Purchasing power parity as a long-run relation

Dickey–Fuller and Stock–Watson tests of purchasing power parity (PPP) as a long-run proposition are provided within the cointegration framework proposed by Granger. Since different countries use different weights to construct price indices, the traditional constraint that the coefficients on the price indices should be unity in the log-linear PPP relation is relaxed. The absence of a general PPP relation cannot be rejected. At most, a PPP relation is indicated in five out of fifteen country pairs that are examined. Even if a long-run PPP relation exists, it is not found to be useful in predicting future nominal exchange rates, which is consistent with efficient speculative markets.     

The global family business: Challenges and drivers for cross-border growth

Globalization has become an imperative and is no longer avoidable as a strategic choice for family businesses. However, globalization strategies are far from the norm among small and medium-sized family enterprises. This article reviews the main drivers for globalization, highlights the distinct characteristics of family businesses that may enhance or constrain their global expansion, and provides a framework for strategically evaluating business capabilities and global market opportunities.     

Interpretive structural modeling for E-electricity utility service

Service quality has been recognized as one of the major factors for an organization's sustainability. It is one of the driving forces for an organization??s achievement. Service quality may be represented by the comparison between customers?? expectations of how a company or organization should perform and the customer??s perception of the service performance. For successful delivery of public services, use of online technology has rapidly become a benchmark for effective public sector management. Governments worldwide are attempting to harness the potential offered by these new technologies to create new dimensions of economic and social progress. The present article discusses the important aspects of customer's satisfaction in service quality of E-electricity utility service by interpretive structural modeling method.     

Affirmative Action and Subgroup Inequality in Higher Education: Adapting Indian Policy Solutions to the American Context

This paper analyzes racial and ethnic subgroup inequality in higher education in India and the US. Affirmative action policies in both countries rely upon broad categories that subsume distinct groups. These policies have failed to alleviate the significant underrepresentation of black natives and certain lower-castes by considering these populations alongside discrete and oftentimes more advantaged groups. Such inequality hinders attainment of affirmative action’s remedial justice and diversity goals. Some states in India have implemented ‘quotas within quotas’ to alleviate such underrepresentation, dividing lower caste subgroups for admissions purposes. We suggest that US institutions of higher education adopt a similar model by considering black Hispanics, multiracial blacks, black immigrants, and black natives as separate categories in recruiting and admissions.     

Modelling inbound international tourism demand in small Pacific Island countries

ABSTRACT

In this study, we estimate inbound international tourism demand models at the individual source market-destination and overall destination levels for Fiji, Cook Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu from 2002Q1 to 2016Q2 and Samoa from 2002Q4 to 2015Q3. Tourism demand is measured by visitor arrivals, tourism prices, the source country’s real GDP, tourism prices in substitute destinations, seasonality and structural breaks, all of which are considered plausible determinants. The models are estimated using the ARDL-bounds approach, structural breaks are identified using the Bai and Perron break test, and seasonality is tested using the US Census Bureau’s X-13 ARIMA-SEATS methodology. The study is important because it presents new evidence on price, income, and substitute price sensitivity, word of mouth, seasonality, and structural-breaks effects in Pacific island destinations.     

Economic evaluation for the US of nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine versus FOLFIRINOX versus gemcitabine in the treatment of metastatic pancreas cancer

Background: Nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine (NAB-P?+?GEM) and FOLFIRINOX have shown superior efficacy over gemcitabine (GEM) in the treatment of metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDA). Although the incremental clinical benefits are modest, both treatments represent significant advances in the treatment of a high-mortality cancer. In this independent economic evaluation for the US, the aim was to estimate the comparative cost-utility and cost-effectiveness of these three regimens from the payer perspective.

Methods: In the absence of a direct treatment comparison in a single clinical trial, the Bucher indirect comparison method was used to estimate the comparative efficacy of each regimen. A Markov model evaluated life years (LY) and quality-adjusted life years (QALY) gained with NAB-P?+?GEM and FOLFIRINOX over GEM, expressed as incremental cost-effectiveness (ICER) and cost-utility ratios (ICUR). All costs and outcomes were discounted at 3%/year. The impact of parameter uncertainty on the model was assessed by probabilistic sensitivity analyses.

Results: NAB-P?+?GEM was associated with differentials of +0.180 LY and +0.127 QALY gained over GEM at an incremental total cost of $25,965; yielding an ICER of $144,096/LY and ICUR of $204,369/QALY gained. FOLFIRINOX was associated with differentials of +0.368 LY and +0.249 QALY gained over GEM at an incremental total cost of $93,045; yielding an ICER of $253,162/LY and ICUR of $372,813/QALY gained. In indirect comparison, the overall survival hazard ratio (OS HR) for NAB-P?+?GEM vs FOLFIRINOX was 0.79 (95%CI?=?0.59–1.05), indicating no superiority in OS of either regimen. FOLFIRINOX had an ICER of $358,067/LY and an ICUR of $547,480/QALY gained over NAB-P?+?GEM. Tornado diagrams identified variation in the OS HR, but no other parameters, to impact the NAB-P?+?GEM and FOLFIRINOX ICURs.

Conclusions: In the absence of a statistically significant difference in OS between NAB-P?+?GEM and FOLFIRINOX, this US analysis indicates that the greater economic benefit in terms of cost-savings and incremental cost-effectiveness and cost-utility ratios favors NAB-P?+?GEM over FOLFIRINOX.     

Exploring competitiveness in banking sector of a small island economy: a study of Fiji

The paper explores the competitiveness in the banking sector in Fiji using the Panzar and Rosse (J Ind Econ 35:443–456, 1987) method. We compute the concentration ratios and Herfindahl–Hirschman index based on total assets, loans, and deposits to examine the concentration level. To compute the Panzar-Rosse H-statistics, we use fixed effect regression method duly controlling for heterogeneity. The results show banks in Fiji exhibit monopolistic behavior and are biased towards monopoly/conjectural variation short-run oligopoly upon examining the significance level of the upper and lower bounds of the computed H-statistics. Moreover, the results also show that banks revenue are influenced positively by interest expenses, capital adequacy ratio, and the number of branches; and negatively by personnel expenses, other operating expenses, and firm size measured by total assets.     

New Directions: Maastricht–Cambridge Symposium 2002

The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics -     

Drug costs in developing countries and policies to reduce them

Developed countries spend on a per capita basis about 100 times as much on health and 20 times as much on drugs as developing countries do. However, drugs constitute the ‘cutting edge’ of health service activities in the developing countries. This article analyses the estimated pharmaceutical and overall health expenditures for 1981 and gives a projection of those for the year 2000. Five policy options (1. The rational choice of drugs. 2. A public distribution system. 3. The use of bulk import orders. 4. The use of generic names. 5. The domestic production of drugs) that might reduce the current and projected levels of expenditure on drugs by developing countries, without curtailing other services, are examined. Potential savings both in domestic currency and foreign exchange that could be effected by implementing each of the five policy measures have been computed in order to indicate their critical contribution.