浅议国有林场五大系列成本费用的核算问题

国有林场的成本核算纷繁复杂,一业为主,多业并存,交相置换,有营林生产成本、建安设备成本、木材生产成本、加工工业成本和服务业成本等五大系列成本。聚那么多项系列成本费用在一起核算,如何区别,怎样分流,达到繁而不乱、多而有界、杂而有序,是本文提请就教于同行展开的议题。     

我国汽车产业技术赶超的进入成本

本文在对技术赶超进入成本理论进行探讨的基础上,对我国国内汽车产业技术赶超的进入成本条件及成本效应进行了分析,以期明确国内汽车产业技术赶超的进入成本约束状况。     

The Price Impact of Lending Relationships

This study analyzes the impact of bank relationships on a firm's borrowing costs. We find that a firm's borrowing costs decrease with relationship strength, proxied by the share of bank debt provided by the lender. Borrowing costs, however, rise with relationship length. While the increase over time is weak on average, bank‐dependent borrowers face a substantial premium after several relationship years. Switching the lender initially leads to only a small price discount on average. However, the discount is considerable for borrowers that switch and had a strong relationship with their previous lender. Our results suggest that close lending relationships lead to benefits for the firm, but may also imply hold‐up costs in the long term.     

ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION AND EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCT DIFFERENTIATION

We introduce asymmetric information about consumers’ transportation costs (i.e., the degree of product differentiation) in the model of Hotelling. When transportation costs are high, both firms have lower profits with asymmetric information than with perfect information. Contrarily, if transportation costs are low, both firms may prefer the asymmetric information scenario (the informed firm always prefers the informational advantage, while the uninformed firm may or may not prefer to remain uninformed). Information exchange is ex‐ante advantageous for both firms, but ex‐post damaging if transportation costs turn out to be low. If the information is unverifiable, the informed firm does not represent a reliable source of information, since it always prefers to announce that transportation costs are high and there is no contract that induces truthful revelation.     

基于作业成本法的北京市公交车运营成本测算研究

北京公交的运营成本过高是北京市公交发展中的一个比较突出的问题,而且目前北京公交缺乏科学、精确的运营成本测算方法与体系。为解决相关问题,应该结合国内外相关研究与调研资料对北京市公交运营成本的构成体系进行确定与分析,并运用作业成本法对北京市公交运营成本展开测算研究。     

Economic outcomes of exenatide vs liraglutide in type 2 diabetes patients in the United States: results from a retrospective claims database analysis

Abstract

Objective:

The safety and efficacy of the GLP-1 receptor agonists exenatide BID (exenatide) and liraglutide for treating type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have been established in clinical trials. Effective treatments may lower overall treatment costs. This study examined cost offsets and medication adherence for exenatide vs liraglutide in a large, managed care population in the US.

Methods:

This was a retrospective cohort analysis comprising adult patients with T2DM who initiated exenatide or liraglutide between 1/1/2010 and 6/30/2010 and had 6 months pre-index and post-index continuous eligibility. Patients were propensity score-matched to controls for baseline differences. Medication adherence was measured by proportion of days covered (PDC). Paired t-test and McNemar’s test were used to compare outcomes.

Results:

Matched exenatide and liraglutide cohorts (n?=?1347 pairs) had similar average total 6-month follow-up costs ($6688 vs $7346). However, exenatide patients had significantly lower mean pharmacy costs ($2925 vs $3272, p?<?0.001). Among liraglutide patients, patients receiving the 1.8?mg dose had significantly higher average total costs compared to those receiving the 1.2?mg dose ($8031 vs $6536, p?=?0.026), with higher mean pharmacy costs in the 1.8?mg cohort ($3935 vs $3146, p?<?0.001). There were no significant differences in inpatient or outpatient costs or medication adherence between groups (mean PDC: exenatide 56% vs liraglutide 57%, p?=?0.088).

Limitations:

The study assumed that all information needed for case classification and matching of cohorts was present and not differential across cohorts. The study did not control for covariates that were unavailable, such as HbA1c and duration of diabetes.

Conclusions:

Patients initiating exenatide vs liraglutide for T2DM had similar medication adherence and total healthcare costs; however, exenatide patients had significantly lower total pharmacy costs. Patients prescribed 1.8?mg liraglutide had significantly higher costs compared to those on 1.2?mg.     

The Cost of Obesity in the United Kingdom

Summary

This study provides economic information on the costs of obesity in the UK using a modified method of attributable risk to establish the full resource implications of treating obesity and associated diseases. Prevalence estimates of obesity, defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30 kg/m², together with estimates of the risk of obesity-related diseases relative to a BMI range close to ideal, are used as the basis of the costing. The total costs of treating obesity and its related diseases are estimated at £355 million (in 1995 prices). The total costs of treating obesity directly, estimated at £3.8 million, are dominated by the costs arising from the treatment of attributable diseases, estimated at £351 million.     

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.     

Welfare under friction and uncertainty: General equilibrium evaluation of temporary employment in the U.S.

Temporary contracts usually fall outside of employee protection litigation, thus they are often cheaper than permanent contracts and are offered on-demand by firms. In the last two decades, there has been a sharp growth in such contracts in the U.S. labor market. This paper investigates the welfare consequences of offering temporary contracts in the U.S., an environment with low employee protection litigation and high production risk for firms. Employee protection litigation creates firing rigidity in regular labor markets. Pairing firing rigidity with high production risk, firms reduce employment and output, which generates welfare loss. The inexpensive and flexible nature of temporary contracts offers firms a buffer strategy in making employment decisions under risk and navigating the firing rigidity of the regular labor sector, thereby reducing welfare loss. However, temporary contracts cannot fully compensate for the efficiency cost from rising firing rigidity and risk.