Violations of Service Fairness and Legal Ramifications: The Case of the Managed Care Industry

Adapted from Chan's (2000) model depicting success of litigation, this paper argues that with the application of various legislation, health maintenance organizations' (HMOs') violations of service fairness to each group: enrollees, physicians, and hospitals give rise to each group's lawsuits against the HMOs. Various authors (Bowen et al., 1999; Seiders and Berry, 1998) indicate that justice concepts such as distributive, procedural, and interactional justice can be applied to the area of service fairness. The violation of these underlying justice principles with HMOs' service unfairness to enrollees, physicians, and hospitals is examined. A general synopsis of the ethical issues in the managed care industry is provided. The various lawsuits launched by each group: enrollees, physicians, and hospitals together with the key statutes used are discussed. This paper also highlights the provisions and ramifications of the 11 April 2000 landmark agreement that Aetna made with Texas Attorney General John Cornyn to settle the 1998 lawsuit brought against the company. Lastly, the current ethical issues in the managed care industry are further discussed. The value of this paper can be adapted to the study of organizations' service fairness violations in other industries or in the educational, governmental, and not-for-profit sectors both nationally and internationally.     

超市寄包的法律思考

本文试图对商业流通企业中存在的两种寄存包行为的行为性质进行法律分析,并对此引起的法律责任,产生的法律后果作一理论上的探讨,以求正确界定它们,保护消费者与商业企业的合法权益。     

National Income Accounting and Public Policy

Modern national income accounting was designed in the early 20th century for the purpose of providing improved indicators about the performance of the economy so that government policy makers could better control the economy. The way that performance is measured affects the types of policies used to try to accomplish policy goals. Two attributes of national income accounting are analyzed for their effects on economic policy. First, government production is included in the national income accounts at cost, rather than at market value as private sector output is measured. This biases policy toward a larger public sector. Second, output is measured as a homogeneous dollar amount. This biases policy toward focusing on increasing quantities of inputs and outputs in the production process, rather than on innovation and entrepreneurship, which are the true engines of economic progress. Economic policy could be improved by focusing less on national income as an indicator of policy, and more on the underlying processes that foster economic progress.     

建立铁路公益性运输补偿机制的探讨

铁路公益性运输超越了企业的职能范围,企业应当得到国家补偿。为此,建议按照依法、据实补偿原则,以税收抵扣方式进行补偿,以利于铁路运输企业的积累和发展。     

基于人工神经网络的地铁施工招标综合评估模型

广州地铁工程是国内数个重要的大型城市基础建设项目之一。目前对于这种复杂的大型工程项目,迫切需要一个成熟可靠的公开招标评估系统。根据广州地铁工程的实际招标评标数据,提出应用人工神经网络(ANN)建立地铁施工招标综合评估模型。BP神经网络具有很强的自学习和自适应能力,可以精确地迫近复杂的非线性动态函数。经过训练网络,基于BP网络的模型成功量化了主观和定性的技术评估指数,得出较满意的评估结果。该模型可以通过增加样本提高精度,从而应用在地铁和其他类似建设项目招标中。     

论中国旅游业的危机管理机制--以非典时期旅行社行业的救助与自救措施为例

非典给中国旅游业带来了强烈的冲击，作为旅游业的龙头，旅行社遭到了惨重的经济损失。在旅行社全行业处于极度萧条的时段内，政府出台了一系列的措施来扶持旅行社的发展，各旅行社也纷纷采取各种措施力图自救，无论是政府救助还是企业自救，在某种程度上都存在一定的不足之处。     

LABOUR SUPPLY ESTIMATION AND PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract. Economists devote considerable energies towards refining their econometric techniques to overcome difficulties connected with conducting empirical research. Despite advances in technique. it is not clear whether further refinement in this direction is worthwhile for policy purposes. It may be that no further amount of statistical adjustment of inadequate data will increase understanding, and that better data is simply necessary to add to our knowledge. But rarely is sufficient credit paid to new forms of data. In short, econometric technique is emphasized to the neglect of data innovation, as if new data were merely lying about waiting for an ingenious suggestion for use. This paper surveys advances of the last twenty five years in estimating labour supply for policy purposes with a view towards appreciating the relative contribution of both improvements in econometric technique as well as developments of new data.
After briefly detailing the key parameters which economists have sought to estimate, we describe the early 'first generation' research (circa 1970), which is plagued by problems of unobservable variables, measurement errors, truncation and selectivity bias, and non linear budget constraints. 'Second generation' research constitute attempts to resolve one or more of these difficulties, and the respective contribution of econometric technique and new data is acknowledged and assessed, including the contribution of data generated by large scale social experiments in which participants are randomly assigned to different guaranteed income plans and their labour supply behaviour measured.     

Agent技术在CRM中的应用研究

简单介绍了Agent的属性特点及CRM的相关知识，讨论了Agent技术在CRM中的应用，指出Agent技术能为企业更好地管理客户信息，增强其竞争力。     

Public finance and the optimal speed of transition*

We develop a general equilibrium model that jointly considers the influence of capital accumulation constraints and of labour market frictions on the process of transition. We endogenize the economic and budgetary costs of different government policies and show that, early in transition, governments ought to subsidize state firms. Provided that intertemporal commitment is feasible, this policy limits the initial output fall, which relaxes capital accumulation constraints, accelerates transition, and increases welfare. Moreover, by resorting to indirect – instead of direct – taxes, governments can bring the path of transition closer to the first best. Yet, political pressures may induce a policy of suboptimal subsidization.     

Does an Industry Effect Exist for Initial Public Offerings?

We examine the impact of initial public offerings (IPOs) on rival firms and find that the valuation effects are insignificant. This insignificant reaction can be explained by offsetting information and competitive effects. Significant positive information effects are associated with IPOs in regulated industries and the first IPO in an industry following a period of dormancy. Significant negative competitive effects are associated with larger IPOs in competitive industries, those in relatively risky industries, those in high‐performing industries, and those in the technology sector. IPO firms that use the proceeds for debt repayment appear to represent a more significant competitive threat to rival firms relative to IPO firms that use their proceeds for other purposes.