SUPPLY CHAIN INFORMATION SHARING IN A VENDOR MANAGED INVENTORY PARTNERSHIP

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) involves the vendor making the replenishment decision for products supplied to a customer based on various inventory and supply chain policies. Information sharing between supply chain members is required in VMI. Sometimes VMI decisions are delayed and/or the information shared is inaccurate. This research examines the effects of information delay and accuracy, and the sharing of sales and forecast information in a VMI environment facing stationary and nonstationary demand. The simulation experiments show the impact of information delay, information inaccuracy, and information sharing on a variety of performance measures, including inventory levels and fill rates.     

A Study of Arbitrage Efficiency Between the FTSE‐100 Index Futures and Options Contracts

Despite the importance of the London markets and the significance of the relationship for market makers, little published research is available on arbitrage between the FTSE‐100 Index futures and the FTSE‐100 European index options contracts. This study uses the put–call–futures parity condition to throw light on the relationship between options and futures written against the FTSE Index. The arbitrage methodology adopted in this study avoids many of the problems that have affected prior research on the relationship between options or futures prices and the underlying index. The problems that arise from nonsynchroneity between options and futures prices are reduced by the matching of options and futures prices within narrow time intervals with time‐stamped transaction data. This study allows for realistic trading and market‐impact costs. The feasibility of strategies such as execute‐and‐hold and early unwinding is examined with both ex‐post and ex‐ante simulation tests that take into consideration possible execution time lags for the arbitrage trade. This study reveals that the occurrence of matched put–call–futures trios exhibits a U‐shaped intraday pattern with a concentration at both open and close, although the magnitude of observed mispricings has no discernible intraday pattern. Ex‐post arbitrage profits for traders facing transaction costs are concentrated in at‐the‐money options. As in other major markets, despite important microstructure differences, opportunities are generally rapidly extinguished in less than 3 min. The results suggest that arbitrage opportunities for traders facing transaction costs are small in number and confirm the efficiency of trading on the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:31–58, 2002     

Consistency of UK Pension Fund Investment Performance

Transition matrix techniques are used to relate the past and present performance of pension fund portfolios. In particular, funds are ranked to study the tendency of portfolios to remain in the same quartile of the ranking as they were in the previous period. For raw returns, funds in both of the top quartiles are found to be more likely to remain in the same quartile than would be expected by chance. This result can be taken as limited evidence for the consistency of performance. Similar systemic effects are observed on a risk-adjusted basis. There appears to be clear evidence that some fund managers can offer a degree of consistent good performance.     

Forecast combinations under structural break uncertainty

This paper proposes two new weighting schemes that average forecasts based on different estimation windows in order to account for possible structural change. The first scheme weights the forecasts according to the values of reversed ordered CUSUM (ROC) test statistics, while the second weighting method simply assigns heavier weights to forecasts that use more recent information. Simulation results show that, when structural breaks are present, forecasts based on the first weighting scheme outperform those based on a procedure that simply uses ROC tests to choose and forecast from a single post-break estimation window. Combination forecasts based on our second weighting scheme outperform equally weighted combination forecasts. An empirical application based on a NAIRU Phillips curve model for the G7 countries illustrates these findings, and also shows that combination forecasts can outperform the random walk forecasting model.     

Healthcare costs of stroke and major bleeding in patients with atrial fibrillation treated with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants

Objective: To assess long-term healthcare costs related to ischemic stroke and systemic embolism (stroke/SE) and major bleeding (MB) events in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) treated with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs).

Materials and methods: Optum’s Clinformatics Data Mart database from 1/2009–12/2016 was analyzed. Adult patients with ≥1 stroke/SE hospitalization (index date) were matched 1:1 to patients without stroke/SE (random index date), based on propensity scores. Patients with an MB event were matched to patients without MB. All patients had an NOAC dispensing overlapping index date, ≥12?months of eligibility pre-index date, and ≥1 NVAF diagnosis. The observation period spanned from the index date until the earliest date of death, switch to warfarin, end of insurance coverage, or end of data availability. Mean costs were evaluated: (1) per-patient-per-year (PPPY) and (2) at 1, 2, 3, and 4?years using Lin's method.

Results: The cost differences were, respectively, $48,807 and $28,298 PPPY for NOAC users with stroke/SE (n?=?1,340) and those with MB (n?=?3,774) events compared to controls. Cost differences of patients with vs without stroke/SE were $49,876, $51,627, $57,822, and $60,691 at 1, 2, 3, and 4?years post-index, respectively (p?p?Limitations: Limitations include unobserved confounders, coding and/or billing inaccuracies, limited sample sizes over longer follow-up, and the under-reporting of mortality for deaths occurring after 2011.

Conclusions: The incremental healthcare costs incurred by patients with vs without stroke/SE was nearly twice as high as those of patients with vs without MB. Moreover, each additional year up to 4?years after the first event was associated with an incremental cost for patients with a stroke/SE or MB event compared to those without an event.     

Stochastic Generational Accounting Applied to Reforms of Dutch Occupational Pensions

This paper examines stochastic or ‘value based’ generational accounting as a method to assess the intergenerational redistributive impact of pension reform. The analysis is applied to three policy changes to the regulation of Dutch occupational pensions during the years 2012 and 2013 that mark the transition from defined benefit pensions to ‘defined ambition’ pension schemes.     

Leisure,international retirement migration,and retirement adjustment: insights from the best exotic marigold hotel movies

ABSTRACT

International retirement migration (IRM) is a growing phenomenon linked to increased longevity, early retirement, and improved financial status. Encompassing both travel and leisure experiences, IRM is a topic relevant to both tourism and leisure studies. By analysing the fictional movie series The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) and The Second Best Marigold Hotel (2015) from psychological, gerontological, and sociological theoretical perspectives, this paper examines motivation, goal setting, continuity and change, and identity development in IRM experiences within tourism and leisure contexts. This paper (a) identified motivations for IRM as finance, romantic relationships, social relations, self-esteem, self-fulfilment, and social norms; (b) in turn, time perception and attitude influence IRM emigrants’ priority and emotional fulfilment; (c) innovation extricates IRM emigrants from role loss and facilitates role change; and (d) IRM emigrants experience various identity development processes. A conceptual framework for IRM is proposed that purports to explain the IRM experience process and indicates that such an understanding of IRM should incorporate psychological, gerontological, and sociological perspectives.