EMPIRICAL UTILITY FUNCTIONS AND RANDOM DEVICES: AN EXPERIMENT

The primary purpose of the present experiment was to examine the effects on the empirical derivation of executive's utility functions caused by the use of random device analogues. The results indicate that utility functions obtained using a random device analogue imply more risk aversion than when these functions are determined by simulating actual decision situations. Furthermore, there is also evidence that the bias is directly related to the monetary amounts involved.     

A SIMULATION MODEL OF PATRONAGE BEHAVIOR WITHIN SHOPPING CENTERS

This paper presents a micro-analytic store choice model which eliminates the assumptions of homogeneity of stores and homogeneity of shoppers found in earlier models. The model simulates individual shopping trips within a shopping center and was successful in predicting the stores chosen by a sample of shopping center patrons. Two earlier models were also tested, but the proposed model performs better than either of the simpler models. Besides its predictive value, the model suggests a number of strategic implications for retailers and shopping center developers and provides a methodology that may be useful in other areas of behavioral research.     

AN OPERATIONAL APPROACH TO THE EVALUATION OF LEASES BY HOSPITALS*

The evaluation of the lease versus purchase alternative by not-for-profit hospitals presents a problem that stems from the interaction between investment and financial decisions. This paper provides an analytical framework that resolves this issue by neutralizing the impact of the lease contract on the hospital's financial structure and debt capacity. The formulation incorporates the special operating characteristics of not-for-profit hospitals: namely, they are not subject to federal income tax, and part of their revenue is generated through cost-based reimbursement.     

THE REAL AND ILLUSORY VIRTUES OF ENTROPY-BASED MEASURES FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

The entropy measure H=−σp_i log p_i is being used with increasing frequency in the analysis of business and economic data. It is, however, simply another measure of dispersion which can be related to the moments of the probability function. Its virtues stem from its decomposition and interpretative properties. This paper surveys the uses to which the measure has been put in the literature, and discusses whether its use has been appropriate and innovative.     

THE DETAIL SCHEDULING OF A PART-TIME WORK FORCE: A CASE STUDY OF TELLER STAFFING

This paper presents a comparison of two heuristic methods for assigning a part-time work force to meet varying daily work loads. The authors use actual operating data from Purdue National Bank, Lafayette, Indiana, to make teller staffing decisions. The performance criteria for comparison of the two heuristics is the minimum number of workers employed, minimum number of interbranch transfers, and computer time necessary to attain a solution.     

ON THE DESIGN OF HIERARCHICAL PRODUCTION PLANNING SYSTEMS

To provide effective managerial support for decisions related to production planning and scheduling processes, it is useful to partition the set of decisions into a hierarchical framework. In the resulting system, higher level decisions impose constraints on lower level actions, and lower level decisions provide the necessary feed-back to reevaluate higher level actions. The purpose of this paper is to suggest optimum procedures to deal with the resulting subproblems and to analyze the interaction mechanisms among the different hierarchical levels. Computational results are given.     

The impact of ethnicity on attitudes toward health care reform in New Mexico

Latinos tend to have significantly lower levels of access to general and top quality medical care than do non-Latino whites, and although disparities in access to health care have diminished for all other minority groups over time, they have widened for Latinos. Given these trends, current attempts to provide universal health care at both the national and state levels across the United States have large implications for the health status of Latinos. The objective of this analysis is to determine whether Latinos have different attitudes regarding health reform than non-Latino whites. Our data are from a statewide random digit dialing telephone survey of New Mexico residents, age 18 and older, conducted in the Fall of 2007. With a Latino population of 44% and ongoing health care reform efforts by the state legislature, New Mexico is an ideal location for this analysis. After controlling for a host of individual level factors, our findings suggest that while Latinos are less likely to identify health care as a salient state issue relative to the economy and crime, they are more likely than non-Latino whites to believe affordable health care programs are important. Finally, Latinos view employers, more than government or individuals, to be responsible for expanding health care coverage.     

Demand for health risk reductions: A cross-national comparison between the U.S. and Canada

Using a large stated preference survey conducted across the U.S. and Canada, we assess differences in individual willingness to pay (WTP) for health risk reductions between the two countries. Our utility-theoretic choice model allows for systematically varying marginal utilities for avoided future time in different adverse health states (illness-years, recovered/remission years, and lost life-years). We find significant differences between Canadian and U.S. preferences. WTP also differs systematically with age, gender, education, and marital status, as well as a number of attitudinal and subjective health-perception variables. Age profiles for WTP are markedly different across the two countries. Canadians tend to display flatter age profiles, with peak WTP realized at older ages.