A City Divided by Political Philosophies: Residential Development in a Bi-Provincial City in Canada

This paper examines the impact of two distinct political ideologies on the development of residential dwellings, particularly single-family residences, in Lloydminster, a bi-provincial city in Canada. Lloydminster is a city of about 22,000 which straddles the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. The two provinces are recognized for the dissimilarities in their political orientations. These dissimilarities are reflected in different taxation policies, different Medicare and health insurance policies and different auto insurance policies, which have given rise to a quantitative and qualitative split in the market for single-family residences in Lloydminster. This duality of the housing market is manifested in Saskatchewan's "affordability" and Alberta's "desirability." Alberta's tax policies have attracted "place entrepreneurs" to build upscale residences on its side for homeowners in high income brackets, who benefit from its tax policies. Saskatchewan's health care and auto insurance advantages have attracted those with such priorities and with moderate incomes. It is contended here that while distinct policies may have contributed to an uneven bi-provincial housing market, the disparity between the markets has been sustained and reinforced by all players who construct the housing reality through myths and perceptions as well as interpretations of policies and their underlying ideologies.     

The Option and Decision to Repurchase Stock

Open‐market repurchase programs provide firms with the flexibility to manage the cash and risk aspects of their operations. We examine at which stage cash and risk matter in the typical stages of a repurchase program: announcement, implementation, and withdrawal. Cash and risk considerations appear to matter only at the implementation stage, and partially negate the traditional signaling effect around program announcement.     

Is Japan's trade (still) different?

Does Japanese trade in manufactured goods differ from the rest-of-the world average and from the US? We use a simple industry-level gravity model and 1981–1998 data to answer this question. We construct a measure of normalized imports by dividing bilateral industry-level imports by the importer's aggregate absorption and the exporter's industry output. We find that Japan imports less than other countries, but also exports less than other countries. Relative to the US, Japanese export performance is half as strong today as it was in the mid-1980s. Bilaterally, Japan is more open to imports from the US than the US is to imports from Japan. This means that the US runs a trade surplus with Japan in normalized imports of manufactured goods. J. Japanese Int. Economies 17 (4) (2003) 507–519.     

Coordination of planning and scheduling decisions in global supply chains with dual supply modes

We address the problem of coordinating aggregate planning decisions and short-term scheduling decisions in supply chains with dual supply modes. We consider long lead time, less expensive sea shipments that are based on demand forecast, and responsive but costly air shipments that are based on revised forecast closer to the demand period. The planning problem determines the sea shipment order quantity and inventory level, while the scheduling model determines the schedule and quantity of air shipments. Results from our numerical experiments suggest that our model leads to consistent cost improvements over a wide range of operating scenarios.     

“Out of sight,out of mind”: Pantry stockpiling and brand-usage frequency

Both researchers and brand managers have suggested that price promotion induced stockpiling can increase a household's usage frequency of a product. Empirical findings, however, contradict this relationship. In reconciling this inconsistency, laboratory results reported in this paper suggest that stockpiling may have the greatest effect on a product's usage frequency when usage-related thoughts about the product are highly salient. These results also suggest that when stockpiling stimulates usage frequency, it can do so by increasing perceptions of a product's versatility. These findings have implications for the advertising versus promotion debate. They suggest that consumer promotions and advertising might play a joint and complementary role in increasing product usage: promotions by encouraging stockpiling, and advertising by building the usage-related salience needed to deplete the stockpiled inventory.The authors are grateful to the Marketing Science Institute and to the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College for their financial support of this project. They are additionally grateful to Scott Neslin, Jim Lattin, and Jeff Inman for helpful comments on earlier drafts.     

Time-driven activity-based cost analysis for outpatient anticoagulation therapy: direct costs in a primary care setting with optimal performance

Objectives: To determine how overall cost of anticoagulation therapy for warfarin compares with that of Novel Oral Anticoagulants (NOACs). Also, to demonstrate a scientific, comprehensive, and an analytical approach to estimate direct costs involved in monitoring and management of anticoagulation therapy for outpatients in an academic primary care clinic setting, post-initiation of therapy.

Methods: A population-based cross-sectional study was conducted in conjunction with observations of patient care processes between August 2014 and January 2015. The study was conducted in an academic primary care outpatient setting at Mayo Clinic’s warfarin anticoagulation clinic, Rochester, MN. The anticoagulation clinic serves patients 18?years of age or older in Warfarin therapy management, for any indication, after referral from the patient’s primary care provider. The study included anticoagulation clinic enrollment data on a population of 5,526 patients. Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC) technique was applied. Detailed process flow maps which showed process steps for all the anticoagulation program components and care continuum phases were created. Staff roles associated with each of the process steps were identified and displayed on the maps. Process times and costs were captured and analyzed. The main outcome was direct cost of monitoring and management of anticoagulation therapy, post-initiation of therapy.

Results: The cost of warfarin management for patients who display unstable International Normalized Ratio (INR) is more than three times those who display stable INR over time. (Comparator to distinguish stability: Frequency of point-of-care visits needed by patients.) For complex anticoagulation patients, total cost of medication and monitoring for warfarin anticoagulation therapy is similar to that for NOACs.

Conclusion: Despite warfarin being significantly less expensive to purchase than NOACs, overall warfarin management incurs higher costs due to laboratory monitoring and provider time than NOACs. NOAC treatment, therefore, may not be more expensive than warfarin therapy management for complex anticoagulation patients.     

Generalized Lotka-Volterra equations and the mechanism of technological substitution

This paper demonstrates that if technological substitution is viewed as the result of competition between old and new technology in which new technology wins, and if generalized Lotka-Volterra equations are taken to describe this competition, then various models of technological substitution can be obtained as very special cases. It is argued that this could lead to a better understanding of the substitution process itself.     

Implied volatilities,stochastic interest rates,and currency futures options valuation: an empirical investigation

Different models of pricing currency call and put options on futures are empirically tested. Option prices are determined using different models and compared to actual market prices. Option prices are determined using historical as well as implied volatility. The different models tested include both constant and stochastic interest rate models. To determine if the model prices are different from the market prices, regression analysis and paired t-tests are performed. To see which model misprices the least, root mean square errors are determined. It is found that better results are obtained when implied volatility is used. Stochastic interest rate models perform better than constant interest rate models.     

Beyond market orientation: When customers and suppliers disagree

The essence of market orientation is the successful management of a relationship between suppliers and customers. During the past 15 years, a body of scholarship on antecedents and consequences of market orientation has emerged. But what is the appropriate level of market orientation, and what happens when customers and suppliers disagree about the appropriate level of a supplier's market orientation? To what extent does such disagreement concerning market orientation affect the customer-supplier relationship? Do answers to these questions vary by country? The authors examine these issues using data from a survey of leading Japanese and U.S. business firms and their key customers that employed a unique matched supplier-customer sampling methodology. The authors report several interesting results.