Involving Young Service Users as Co-Researchers: Possibilities, Benefits and Costs

This article seeks to contribute to the debate concerning thebenefits and costs of involving young service users in research.The paper locates involvement within a continuum of consultation,collaboration and user-controlled research. The mandate forchildren and young people’s involvement is identified.In particular, the paper focuses on the benefits and costs inrelation to: research and development, research disseminationand service development, service users and researchers. Thepaper does not suggest that these benefits and costs can bemeasured arithmetically but argues that if the costs in termsof resources, training, support, timescale and remunerationare not addressed, the research will be undermined and in dangerof becoming tokenistic. The article argues that the involvementof young service users as co-researchers is worthwhile, butthat it should not be entered into lightly and that furtherwork needs to be undertaken on which parts of the process youngservice users can be included in and where their involvementresults in change in service delivery or service outcomes.     

对人民陪审员制度的冷思考

陪审制度起源于英国,完善在美国,清末传入我国,新中国的两次民事立法都予以认可。但陪审制在实践中却屡遭冷遇,现今的人民陪审员制更是受到众多批评。2004年8月全国人大进一步完善了人民陪审员制度,并在很多方面解决了长期以来影响人民陪审制发展和适用的问题,但还存在着一些不足之处:即人民陪审员的准入门槛太低;审判中专业技术问题无法解决;司法成本的增加,浪费已有的司法资源;陪审员的任职年限规定模糊以及陪审员的执法活动缺乏监督等几个方面的问题。     

专卖店市场与地摊市场的价格比较--从交易费用角度进行的思考

试图从交易费用的角度,对同一收入层的消费者在购买同一种商品时的不同选择现象做出解释,指出造成这种选择差异的原因在于不同消费者在货币与时间和精力上的相对优势的差异。     

从委托代理看新制度经济学理论的应用

新制度经济学为深入研究公司治理问题奠定了大量的理论基础,包括契约理论、交易费用理论、企业与经济组织理论和现代产权理论等。新制度经济学家们就如何在信息不对称的角度出发尽量减少代理问题和代理成本做了深入的研究。本文将新制度经济学在委托代理理论方面的相关观点分门别类的与现代公司治理中代理问题的研究方法做出比较,认为造成代理问题的根本原因在于信息的不对称,而解决委托代理问题的主要途径是：约束和激励。     

地理标志法律保护的局限及其经济解释

我国现行法律制度将地理标志的保护纳入到商标法的保护框架之下,这一模式的局限性主要表现为地理标志固有特性与商标法普遍原则存在冲突,导致在实践中其难以获得等同于普通注册商标的保护水平,降低自身溢价,导致公地悲剧。从法经济学的角度解释前述冲突导致的租值消散现象及过程,并结合某些有效的地理标志保护制度安排或实践经验,可以从全新的视角研究地理标志权利困局的经济原理。根据问题成因的微观经济分析,解决思路应着眼于两个方面:明晰权利边界,加强保护力度;地方产业集群内部应探索发展有效的组织协同机制。     

生态文明背景下企业环境成本核算体系的构建

当前,我国企业界尚未深刻认识到环境资源的价值,实务中尚未建立起充分反映环境成本信息的配套核算体系.要建立和保持企业的长期竞争优势,保持经济效益、生态效益、社会效益的协调统一,亟需构建适合我国情况的环境成本核算体系.环境成本核算目标决定着整个环境成本核算系统运行的方向,应从基本目标和具体目标两个层次进行目标确定.环境成本核算体系构建要综合考虑法律、经济及文化因素、现有的成本核算框架、成本效益原则、国外可资借鉴的经验等因素.系统的企业环境成本核算体系框架构建应包括环境成本核算内容,环境成本核算对象,以及以确认、计量、记录、报告为逻辑思路的环境成本核算环节与方法.     

Who Pays for Seniors Housing and Care Communities? Evidence from the Residents Financial Survey

To examine the financial characteristics of residents in assisted living and independent living communities and to see how they currently pay for their care arrangements, we surveyed 2,617 residents in assisted living and independent living communities. We asked them how they pay for their current costs and verified their answers by examining self-reported information on their cost and income. Residents stated that they are largely paying for their community costs independently. Approximately one third of respondents reported using their assets and income to cover their current costs. The data supported the notion that individuals living in assisted living and independent living communities are largely mid- to high-income elderly. However, the cross-sectional analysis showed that length of time in the community was positively associated with paying for their expenses independently out of income, after controlling for many confounders including age, education, and lifetime earnings to try to rule out differential longevity and differential selection over time. Further longitudinal analysis is needed to understand the cause and the implications of the positive correlation between ability to pay one's bills out of income and the length of time in the community before conclusions about spend-down can be made.     

Costs and Outcomes of an Extra Care Housing Scheme in England

Extra care housing, which provides support and care for people in specially designed accommodations, has now been part of the range of housing and care services available to older people in England for several years. Currently, the United Kingdom evidence base tells us little about the financing, estimation of the costs, or burden to the public purse of housing with care. The United Kingdom has significant state welfare provision in the areas of health and social care. The objective of this in-depth case study was to investigate the cost and outcome consequences for a sample of people who moved into an extra care housing scheme in Bradford, England, and to reflect on the methodological implications for future research in this developing area. The main finding of the study was that the overall cost per person increased after a move to extra care housing, but that this increase was associated with improved social care outcomes and improvements in quality of life.     

Mapping the Elder Mistreatment Iceberg: U.S. Hospitalizations With Elder Abuse and Neglect Diagnoses

Purpose: This study describes U.S. hospitalizations with diagnostic codes indicating elder mistreatment (EM). Method: Using the 2003 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) of the Healthcare Costs and Utilization Project (HCUP), inpatient stays coded with diagnoses of adult abuse and/or neglect are compared with stays of other hospitalized adults age 60 and older. Results: Few hospitalizations (< 0.02%) were coded with EM diagnoses in 2003. Compared to other hospitalizations of older adults, patients with EM codes were twice as likely to be women (OR = 2.12, 95% CI = 1.63–2.75), significantly more likely to be emergency department admissions (78.0% vs. 56.8%, p < .0001), and, on average, more likely to have longer stays (7.0 vs. 5.6 days, p = 0.01). Patients with EM codes were also three to four times more likely to be discharged to a facility such as a nursing home rather than “routinely” discharged (i.e., to home or self-care) (OR = 3.66, 95% CI = 2.92–4.59). Elder mistreatment–coded hospitalizations compared to all other hospitalizations had on average lower total charges ($21,479 vs. $25,127, p < .001), with neglect cases having the highest charges in 2003 ($29,389). Implications: Knowledge about EM is often likened to the “tip of the iceberg.” Our study contributes to “mapping the EM iceberg”; however, findings based on diagnostic codes are limited and should not be used to minimize the problem of EM. With the so-called graying of America, training is needed in recognizing EM along with research to improve our nation's response to the mistreatment of our elderly population.     

Shipping Fees or Shipping Free? A Tale of Two Price Partitioning Strategies in Online Retailing

In this article, we study the price partitioning decisions of online retailers regarding shipping and handling (S&H) fees. Specifically, we analyze two partitioning formats used by retailers in this context. In the first scenario, retailers present customers with a price that is partitioned into a product price and a separate S&H surcharge (the PS strategy); in the second, customers are offered free shipping through a non‐partitioned format where the product price already includes the shipping cost (the ZS strategy). We first develop a stylized game‐theoretic model that captures the competitive dynamics between (and within) these two formats. Analysis of the model provides insights into how both firm and product level characteristics drive a retailer's strategic choice regarding which partitioning format to adopt and, hence, determines the equilibrium market structure in terms of proportion of ZS and PS retailers. Subsequently, we conduct empirical analyses, based on product and S&H prices data for two different product categories (digital cameras and printers) collected from online retailers, to validate all the results of our theoretical model. We establish that PS retailers charge lower product prices than ZS ones, but the total price (product + S&H) charged is higher for the first group. The S&H charge for PS retailers can be significant—it is, on average, 5.4% (printers) and 3.0% (digital cameras) for our two product categories. Furthermore, retailers which are popular and/or face risky cost environment are more likely to opt for the ZS strategy, while retailers whose portfolio mostly includes large or heavy products with high cost (S&H)‐to‐price ratios usually choose the PS strategy. Lastly, our empirical study also illustrates that the price adjustment behavior of retailers is affected by their shipping‐fee policies—for example, ZS retailers change their product prices almost 1.5 times more frequently than PS ones.