An evaluation of the assessment of quality of life utility instrument as a measure of the impact of injury on health-related quality of life

The Assessment of Quality of Life (AQoL) is a generic health-related quality of life (HRQL) measure. It is the only HRQL instrument, currently available, that incorporates health preference values derived from an Australian population and has been extensively trialled in over 40 studies. However, prior to this study, it had not been used to measure HRQL in injury patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the AQoL, as a measure of the impact of injury on HRQL, by examining its correlation with other commonly used measures of health outcome and its ability to discriminate between groups with injuries of varying type and severity. A total of 221 admitted injury patients, aged 18-74 years, were recruited into the study from four major Victorian metropolitan hospitals and followed up over 12 months. The AQoL and the SF-36 were administered to obtain retrospective measures of pre-injury HRQL and health status with post-injury measurements obtained at five intervals post-injury (to 12 months). A preliminary analysis of data from this study showed the AQoL was positively related to other common outcome measures and, overall, showed a strong correlation with the SF-36 Physical Component Summary and a moderate correlation with the Mental Component Summary. It also demonstrated good discrimination between groups on the basis of type of injury, body region injured and severity of injury. While further testing of the AQoL, in this context, is still necessary, this study suggests that the AQoL may be a useful measure of the impact of injury on HRQL.     

Corporate social responsibility and tourism: Hotel companies in Phuket,Thailand, after the Indian Ocean tsunami

This paper deals with the subject of corporate social responsibility (CSR) with particular reference to the hotel sector and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which was to prove a test of management approaches. It discusses the rising interest in CSR issues, linked to the sustainable development movement, and its particular relevance for the tourism industry. Reactions to the disaster of hotel companies with a presence in the resort of Phuket in Thailand are reviewed and responses reveal a certain level of commitment to CSR in theory and practice. However, there is also evidence of tensions between commercial and more philanthropic activity which must be addressed and reconciled by managers.     

Changes in Poverty Rates during the Howard Era

This article considers changes in poverty rates under the Howard government. We also make three methodological contributions. We consider the statistical significance of the estimated changes in poverty. We propose a decomposition technique that reconciles the trends in absolute and relative poverty. We also use 'poverty profiles', which illustrate sensitivity to alternative poverty lines. We find decreases in absolute poverty and increases in relative poverty, both of which are statistically significant over a range of poverty lines. At a poverty line equal to half of the median income, the increase in relative poverty is statistically significant for all people and borders on significance for children.     

Combining Contingent Valuation and Choice Experiments. A Forestry Application in Spain

When many good variants are to be valued, like in several forest management programs which differ in the attribute levels, the Contingent Valuation Method may not be a practical option, given the cost and time involved to value each variant separately. There are at least three alternative procedures in such situations. One (i) is to apply an attribute based valuation method like a Choice Experiment (CE); another (ii) is to conduct a CVM and a CE exercise and estimate a joint model; a third one (iii) is to use the CVM estimates to value a base scenario, and then use the CE results to adjust the CVM estimates for any new different scenario. A numerical simulation and an empirical application to an afforestation program in Spain show that the latter is the procedure that yields closer values to the CVM estimations, followed by (ii).      

Family Leisure Functioning: A Cross-National Study

The purpose of this study was to, first, determine whether positive relationships between family leisure (involvement and satisfaction) and family outcomes (cohesion, adaptability, family functioning, and satisfaction with family life) were present in a multinational sample, and second, determine whether the core and balance model could provide a consistent framework for between country comparisons of relationships between family leisure and family outcome variables cross nationally. Families were recruited from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Data were analyzed using blocked multiple regression models, and generalized linear models to compare relationships across countries. Overall, findings indicated positive relationships between family leisure and family outcomes were consistent across all five countries. Some differences in relationship strength, not directionality, occurred primarily in family leisure involvement rather than family leisure satisfaction.     

Overhead labour and bounded substitutability

Summary In this paper we argue that due to the presence of quasi-fixed overhead labour, the aggregate short-run production function of the industry has the property of bounded substitutability. That is, when employing overhead labour, the industry will only be able to earn a positive quasi-rent for a bounded interval of aggregate labour intensity. This paper was written during a stay at the State University of New York at Buffalo, with financial support of the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research (ZWO). I am grateful to Professor K. Sato for his stimulating comments.     

Lessons from the Financial Crisis on Risk and Capital Management: The Case of Insurance Companies

This article proposes that risk management be viewed as an integral part of the corporate value‐creation process— one in which the concept of economic capital can provide companies with the financial cushion and confidence to carry out their strategic plans. Using the case of insurance and reinsurance companies, the authors discuss three main ways that the integration of risk and capital management creates value:

• 1 strengthening solvency (by limiting the probability of financial distress);
• 2 increasing prospects for profitable growth (by preserving access to capital during post‐loss periods); and
• 3 improving transparency (by increasing the “information content” or “signaling power” of reported earnings).

Insurers can manage solvency risk by using Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) models to limit the probability of financial distress to levels consistent with the firm's specified risk tolerance. While ERM models are effective in managing “known” risks, we discuss three practices widely used in the insurance industry to manage “unknown” and “unknowable” risks using the logic of real options—slack, mutualization, and incomplete contracts. Second, risk management can create value by securing sources of capital that, like contingent capital, can be used to fund profitable growth opportunities that tend to arise in periods following large losses. Finally, the authors argue that risk management can raise the confidence of investors in their estimates of future growth by removing the “noise” in earnings that comes from bearing non‐core risks, thereby making current earnings a more reliable guide to future earnings. In support of this possibility, the authors provide evidence showing that, for a given level of reported return on equity (ROE), (re)insurers with more stable ROEs have higher price‐to‐book ratios, suggesting investors' willingness to pay a premium for the stability provided by risk management.     

Firm and environmental influences on the mode and sequence of foreign research and development activities

This paper develops an explanation for the mode and sequence of entry that firms select for their international research and development activities. The hypotheses are based on the internalization and evolutionary theory perspectives. I first hypothesize that there is a sequence to the mode of foreign research and development activities initiated. I then discuss two firm capabilities and alternatives which might cause firms to omit parts of the sequence. The context of the study is the foreign research and development activities of incumbents and recent entrants to the Japanese pharmaceutical industry. The results indicate intriguing differences between the motivations of established firms and new entrants in establishing foreign research and development activities. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The emergence of zoning policy games in exurban jurisdictions: Informing collective action theory

Theoretical urban policy literature predicts the likelihood of free riding in the management of common goods such as forested open space; such outcome is often characterized as a Prisoner's Dilemma game. Numerous cases exist in which neighboring jurisdictions cooperate to maintain public goods, challenging the expected results, yet theoretical explanations of these cases have not been fully developed. In this paper, we use an agent-based model to explore how underlying micro-behaviors affect the payoffs obtained by two neighboring municipalities in a hypothetical exurban area. Payoffs are measured in terms of regional forested space and of local tax revenue at the end of the agent-based simulations; the municipalities affect these payoffs through their choice of residential zoning policies and the spillover effect between the neighboring jurisdictions. Zoning restrictions influence the conversion of farmland into residential subdivisions of different types, and consequently the location of heterogeneous residential households in the region. Developers and residents respond to the changing landscape characteristics, thus establishing a feedback between early and future land-use patterns. The structure of the simulated payoffs is analyzed using standard game theory. Our analysis shows that a variety of games, in addition to Prisoner's Dilemma, can emerge between the neighboring jurisdictions. Other games encourage coordination or subsidization, offering some explanations for the unexpected observations. The game realized in any given context depends on the initial characteristics of the landscape, the value given to the objectives each township seeks to maximize, and the income distribution of the population.