Reconciling Gray and Hotelling

A bstract .   Early exhaustible resource economics provides an important foundation for recent suggestions that firm-level economic modeling plays a larger role in the analysis of resource scarcity. The lack of empirical support for Hotelling's r -percent rule, introduced in 1931, and recent suggestions that industry behavior may not be reducible to firm behaviors are the primary motivating factors for examining the relative value of Gray's contribution to the field of exhaustible resource economics relative to Hotelling's contribution. Specifically, Gray's papers that appeared in the 1910s provide insight into the heterogeneity of deposits and their spatial dimensions, and offer the possibility that firms will be subject to fixed costs carried over between periods. In this paper, the arguments presented by Gray are formalized in a dynamic model, which allows the differences between Gray's and Hotelling's assumptions to be more fully explored. The results of the paper illustrate that by considering spatially identifiable heterogeneous deposits, fixed costs, and entry costs, in general Hotelling's r -percent rule is not a sufficient condition for firm-level decision making and that firms' extraction behavior cannot be linearly aggregated to describe industry behavior.     

A real-world analysis of healthcare costs and relative risk of hyperprolactinemia associated with antipsychotic treatments in the United States

Abstract

Aims: Antipsychotic medications are associated with an increased risk of hyperprolactinemia, but differ in their propensity to cause this complication. This study aimed to assess the economic burden of hyperprolactinemia, and to compare its risk among adult patients using atypical antipsychotics (AAs) with a mechanism of action associated with no/low vs high/moderate prolactin elevation.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study was based on US Commercial and Medicaid claims databases. Healthcare costs were compared between matched hyperprolactinemia and hyperprolactinemia-free cohorts using a two-part model. Risk of hyperprolactinemia was compared between patients receiving AAs with a mechanism of action associated with no/low (no/low prolactin elevation cohort) vs high/moderate prolactin elevation (high/moderate prolactin cohort) using logistic regression.

Results: In the commercially insured sample, compared to the hyperprolactinemia-free cohort (n?=?499), the hyperprolactinemia cohort (n?=?499) was associated with incremental total healthcare costs of $5,732 ($20,081 vs $14,349; p?=?.004), and incremental medical costs of $3,861 ($13,218 vs $9,357; p?=?.040), mainly driven by hyperprolactinemia-related costs. In the Medicaid-insured sample, compared to the hyperprolactinemia-free cohort, the hyperprolactinemia cohort was associated with incremental total healthcare costs of $10,773 ($30,763 vs $19,990; p?=?.004), and incremental medical costs of $9,246 ($20,859 vs $11,613; p?=?.004), mainly driven by hyperprolactinemia-related and mental health-related costs. The odds of hyperprolactinemia in the no/low prolactin elevation cohort were 4–5-times lower than that in the high/moderate prolactin elevation cohort (odds ratio =0.21; p?<?.001).

Limitations: Hyperprolactinemia may be under-reported in claims data.

Conclusions: Hyperprolactinemia is associated with substantial healthcare costs. AAs associated with no/low prolactin elevation reduce the risk of hyperprolactinemia by 4–5-times compared to AAs associated with moderate/high prolactin elevation. Treatment options with minimal impact on prolactin levels may contribute to reducing hyperprolactinemia burden in AA-treated patients.     

Closing the Canadian Input–Output Model: Homogeneous vs Non-homogeneous Household Sector Specifications

This paper addresses, on both theoretical and empirical fronts, the task of endogenizing the household sector in a rectangular input–output (IO) model. The formulation of Miyazawa (1976) for square models is extended to the development of an impact matrix for rectangular models. This allows for the numerous household revenue sources to be built into the model. A closed model with non-homogeneous households is developed where individuals are modelled individually and by industry. The perform ance of the non-homogeneous household sector model is compared with a model that has a homogeneous household sector. The model with the non-homogeneous household sector is more sensitive to changes in wages and salaries than to changes in final demand.     

The Impact of Small Brownfields and Greenspaces on Residential Property Values

Using a hedonic pricing model, this paper investigates the responsiveness of residential property values in a well-defined inner-city neighborhood of Kenosha, Wisconsin, to the presence of two small former industrial sites contaminated by various environmental pollutants, or brownfields, and a local neighborhood park, or greenspace. Using readily available data on sales and assessments for residential property in close proximity to the brownfields and the greenspace, we estimate well-behaved and statistically significant property value gradients with respect to the park, the environmental amenity, and the brownfields, the environmental disamenities. These functions are then used to estimate the possible impact that brownfield remediation may have on total property value. We estimate that remediation and redevelopment of the brownfields into greenspaces would increase property values for the 890 neighborhood residences between $2.40 and $7.01 million. These results suggest that small brownfields have a measurable impact on property values and that readily accessible data can be used to help local policymakers make decisions on remediation issues.     

The front end of innovation in an era of industry convergence: evidence from nutraceuticals and functional foods

Industry convergence, defined as a 'blurring' of boundaries between industries, induced by converging value propositions, technologies and markets, appears to be a pervasive phenomenon leading to the emergence of inter-industry segments. A current example of convergence can be witnessed in the nutraceuticals and functional foods sector, emerging at the boundary between the food and pharmaceutical industries. Not only technologies blur, but there is also a convergence of demand structures: consumers try to satisfy different needs in one transaction. In this context, this paper explores how actors from different industry-specific resource backgrounds can engage in an innovative activity requiring new technological and marketing competences. Given that absorptive capacity is limited by existing competences, this paper asks how organizations with different R&D competences are able to seize opportunities for innovation emerging from convergence. Empirical findings based on primary data collected from 54 R&D projects of a nutraceutical cluster show that there are different approaches of front end decision making: while some firms follow existing processes for front end decision making, others leave existing paths and need partners to fill in gaps already identified at the front end of innovation.     

Technology transfer organizations: Services and business models

Knowledge and technology transfer organizations (KTTOs) are crucial nodes connecting suppliers and users of knowledge that support the endogenous potential of innovation in firms. Prior studies on the services provided to firms by KTTOs tend to have weak theoretical foundations, to rely on case study approaches, and to focus attention on one service or a few services provided by a single organization. This study extends and integrates elements from a conceptual knowledge value chain and business model frameworks. The value chain perspective allows integrating the services offered by KTTOs in the value chain of firms. As for the business model perspective, it allows developing hypotheses about how KTTOs create and deliver value for client firms. To test these hypotheses, we collected and analyzed a data set of 281 publicly supported KTTOs located in Canada. The empirical results show that different types of KTTOs tend to specialize in the provision of services at different stages of the value chain of firms, and to benefit from complementarity effects between service offerings. Our analysis also shows that different types of KTTOs devise different types of business models that are centered on services linked to different stages of the value chain. Overall, these results suggest that managers of KTTOs could improve their business models and increase value to client firms by increasing the degree of customization of solutions offered to clients which, in turn, would also increase revenues from clients, and hence reduce KTTOs′ vulnerability to reductions in government funding.     

Functional Eating and Strategic Groups in Canada

The emergence of the nutraceuticals and functional foods (NFFs) products is a challenge to economists and management scientists interested in studying the evolution of the sector. There are profound issues in product and in market classification. This paper reports the results of an exploratory study that illustrates the use of strategic groups as a means to research this emerging industry, using a sample of 280 companies in Canada. The analysis identifies six main strategic groups within the NFFs sector that compete on the market, product and capability strategic fields. The results indicate that the sector is widely heterogeneous in firm composition, markets served, and intragroup and intergroup product strategies.
L'émergence de produits nutraceutiques et aliments fonctionnels (NAF) pose un défi aux économistes et aux spécialistes en sciences administratives intéressés par l'étude de I'évolution de ce secteur où perdurent de nomhreux prohlémes de classification de produits et de marchés. Cet article présente les résultats d'une étude exploratoire qui démontre la pertinence de la notion de groupe stratégique dans l'analyse d'un échantillon de 280 compagnies de ce secteur au Canada. Cette etude identifie six groupes strategiques dans le secteur des NAF en concurrence au plan des champs stratégiques de marchés, de produits et de compétences. Les résultats de la recherche montrent que le secteur est largement hétérogène au niveau de la composition des firmes, des marchés desservis et des stratégies de produits intergroupes et intragroupes.     

Relative Technical Efficiency: Data Envelopment Analysis and Quebec's Dairy Farms

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to explore the distribution of productive efficiency across some Quebec dairy farms in 1988 and 1989. Sensitivity checks are made with respect to sample size and herd size. Overall, efficiency scores from the DEA approach are reasonably informative, but some troublesome issues need to be resolved L'analyse par enveloppement des données (AED) est utilisée afin d'explorer la distribution de l'effica-cité relative à travers un échantillon de fermes laitières du Québec en 1988 et 1989. Les résultats sont comparés par rapport à la grandeur de l'échantillon et à la grosseur des troupeaux. Globalement. les résultats de l'AED sont interessants et informatifs, mais ils révélent quelques problèmes qui devront être étudiéis de plus près