Discrimination in an elite labour market? Job placements at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

Using data on the IIM-Ahmedabad's 2006 batch of MBA graduates, we find that SC/ST (Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe) graduates get significantly lower wages (between 19 and 35 percent depending on the exchange rate used to convert foreign currencies) than those in the general category. This difference disappears once the lower GPAs (Grade Point Averages) of SC/ST candidates are accounted for, suggesting that the large wage difference is due to the weaker (on average) academic performance of SC/ST candidates. Controlling for work experience and GPA, there is no wage penalty to being female. Moreover, unlike the case in US and British labour markets, there is only weak evidence of wage premium to being more attractive, where attractiveness was measured in the standard manner by anonymous ratings of passport-type photographs by twenty raters. The study suggests that in the absence of any serious attempt to equalise school-level opportunities, the current policy of reservations at elite educational institutions will be insufficient to equalise career outcomes even for the minority of SC/ST candidates that can benefit from them.

Incentives for Developers’ Contributions and Product Performance Metrics in Open Source Development: An Empirical Exploration

In open source software development, users rather than paid developers engage in innovation and development without the direct involvement of manufacturers. This paradigm cannot be explained by the two traditional models of innovation, the private investment model and the collective action model. Neither model in itself can explain the phenomenon of the open source model or its success. In order to bridge the gap between existing models and the open source phenomenon, we analyze data from a web survey of 160 open source developers. First, we investigate the motives affecting the individual developer’s contributions by comparing and contrasting the incentives from both the traditional private investment and collective action models. Second, we demonstrate that there is a common ground between the private and collective models where private returns and social considerations can coexist. Third, we explore the effect of incentives on the output of innovation—final product performance. The results show that the motivations for individual developer’s contributions are quite different from the incentives that affect product performance.

Risk, Ambiguity - Gains, Losses

We use a multiple price list (MPL) method to elicit attitudes to risky and ambiguous prospects. In particular we wish to investigate if there are differences in agent behaviour under uncertainty over gain amounts vis a vis uncertainty over loss amounts. On an aggregate level, we find that (i) in the domain of risk, subjects are risk averse over both gain and loss lotteries with the degree of risk aversion being lower for losses than gains, (ii) subjects are ambiguity averse over ambiguous prospects that involve gains, but that they are mildly ambiguity seeking over such prospects that involve loss and (iii) attitudes toward risk and ambiguity are positively correlated in the domain of gains and are independent of each other in the domain of losses. These behavioural observations are statically significant using both parametric as well as non-parametric tests. Further analysis shows that at an individual level, (a) in the domain of risk, there is a high incidence of a reflection effect across gains and losses though the subjects’ behaviour is bimodal, that is, many are risk averse in gains and risk seeking in losses while many others are risk seeking in gains and risk averse in losses, while (b) in the domain of ambiguity, there is also a high incidence of a reflection effect although almost all such cases exhibit ambiguity aversion in gains and ambiguity seeking in losses.

Does the Profit Motive Make Jack Nimble? Ownership Form and the Evolution of the U.S. Hospital Industry

We examine the evolving structure of the U.S. hospital industry since 1970, focusing on how ownership form influences entry and exit behavior. We develop theoretical predictions based on the model of Lakdawalla and Philipson, in which for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals differ regarding their objectives and costs of capital. The model predicts for-profits would be quicker to enter and exit than not-for-profits in response to changing market conditions. We test this hypothesis using data for all U.S. hospitals from 1984 through 2000. Examining annual and regional entry and exit rates, for-profit hospitals consistently have higher entry and exit rates than not-for-profits. Econometric modeling of entry and exit rates yields similar patterns. Estimates of an ordered probit model of entry indicate that entry is more responsive to demand changes for for-profit than not-for-profit hospitals. Estimates of a discrete hazard model for exit similarly indicate that negative demand shifts increase the probability of exit more for for-profits than not-for-profits. Finally, membership in a hospital chain significantly decreases the probability of exit for for-profits, but not not-for-profits.

Does the Profit Motive Make Jack Nimble? Ownership Form and the Evolution of the U.S. Hospital Industry

We examine the evolving structure of the U.S. hospital industry since 1970, focusing on how ownership form influences entry and exit behavior. We develop theoretical predictions based on the model of Lakdawalla and Philipson, in which for-profit and not-for-profit hospitals differ regarding their objectives and costs of capital. The model predicts for-profits would be quicker to enter and exit than not-for-profits in response to changing market conditions. We test this hypothesis using data for all U.S. hospitals from 1984 through 2000. Examining annual and regional entry and exit rates, for-profit hospitals consistently have higher entry and exit rates than not-for-profits. Econometric modeling of entry and exit rates yields similar patterns. Estimates of an ordered probit model of entry indicate that entry is more responsive to demand changes for for-profit than not-for-profit hospitals. Estimates of a discrete hazard model for exit similarly indicate that negative demand shifts increase the probability of exit more for for-profits than not-for-profits. Finally, membership in a hospital chain significantly decreases the probability of exit for for-profits, but not not-for-profits.

Recent trends in hospital market concentration and profitability: the case of New Jersey

Background: The United States (U.S.) and other countries rely on systems of private negotiations between insurance companies and hospitals to set hospital prices. To shed light on the implications of recent trends in hospital market consolidation in the U.S., particularly in New Jersey where not-for-profit hospitals dominate, we examined changes in hospital financial margins in New Jersey during a period of sustained consolidation activities. Methods: We documented trends in hospital market concentration and operating margins for the state overall as well as each of eight hospital market areas (HMAs) from 2010 to 2020 and examined the associations in trends between these measures. Market concentration was measured using the standard Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). We employed hospital-level ordinary least squares (OLS) regression to examine the relationship between market concentration and operating margins in quadratic models. For robustness, three alternative specifications were considered, controlling for observed hospital characteristics and hospital fixed effects. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to test the impacts of the pandemic, a time lag, and hospital size. Results: We found that hospital markets in New Jersey underwent increasing consolidation during our study period. By 2020, six HMAs, accounting for 71% of the total admissions in the state, were considered “highly concentrated” (HHI >0.25). On average, while there were some increases in operating margins in the earlier years, almost all HMAs exhibited relatively lower levels around 2020. Our regression model revealed that hospital market concentration was positively associated with hospital operating margins, but only at higher levels of concentration—above an HHI threshold level of 0.361. This finding is robust to controls for hospital characteristics, including hospital ownership status, and hospital fixed effects. As effect sizes from the lagged models did not differ much from our main results, it appears that the potential effect of increased concentration on margins occurred without much delay. Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate the need for continued scrutiny of proposed consolidation activity, rigorous enforcement of antitrust regulations, and development of policies by state and federal authorities to monitor and regulate prices and quality of care in markets that are already highly concentrated

Effect of compressive stress on Fe self-diffusion in nanocrystalline FeN(Zr) thin films

In the present work the effect of compressive stress on self-diffusion of Fe in nanocrystalline FeN(Zr) alloys has been investigated. Two different types of Fe64N26Zr10 samples, one without applied stress and another with applied compressive stress of 42 GPa, were deposited under identical conditions using magnetron sputtering. The stress has been applied to the sample by bending the substrate during the deposition using a three point bending device. The self-diffusivities of Fe were determined by measuring the broadening of 57Fe marker layers by Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry after annealing at 443 K, 483 K and 523 K for 1 hour. The activation energy and preexponential factor for Fe diffusion is comparatively higher in the stressed sample. The higher activation energy might be due to the fact that the system transforms into a more dense state when compressive stress is applied

Effect of RF power on the structural, optical and gas sensing properties of RF-​sputtered Al doped ZnO thin films

The effect of Radio Frequency (RF) power on the properties of magnetron sputtered Al doped ZnO thin films and the related sensor properties are investigated. A series of 2 wt​% Al doped ZnO; Zn0.98Al0.02O (AZO) thin films prepd. with magnetron sputtering at different RF powers, are examd. The structural results reveal a good adhesive nature of thin films with quartz substrates as well as increasing thickness of the films with increasing RF power. Besides, the increasing RF power is found to improve the crystallinity and grain growth as confirmed by X-​ray diffraction. On the other hand, the optical transmittance is significantly influenced by the RF power, where the transparency values achieved are higher than 82​% for all the AZO thin films and the estd. optical band gap energy is found to decrease with RF power due to an increase in the crystallite size as well as the film thickness. In addn., the defect induced luminescence at low temp. (77 K) and room temp. (300 K) was studied through photoluminescence spectroscopy, it is found that the defect d. of electronic states of the Al3+ ion increases with an increase of RF power due to the increase in the thickness of the film and the crystallite size. The gas sensing behavior of AZO films was studied for NO2 at 350 °C. The AZO film shows a good response towards NO2 gas and also a good relationship between the response and the NO2 concn., which is modeled using an empirical formula. The sensing mechanism of NO2 is discussed