Rebates, inventories, and intertemporal price discrimination

We demonstrate that universally redeemed rebates can increase manufacturer profits by reducing the incentives of downstream retailers to hoard inventories when optimal wholesale prices vary predictably over time. By bypassing retailers and making direct contracts with buyers, the manufacturer can increase the variations in effective prices paid by consumers without concomitantly creating larger incentives for retailers to hold inventories. During profitable, high-demand periods, manufacturer revenues are ordinarily constrained by'competition'from retailer inventories, thus limiting profits. However, by selectively offering rebates to consumers while maintaining high wholesale prices, low-demand periods can be accommodated without inducing retailer hoarding.     

Family,marital, and occupational satisfaction for recovering pathological gamblers

This paper describes the efforts of a private gambling treatment program to conduct a retrospective study of pathological gamblers treated in a publicly supported residential program. The Johns Hopkins Center for Pathological Gambling treated approximately 100 pathological gamblers nationwide from 1979 to 1983 in its residential component. Twenty-six gamblers were assessed regarding their recovery status with specific focus on family, marital status and occupational satisfaction. It was hypothesized that the more satisfied patients would display lower frequencies of gambling and that gambling frequency was dependent upon the level of satisfaction. Thirty-one percent of these gamblers reported abstinence. Regression analyses indicated that the recovery of pathological gamblers as measured by frequency of gambling is significantly influenced by job satisfaction, and moderately influenced by marital status and family life satisfaction. Consequently, these factors should be addressed by mental health professionals in research and treatment of pathological gambling.     

Finance and innovation in British small independent firms

This paper is concerned with the effects of internal and external capital investment funding patterns on the innovativeness of British small independent firms. By using a combined sample of firms from the relatively prosperous South East and the more problematic Scottish development region, an additional diverse regional economic perspective is given to data initially presented in a national context. Beyond a presentation of the extent of external borrowing, the paper seeks to establish the characteristics of firms obtaining external funds and to assess whether this external capital borrowing sub-sample is mainly comprised of low technology firms in decline, or of high technology firms fueling innovation-led expansion. Data is included on the role of both public and private loan agencies in the external funding process. Conclusions are based on the pattern of results and focus on ways in which the delivery of financial aid might be improved to assist expansion, particularly in fast growing high technology small firms.     

Management competencies required in ambulatory care settings

A study was conducted to identify the most important competencies physician executives in medical groups and other ambulatory settings will need to have in the next five years. The specific job skills, knowledge, and abilities (SKA) that physician executives will need to acquire these competencies were also explored. The Delphi techniques were used to analyze responses from two surveys from members of the American College of Medical Practice Executives. The most important competencies were grouped into 13 management domains, each with specific SKAs. "Managing health care resources to create quality and value" and "fundamentals of business and finance" were rated as the most important competencies. The most frequently rated SKA was the "ability to build and maintain credibility and trust."     

Pretrial negotiation, litigation, and procedural rules

We model the civil dispute resolution process as a two-stage game with the parties bargaining to reach a settlement in the first stage and then playing a litigation expenditure game at trial in the second stage. We find that the English rule shifts the settlement away from the interim fair and unbiased settlement in most circumstances. Overall welfare changes are in favor of the party who makes the offer in the pretrial negotiation stage. Lawyers however, always benefit from the English rule, because fee shifting increases the stake of the trial and thus intensifies the use of the legal service.     

“Understanding” as Support for Emerging Adults Whose Parents Have Chronic Health Conditions: A Life-Span Communication Perspective

To better understand the “chronic burden of care” in the United States, we focused on an underrepresented demographic of youth caregivers in families, emerging adults (EAs). EAs are a newly recognized population of youth, 18–25 years of age, who are developmentally between adolescence and young adulthood. Guided by the life span communication perspective, we interviewed 98 EAs (30 males and 68 females, M age = 19.09, SD = 1.72) about their experiences providing support to a parent with a chronic health condition. Many EAs in this study said they provided “understanding” and our interpretive thematic analyses uncovered two broad meanings of the word: it is a form of support that EAs both have and communicate. When EAs have understanding, they have knowledge about the health condition and how it affects their parent. They also have acceptance to some degree that the health condition is a fixture of their lives and that their parents are imperfect and fallible people. They communicate the understanding they have through reciprocating support, sacrificing, being obedient, avoiding sensitive topics, and projecting emotional strength. We discuss the findings and their implications for emerging adult development as well as parent-child relational development parallel to difficult long-term health issues in families.     

Moments of Special Normally Distributed Matrices

In solving systems of simultaneous random linear algebraic equations some approximating methods lead to the problem of determinating moments of special random matrices and vectors. In this article corresponding formulas are provided for moments of some normally distributed matrices. The deduced relations can be considered as a generalization of the known formulas for the central moments of normally distributed random variables.     

Trends in managed care organizations: implications for the physician executive.

The rapid change in the managed health care industry is placing substantial demands on the managerial and leadership skills of physician executives. These changes are forcing a reevaluation of the fundamental principles of managed care organizations, specifically in terms of patient satisfaction, cost containment, and quality health care. Additionally, the physician executive will be confronted with substantial issues concerning future staffing needs. This article assesses the health care industry's environment to suggest where managed care is going and how physician executives should position themselves to optimize their position in the marketplace.     

Adjusting Triangular Distributions for Judgmental Bias

The common problem in risk analysis of correctly specifying a probability distribution about an estimate in situations when few data are available is examined. In the absence of data, experts are sometimes used to give a lowest and highest conceivable estimate. Triangular distributions are well suited for these situations when only a low, high, and most likely estimate are given. A problem, however, exists from the failure to adjust for biases when estimating extreme values. Various types of biases, which narrow the range of extreme estimates, are explored. A method is suggested for accounting for these biases by placing extreme estimates at specified percentile points rather than endpoints of a triangular distribution. Since most Monte Carlo models require end points of a triangular distribution, a closed-form expression for identifying the end points given two percentile points and a most likely point is derived. This method has been used extensively in developing cost risk estimates for the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO).