International health law and consumer autonomy

Today, international health law and international consumer law are developing in the same direction and with much interaction. But the developments are not uniform. As international health law takes consumer protection into account, it tends to increase the gap between a Western international law and a Third World international law, and to emphasize the negative harmonization approach towards international health protection.Another problem concerns the unification of the rules of international health law and those of international consumer law. This problem is particularly difficult to solve, as the rules of international consumer law themselves are still far from being unified.

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Internationales Gesundheitsrecht und Verbraucherautonomie

Zusammenfassung Internationales Gesundheitsrecht und internationales Verbraucherrecht entwickeln sich heute in gleicher Richtung, obwohl sie anderen Quellen entspringen. Die wechselseitige Durchdringung nimmt zu, auch wenn die Enwicklung nicht einheitlich vor sich geht. Je mehr das internationale Gesundheitsrecht den Verbraucherschutz in sich aufnimmt, destomehr trennt es sich in ein Recht für entwickelte Staaten und ein solches für Dritte Welt-Länder. Ein vorwiegend negativ-abwehrender Zugang herrscht vor.Ein anderes Problem beinhaltet die Harmonisierung der Regeln des internationalen Gesundheits- und des internationalen Verbraucherrechts. Dies ist schon deshalb schwer erreichbar, weil das Verbraucherrecht selbst nicht einheitlich vorgeht. Die Probleme verschärfen sich, wenn man — ohne eine internationale Verbraucherinstitution wie die WHO — eine gemeinsame positive Gesundheitspolitik für Verbraucher erreichen will.

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Michel Bélanger teaches health law at the U.F.R. de Droit Public et Science Politique, Université de Bordeaux I, Avenue Léon Duguit, F 33604 Pessac, France.     

Effects of demographic,experiential, and attitudinal factors on occupational sex stereotypes

The purpose of this study was to (a) compare the occupational sex stereotypes of 366 college students with those reported by Shinar in 1975, and (b) examine the relationships between demographic, experiential, and attitudinal variables and these occupational sex stereotypes. The results indicated a significant difference in occupational ratings from Shinar's study, with females' perceptions shifting more than males' perceptions. In addition, subjects' gender, tenure with female managers, and attitudes toward women as managers, were shown to be significant predictors of occuptational ratings. The implications of these findings for both employees and managers are then discussed.     

Electronic data interchange: a strategic approach

The potential of EDI is virtually unlimited, but the success of any EDI initiative hinges on its ability to directly support strategies that achieve your institution's business objectives. At its most fundamental level, EDI technology automates current business practices, speeding up the exchange of business information. This application of EDI most often is found in a hospital's material management department. But EDI integrated internally within a hospital and externally with suppliers and vendors has the potential to go beyond simple automation and to transform processes. This is where the full value of EDI can be realized. No matter which level of EDI participation hospital management decides is appropriate to fulfill its business objectives and strategies, EDI will affect the entire institution's exchange of information with its internal and external audiences. The question management must answer is: Will the hospital's EDI strategy be offensive and managed, or defensive and reactive? Today's environment leaves no room for a "no-strategy" EDI option. The options are either to proactively shape EDI, or reactively play catch-up. EDI can work for you. Adequately developing an EDI game plan in support of your business objectives and calling on your suppliers and other trading partners to work with you will ensure EDI is an asset to your facility.     

Sequential location equilibria under incomplete information

Summary We consider a simple model of incomplete information in location theory. Two firms compete in a two stage framework: a sequential location stage and a price competition stage. Firm 1 knows both its own constant marginal cost technology and that of Firm 2, whereas the latter has incomplete information about firm 1's technology. The location stage turns out to be a monotonic signaling game and theunique D1 equilibrium is a pure strategy separating equilibrium if firm 1's cost advantage is below some bound, and otherwise a pooling equilibrium if the prior probability that Firm 1 is of the low cost type is high, or a semi-pooling equilibrium if it is low. This surprising result is due to the fact that the location gap between the two types of Firm 1 is bounded because of natural economic reasons, which may prevent the separation of the two types. Hence, incomplete information matters: the equilibrium locations differ quite significantly from the full information equilibrium locations.We would like to thank an anonymous referee for very helpful comments and also the participants in seminars at GREQE (Marseille), Université de Montréal, UBC, HEC (Paris), in the Location Theory session of the World Congress of the Econometric Society (Barcelona) and in the Game Theory Conference at the University of Western Ontario for their comments. We remain, of course, solely responsible for the content of the paper. Financial support from FCAR (Québec), SSHRCC (Canada) and CNRS (France) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Contrast enhancement of the gastrointestinal tract on MR images using intravenous gadolinium-DTPA

Gadopentetate dimeglumine was administered intravenously to 16 patients undergoing abdominal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. T1-weighted and fat-suppressed T1-weighted images were acquired before and after intravenous administration of 0.1 mmol/kg gadopentetate dimeglumine. The stomach, small bowel, and colon were analyzed regarding the presence and relative intensity of contrast enhancement. Diffuse enhancement of the gastrointestinal tract wall was observed in all patients following contrast material administration. Such enhancement was most conspicuous on fat-suppressed T1-weighted images. Quantitative measurements indicated that the wall of the gastrointestinal tract enhanced approximately 100% with gadopentetate dimeglumine. This study demonstrates that enhancement of the normal gastrointestinal tract occurs routinely when intravenous gadopentetate dimeglumine is administered, and such enhancement should not be considered indicative of gastrointestinal pathology. Furthermore, it suggests the potential utility for using intravenous rather than orally administered contrast agents to provide enhancement of the gastrointestinal tract on MR images.     

Modeling Distribution Services and Assessing Their Welfare Effects in a General Equilibrium Framework

Most international trade models fail to account for the fact that almost all goods must pass through the distribution sector. The authors compare different approaches to modeling distribution within an Applied General Equilibrium framework and find that such modeling may significantly affect trade opening simulations. They also predict large potential gains from streamlining distribution. For instance, a 10% reduction in Japan's final goods distribution margins would benefit it as much as worldwide free trade would. They also find that, compared to trade opening, reducing margins leads to smaller inter‐sectoral production shifts and thus may engender less political opposition.     

Jointness in production and farmers' willingness to supply non-marketed ecosystem services

This paper highlights how farmers' willingness to supply non-marketed ecosystem services (ES) is influenced by whether or not the non-marketed ES are produced jointly with agricultural products. When marketed products and non-marketed ES share some production inputs the production relationships between the two may be complementary, competitive or substitutive. Using a cost minimization framework, it is shown how complementary relationships lead to costless voluntary provision of non-marketed ES (typically the case for ES that are supportive of provisioning ES for marketed farm products). It is also shown how competitive production relationships lead to provision of non-marketed ES at lower cost than when non-marketed ES are direct substitutes for farm products or are produced outside of agriculture. The paper closes by showing how the minimum willingness to accept (WTA) payment for ES that are complementary/competitive is less than or equal to the minimum WTA for the same ES produced in substitute or independent production relationships.     

Disagreement over the emergence of private property rights: alternative meanings, alternative explanations

This paper is an exercise in the history of thought, which compares Austrian and neoclassical theories of the emergence of private property rights, and examines, in part, the extent to which Austrians can be said to offer a commonly-agreed upon explanation that parallels Carl Menger's exemplary story of the emergence of money. We address the sources of disagreement (and apparent conflict) among emergence theorists in both schools. We try to show that some of the disagreement hinges on an unclear meaning of the term “emergence,” which is resolvable, while other sources of disagreement are fundamental at the methodological level. JEL Code B25, E40, E53     

Developing holistic leaders: Four domains for leadership development and practice

Leadership development and practice have traditionally been quite narrow, with a decided focus on the analytical realm of leadership. However, the contemporary climate of corporate scandal and resultant loss of societal confidence, coupled with the evolving demands, needs, and expectations of employees, point to the potential need for a more holistic approach to leadership. Thus, this article proposes how management education and leadership development programs can develop holistic leaders that are adept at operating in the analytical, conceptual, emotional, and spiritual domains of leadership practice. An integrated model for holistic leadership development and practice that addresses all four of these domains is proposed, and grounded in both established and emerging leadership development theory. Additionally, a leadership development classification scheme is proposed based on classroom, job, and organizational contexts.     

中国农村社区公共物品投资的决定因素分析

本文使用具有全国代表性的抽样调查数据,对农村社区公共物品投资的决定因素进行了初步的分析。本文通过理论分析提出了两个理论假说,进而提出在我国公共投资中要注意的问题:既要考虑各地对公共投资有不同的需求,还要考虑区域协调发展。研究结果表明,除了一些政策因素以外,当地经济发展水平是影响农村公共投资的重要因素,一般来说,在工商业较发达的村公共投资活动也相对较多。对于外出务工人员较多的村,由于本地公共投资对外出务工人员的收入等作用较小,因此这部分村民就不那么愿意对村里进行公共投资。从政策实施角度看,本研究发现,上级政府的公共投资更多地投向贫困地区、偏远山区、农业生产条件差的地区或少数民族地区。这种投资战略有助于统筹区域发展,降低区域差异。