The importance of social capital: Comparing the impacts of the 2004 Asian Tsunami on Sri Lanka, and Hurricane Katrina 2005 on New Orleans

This paper compares the experiences of the 2004 Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, to highlight the importance of social capital in strengthening resilience against extreme events. Key issues and implications for policy and research are discussed.     

Outsourcing of front-end business processes: Quality,information, and customer contact

We examine the recent supply chain phenomenon of outsourcing front-end business processes in this paper. Few, if any, of the existing theories provide satisfactory explanation for the rapid growth in this area. We use a model proposed by Sridhar and Balachandran [Sridhar, S.S., Balachandran, B.V. 1997. Incomplete information, task assignment, and managerial control systems. Manage. Sci. 43(6), 764–778] to determine the factors that might contribute to this phenomenon. Our analysis reveals that the ability of the vendor to forecast the task environment without bias and to gain sophistication in interpreting contract terms might make the firm indifferent between outsourcing and retaining front-end processes in-house. We validate our findings against the work of Apte and Mason [Apte, U.M., Mason, R.O., 1995. Global disaggregation of information-intensive services. Manage. Sci. 41(7), 1250–1262], who develop a theoretical framework to identify criteria for companies to select services to be outsourced. They base their decisions predominantly on the nature of “customer contact.” The combined theories are shown to provide a rich framework for identifying customer-facing tasks that can be outsourced.     

Is Exchange Rate Volatility Symmetric to Oil Price Volatility? An Investigation for India

Journal of Quantitative Economics - The studies involving finding a relation between oil prices and the exchange rate have often looked the relationship when the oil price was rising. Will the...     

Trade,educational costs,and skill acquisition

A model of heterogeneous agents is built to study the effects of trade and educational costs in shaping individual educational outcomes and their aggregate distribution. In a two‐country model, trade has nonmonotonic impacts on individual education choices and causes education and job polarization for both countries. We use this model to evaluate the effects of reductions in educational costs. A reduction in educational cost has no impact on occupational choice in a closed economy. In the open economy, however, it creates an expanded middle class in the home country, whereas the opposite happens in its trading partner.     

Expatriates of host-country origin: ‘coming home to test the waters’

Expatriates are an integral part of any multinational company's (MNC) staffing strategy. However, the high failure rate of expatriates has forced these firms to look at alternate or complementary staffing strategies. This paper focuses on one such strategy, i.e., transferring people of host-country ethnic origin from parent-country to manage host-country operations. The purpose of this exploratory study is to ascertain whether and how MNCs have used expatriates of host-country origin (EHCO) as a global staffing strategy, in the context of India, and the extent of its success both for the individuals and the organizations concerned.

Based on a survey and in-depth interviews of human resource managers of 15 MNCs with operations in India, the study concludes that EHCOs are more willing to accept expatriate assignments than parent-country nationals (PCNs); however, their success on the assignment depends on the breadth and depth of their experience both in the parent and host country. With regard to their work effectiveness vis-à-vis PCNs, no significant difference was found. Managerial implications of this staffing strategy are explored and future research directions identified.     

Impact of environmental information disclosure and real estate segments on cost of debt: Evidence from the Chinese real estate industry

The novel part of this paper is to examine the individual and joint effects of the real estate segments (RETs) and environmental information disclosure (EID) on the cost of debt (COD) in the real estate industry in China. Building on extant literature, using 1,250 firm‐year observations from 2006 to 2016 and applying both Feasible General Least Squares and Two‐stage Least Squares Instrumental Variable approaches, we provide evidence that the commercial RET leads to an increase in the COD, while EID leads to a decrease in the COD. The joint effects of the RETs and EID on the COD indicate a significantly positive relationship with the COD. This signifies that even with the increased levels of EID in commercial real estate sectors, its COD is higher than for residential real estate sectors. These findings have important policy implications for environmental risk assessments for real estate sectors, their lending institutions and wider stakeholder groups.     

Cost-efficiency analyses for the US of biosimilar filgrastim-sndz,reference filgrastim,pegfilgrastim, and pegfilgrastim with on-body injector in the prophylaxis of chemotherapy-induced (febrile) neutropenia

Aims: Guidelines recommend prophylaxis with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor for chemotherapy-induced (febrile) neutropenia (CIN/FN) based on regimen myelotoxicity and patient-related risk factors. The aim was to conduct a cost-efficiency analysis for the US of the direct acquisition and administration costs of the recently approved biosimilar filgrastim-sndz (Zarxio EP2006) with reference to filgrastim (Neupogen), pegfilgrastim (Neulasta), and a pegfilgrastim injection device (Neulasta Onpro; hereafter pegfilgrastim-injector) for CIN/FN prophylaxis.

Methods: A cost-efficiency analysis of the prophylaxis of one patient during one chemotherapy cycle under 1–14 days’ time horizon was conducted using the unit dose average selling price (ASP) and Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes for subcutaneous prophylactic injection under four scenarios: cost of medication only (COSTMED), patient self-administration (SELFADMIN), healthcare provider (HCP) initiating administration followed by self-administration (HCPSTART), and HCP providing full administration (HCPALL). Two case studies were created to illustrate real-world clinical implications. The analyses were replicated using wholesale acquisition cost (WAC).

Results: Using ASP?+?CPT, cost savings achieved with filgrastim-sndz relative to reference filgrastim ranged from $65 (1?day) to $916 (14 days) across all scenarios. Relative to pegfilgrastim, savings with filgrastim-sndz ranged from $834 (14 days) up to $3,666 (1?day) under the COSTMED, SELFADMIN, and HPOSTART scenarios; and from $284 (14 days) up to $3,666 (1?day) under the HPOALL scenario. Similar to the cost-savings compared to pegfilgrastim, filgrastim-sndz achieved savings relative to pegfilgrastim-injector: from $834 (14 days) to $3,666 (1?day) under the COSTMED scenario, from $859 (14 days) to $3,692 (1?day) under SELFADMIN, from $817 (14 days) to $3,649 (1?day) under HPOSTART, and from $267 (14 days) to $3,649 (1?day) under HPOALL. Cost savings of filgrastim-sndz using WAC?+?CPT were even greater under all scenarios.

Conclusions: Prophylaxis with filgrastim-sndz, a biosimilar filgrastim, was associated consistently with significant cost-savings over prophylaxis with reference filgrastim, pegfilgrastim, and pegfilgrastim-injector, and this across various administration scenarios.     

Organ donation in India—A social marketing perspective

Organ donation is a social issue, and marketers face challenges promoting it. If factors aiding and inhibiting it are identified, it becomes easier to enhance intention of donating organs. The objective of this research is to establish the role of perceived awareness, family support, perceived individual value, and religiosity on organ donation intention (ODI). A sample of 247 respondents answered a structured questionnaire. Proposed model is mediated by organ donation attitude (ODA) and moderated by perceived risk. Findings from the study show that all the predictors are positively related with ODI mediated through ODA and perceived risk moderates the influence of ODA on ODI.     

Indian Monetary Policy in the Time of Inflation Targeting and Demonetization

This paper provides a narrative of Indian monetary policy since the North Atlantic Financial Crisis (NAFC) in the mid‐2008 till the current period. The period 2009–2013 was dominated by the joint monetary and fiscal stimuli of the Indian authorities prompted by the NAFC. These, along with some structural shocks and a hands‐off attitude in forex market intervention, could have had their role in rising inflation and external account instability (leading up to the taper tantrum episode). In such a backdrop, after considerable discussion during 2013–2014, a Monetary Policy Framework Agreement was signed between the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India on February 20, 2015 that formally adopted flexible inflation targeting (IT) in India. While the IT regime so far has coincided with significant reduction in inflation in India, the atmosphere has been benign. Now that fuel prices have started moving in the north‐east direction, the government has proposed a revised framework for the minimum support price in the Union Budget for 2018–2019 and fiscal slippages have started happening, it remains to be seen whether IT can wither more rough weather in the days to come. Finally, in recent years, Indian monetary policy has been dominated by two significant events: the emergence of significant deterioration of Indian public sector balance sheets, and the demonetization episode in November 2016. Monetary policy in both of these periods wrestled with fashioning an appropriate strategy for managing the impossible trinity.     

Infrastructure and Connectivity in India: Getting the Basics Right

Infrastructure helps in building productive capacity by bridging connectivity gaps, reducing distribution and trade costs, and facilitating the sharing of the benefits of growth with poorer groups and communities, among others. The evidence in this paper suggests the need for India to develop both hard as well as soft infrastructure for enhancing trade flows and growth. The existence of both aspects simultaneously will produce gains of a significantly higher order but one without the other is likely to be ineffective.