Do Fairness Opinion Valuations Contain Useful Information?

We analyze target firm valuations disclosed in the fairness opinions of negotiated mergers between 1998 and 2005. On average, acquirer advisors exhibit a greater degree of valuation optimism than do target advisors. Top-tier advisors produce more accurate valuations than lower-tier advisors, but valuation accuracy is unrelated to the contingency structure of advisory fees. The stock price reactions to merger announcements and to the public disclosure of fairness opinions are positively related to the difference between target firm valuations contained in the fairness opinion and the merger offer price. We conclude that fairness opinions contain information not previously available to market participants.

Transparency Trade-Offs: Priority Setting, Scarcity, and Health Fairness

This chapter argues that rather than viewing transparency as a right, we should regard it as a finite resource whose allocation involves tradeoffs. It then argues that those tradeoffs should be resolved by using a multi-principle approach to distributive justice. The relevant principles include maximizing welfare, maximizing autonomy, and giving priority to the worst off. Finally, it examines some of the implications for law of recognizing the tradeoffs presented by transparency proposals

Bootstrapping the Long Tail in Peer to Peer Systems

We describe an efficient incentive mechanism for P2P systems that generates a wide diversity of content offerings while responding adaptively to customer demand. Files are served and paid for through a parimutuel market similar to that commonly used for betting in horse races. An analysis of the performance of such a system shows that there exists an equilibrium with a long tail in the distribution of content offerings, which guarantees the real time provision of any content regardless of its popularity

The antecedents and consequences of service customer citizenship and badness behavior

This paper presents an empirical test of the antecedents and consequences of customer extra-role behavior (i.e., customer citizenship behavior and badness behavior). The model posits that negative affect, perceived justice, and commitment lead to customer extra-role behavior. In turn, such extra-role behavior is expected to impact perceived service quality. The model was tested in an exercise class context of participants at sports center. Results from the empirical test indicated that managing customer extra-role behavior is as important as that of employee. Secondly, the study found that the organization have to manage the negative affect of customers to prevent customer badness behavior, and perceived justice and commitment to increase customer citizenship behavior. Implications are discussed, possible areas of further research are indicated, and limitations of the study are noted

Trade & Cap: A Customer-Managed, Market-Based System for Trading Bandwidth Allowances at a Shared Link

We propose Trade & Cap (T&C), an economics-inspired mechanism that incentivizes users to voluntarily coordinate their consumption of the bandwidth of a shared resource (e.g., a DSLAM link) so as to converge on what they perceive to be an equitable allocation, while ensuring efficient resource utilization. Under T&C, rather than acting as an arbiter, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) acts as an enforcer of what the community of rational users sharing the resource decides is a fair allocation of that resource. Our T&C mechanism proceeds in two phases. In the first, software agents acting on behalf of users engage in a strategic trading game in which each user agent selfishly chooses bandwidth slots to reserve in support of primary, interactive network usage activities. In the second phase, each user is allowed to acquire additional bandwidth slots in support of presumed open-ended need for fluid bandwidth, catering to secondary applications. The acquisition of this fluid bandwidth is subject to the remaining "buying power" of each user and by prevalent "market prices" – both of which are determined by the results of the trading phase and a desirable aggregate cap on link utilization. We present analytical results that establish the underpinnings of our T&C mechanism, including game-theoretic results pertaining to the trading phase, and pricing of fluid bandwidth allocation pertaining to the capping phase. Using real network traces, we present extensive experimental results that demonstrate the benefits of our scheme, which we also show to be practical by highlighting the salient features of an efficient implementation architecture.National Science Foundation (CCF-0820138, CSR-0720604, EFRI-0735974, CNS-0524477, and CNS-0520166); Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and COLCIENCIAS–Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnología “Francisco Jose ́ de Caldas”

Managed Care’s Crimea: Medical Necessity, Therapeutic Benefit, and the Goals of Administrative Process in Health Insurance

En brotyp som är vanlig bland brokonstruktioner är plattrambron. Denna brotyp byggs både med slak- och spännarmering. Det är dock vanligare att bygga med slakarmering än spännarmering, vilket övervägs särskilt då spännvidderna är ungefär 25- 30 meter eller mer. Inledningsvis har en noggrann litteraturstudie genomförts tillsammans med en intervju av en kunnig brokonstruktör för att säkerställa en interaktion mellan teori och aktuell praxis. Detta arbete har haft ett huvudmål, vilket är att ur ett struktur- och kostnadsperspektiv jämföra och utvärdera hur behovet av slakarmering varierar i en plattrambros farbana då spännvidder varieras och betongtvärsnitt ändras. Arbetet har utförts med hjälp av finita elementprogrammet ”Brigade Standard”, vilket erbjuder en tre-dimensionell strukturanalys. Fyra olika tvärsnitt för spännvidder mellan 10-20 meter analyseras. Dimensioner på brodelar bestäms med hjälp av tumregler samt generella råd från intervjuperson; höjd i fält enligt L/20, L/25, L/30 samt L/35, där L är spännvidden. Resultatet visar främst att för ökade spännvidder mot 20 meter ökar lasteffekten på grund av egentyngd drastiskt och då särskilt det tvärsnitt som är störst, det vill säga L/20. Vidare visas även att slankare tvärsnitt resulterar i aningen högre armeringsmängd. Dock påverkas betongkostnaden i större utsträckning av slankare tvärsnitt och särskilt större spännvidder. Även om större spännvidd och slankare tvärsnitt föranleder ett större armeringsbehov, fås en lägre totalkostnad. Det bör noteras att priset på betong och stål är starkt beroende av konjunktur och tillgång till material. Denna studie kan bli ännu intressantare då priset varierar kraftigt för stål och föranleder att betongpriset blir mindre dominerande än vad det är idag. Huvudprodukten från detta arbete är att med hjälp av tabeller och nya priser kunna beräkna en preliminär totalkostnad för plattrambrons farbana för olika spännvidder och hur olika tvärsnittsalternativ påverkar denna kostnad