure and auditors’ industry expertise

Prior studies suggest that auditors with short tenure are associated with lower earnings quality because of the lack of client-specific knowledge and/or low balling. In this study, we examine whether industry specialization of auditors and low balling affect the association between auditor tenure and earnings quality. We find that the association between shorter auditor tenure and lower earnings quality is weaker for firms audited by industry specialists compared to non-specialists. In addition, we do not find results consistent with the low balling explanation.     

Utility Regulation and Risk Allocation: The Roles of Marginal Cost Pricing and Futures Markets

The effects on consumer welfare of requiring a utility facing cost or demand risk to use either a fixed retail price or marginal cost pricing are assessed. With marginal cost pricing and cost volatility an efficient futures market allows consumer welfare to be at least as high in every state as with the fixed price. With demand risk marginal cost pricing can benefit the consumer in every state without harming the firm if the profit difference is transferred to the consumer. A futures market can act as a partial replacement for the transfer.     

Faddists,Enthusiasts and Canadian Divas: Broadcasting Quotas and the Supply Response

This paper constructs a model of the recorded music market to investigate the consequences of local content requirements in broadcasting for the “internationalization” of domestic music. It models the entry decisions of bands, the contracting decisions of record companies, the airplay decisions of radio stations and the radio listening and recording purchasing decisions of consumers. The paper shows that a local content quota leads, perversely, to the increased internationalization of domestic music. A quota that also requires increased broadcasting of “new” music yields an additional welfare loss but does nothing to a record company's incentives to sign up new bands.     

Price-Wage Dynamics and Inflation in Socialist Economies: Empirical Models for Hungary and Poland

This article analyzes the determinants of open inflation intransitional socialist economies, with reference to recent experiencein Hungary and Poland. A simple inflation model is centeredon the transmission process and on the short-run dynamics ofinflation. Further incorporating a number of features specificto socialist economies and working with quarterly data, dynamicprice and wage equations are estimated. The estimated equationsallow satisfactory exploration of the role and weight of foreignprices and domestic factors in propagating inflation. Foreignprices matter, but developments on the cost side are criticalin relating exogenous, policy-driven adjustments to the pricelevel to increases in the rate of inflation. The absence ofconventional market-based, equilibrating mechanisms requiresthat nominal anchors, particularly wage restraints, featureprominently in any stabilization program adopted by reformingsocialist economies.     

The regional character of Asian multinational enterprises

In recent issues of this Journal a debate has raged concerning the appropriate nature of academic research in the Asia Pacific region. While we support the desire for both rigor and regional relevance in this research, we wish to demonstrate a strong commonality between the performance of large Asian firms and others from Europe and North America. This prompts us to question the need for a new theory of the MNE based on the experience of Asian firms. Like their counterparts elsewhere, the large Asian firms mostly operate on an intra-regional basis. While in the literature it has been assumed that the path to success for Asian firms is globalization, we show that the data supporting this is confined to a handful of unrepresentative case studies. We also present a bibliometric analysis which shows an overwhelming case study sample selection bias in academic studies towards this small number of unrepresentative cases.