Taxation, Reranking and Equivalence Scales

It is conjectured that if the government has a distributional objective and formulates tax policy with a view to equitable treatment of households, then adopting the scale that is implicit in transfer policy should identify only reranking that has no equity foundation. This motivates the question: can the reranking‐minimizing scales be identified as those implicit in the transfer system? The analysis presented in this study suggests that the equivalence scale which minimizes reranking, while not necessarily equal to the tax implicit equivalence scale, is nevertheless in its vicinity.     

Hitting and hoping?: Meeting the exchange rate and inflation criteria during a period of nominal convergence

This paper analyses the effect of the nominal convergence process on the ability of Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) to meet both the inflation and the exchange rate criteria for Eurozone entry. The size of these convergence effects on the exchange rate (for inflation targeters) and for inflation differentials (under a fixed exchange rate) is estimated for a variety of different convergence scenarios. The key result, robust across all scenarios, is that countries with fixed exchange rates will find it much harder to simultaneously meet the criteria than inflation targeters. Probit estimates on the ability of a country to get inflation below the reference value under a fixed exchange rate show a strong effect for the relative price level.     

Contract Law and the Governance of Inter‐Firm Technology Partnerships – An Analysis of Different Modes of Partnering and Their Contractual Implications*

abstract This paper studies some major legal implications of inter‐firm technology partnering through equity joint ventures, non‐equity partnerships, and licensing contracts. These different partnerships are placed within the classical and relational contracting perspectives, while also considering intellectual property rights issues. Samples of contracts of partnerships in bioscience, fine chemicals, biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals are analysed, in detail, with reference to the distribution of property rights, major contractual clauses, and measures for conflict resolution. Equity joint ventures and non‐equity partnerships are found to largely follow a relational contracting perspective, while licensing contracts are governed by a classical contracting perspective.     

Information acquisition, dissemination, and transparency of monetary policy

Abstract.  This paper examines the role of transparency in a benevolent monetary authority's policies. Each firm's payoff depends on unobservable macroeconomic conditions and firms may incur a cost to acquire private information about macroeconomic conditions. The policy authority attempts to infer the underlying macroeconomic conditions from a noisy measure of aggregate actions and makes a public announcement to inform firms of this inference. High-quality announcements provide firms the incentive not to gather private information and base actions solely on information contained in policy announcements. However, this makes the observed actions of firms less informative to the policy authority.     

A comparative analysis of multiattribute attitude models

In the consumer behavior context, multiattribute attitude models used to predict consumer choice in multiple criteria decision making situations have produced mixed results. Prediction of consumer behavior from attitudes, consequently, has been highly debated in recent years with researchers using beliefs-only, full, and extended multiattribute attitude models. The research underlying this paper was designed to compare the predictive superiority of the beliefs-only model, the full multiattribute attitude model, and a new representation identified as the combined multiattribute/determinant attribute attitude model. Data concerning patronage of fast-food chains were collected from a student panel for seven weeks. Predictive superiority was determined by average adjusted R² using the patronage behavior dependent variable. All models were tested in aggregated and disaggregated form.     

Evaluation of medical costs associated with use of new oral anticoagulants compared with standard therapy among venous thromboembolism patients

Objective:

This study evaluated differences in medical costs associated with clinical end-points from randomized clinical trials that compared the new oral anticoagulants (NOACs), dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, and edoxaban, to standard therapy for treatment of patients with venous thromboembolism (VTE).

Research design and methods:

Event rates of efficacy and safety end-points from the clinical trials (RE-COVER, RE-COVER II, EINSTEIN-Pooled, AMPLIFY, Hokusai-VTE trial) were obtained from published literature. Incremental annual medical costs among patients with clinical events from a US payer perspective were obtained from the literature or healthcare claims databases and inflation adjusted to 2013 costs. Differences in total medical costs associated with clinical end-points for the NOACs vs standard therapy were then estimated. One-way and Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses were carried out.

Results:

A lower rate of major bleedings was associated with use of any of the NOACs vs standard therapy. Except for dabigatran, use of NOACs was also associated with a lower rate of recurrent VTE/death. As a result of the reduction in clinical event rates, the overall medical cost differences were ?$146, ?$482, ?$918, and ?$344 for VTE patients treated with dabigatran, rivaroxaban, apixaban, and edoxaban, respectively, vs patients treated with standard therapy.

Conclusions:

When any of the four NOACs are used instead of standard therapy for acute VTE, treatment medical costs are reduced. Apixaban is associated with the greatest reduction in medical costs, which is driven by medical cost reductions associated with both efficacy and safety end-points. Further evaluation may be needed to validate these results in the real-world setting.     

Water as an investment: liquid yet illiquid!

The water industry is in great need of further large investments to address existing severe water shortages worldwide which requires the participation of private sector investors. This industry is heavily infrastructure based and is therefore saddled with fixed assets-in-place or illiquid assets. This exposes the industry to what is termed as ‘illiquidity risk’, and hence, investors in this industry should be compensated for bearing this risk with an appropriate return premium (i.e. extra return). In this study, we provide evidence as to whether illiquidity risk indeed significantly affects returns in this industry. We examine the case of all 76 firms that compose the five major global water indices. After controlling for other factors that impact on returns, our results suggest that asset illiquidity is positively associated with stock returns. Specifically, water firms with a larger proportion of illiquid assets-in-place are observed to have greater stock returns than those with a smaller proportion of illiquid assets. Our results have important implications for the financing of water-related projects particularly those which involve the participation of investors from the private sector.     

Competition and physician-enabled demand: The role of managed care

Recent organizational changes in the health care sector promote greater patient participation in their treatment decisions. How physicians respond to patient-initiated requests for treatment is an issue of considerable policy interest. To study this phenomenon, we introduce the notion of physician-enabled demand and examine empirically whether this behavior responds to competitive pressures in the market and financial incentives associated with different physician payment mechanisms.We find that physician-enabled demand increases with more competition under fee-for-service reimbursement, but decreases with greater competition under managed care. This asymmetric response is quite consistent with our conceptual framework and at odds with alternative interpretations.