Determining the potential scalability of transport interventions for improving maternal, child, and newborn health in Pakistan

Background: Pakistan is far behind in achieving the Millennium Development Goals regarding the reduction of child and maternal mortality. Amongst other factors, transport barriers make the requisite obstetric care inaccessible for women during pregnancy and at birth, when complications may become life threatening for mother and child. The significance of efficient transport in maternal and neonatal health calls for identifying which currently implemented transport interventions have potential for scalability. Methods: A qualitative appraisal of data and information about selected transport interventions generated primarily by beneficiaries, coordinators, and heads of organizations working with maternal, child, and newborn health programs was conducted against the CORRECT criteria of Credibility, Observability, Relevance, Relative Advantage, Easy-Transferability, Compatibility and Testability. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) techniques were used to analyse seven interventions against operational indicators. Logical inference was drawn to assess the implications of each intervention. QCA was used to determine simplifying and complicating factors to measure potential for scaling up of the selected transport intervention. Results: Despite challenges like deficient in-journey care and need for greater community involvement, community-based ambulance services were managed with the support of the community and had a relatively simple model, and therefore had high scalability potential. Other interventions, including facility-based services, public-sector emergency services, and transport voucher schemes, had limitations of governance, long-term sustainability, large capital expenditures, and need for management agencies that adversely affected their scalability potential. Conclusion: To reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality and increase accessibility of health facilities, it is important to build effective referral linkages through efficient transport systems. Effective linkages between community-based models, facility-based models, and public sector emergency services should be established to provide comprehensive coverage. Voucher scheme integrated with community-based services may bring improvements in service utilization

The impact on Key Performance Indicators after Merger & Acquisition

Merger and Acquisition is an important activity for the companies involved in it. They are a method for the acquiring company to increase not only its market presence, but it also helps to increase share holders value and diversifies the product portfolio. This study is focused on the pharmaceutical industry because of its global presence and due to the importance of pharma industry in our daily lives. Businesses all over the world operate in a cycle of booming and crashing. We found out that most of the mergers which happened in the pharma industry were during the booming period of business. We found out that there are different reasons for both the buying and the selling company to participate in the Merger and Acquisition process. The authors have used secondary source of data collection because meeting in person to collect primary data is not possible due to the current situation of Covid-19. We have decided to use Qualitative approach for data analysis as our research is focused on only the key performance indicators using the data from 4 major mergers. The selection of cases in the study is made considering the geographical presence of the companies. We have tried to cover mergers from diverse markets to understand and show the reader how it affects the key performance indicators in different markets

The impact on Key Performance Indicators after Merger & Acquisition

Merger and Acquisition is an important activity for the companies involved in it. They are a method for the acquiring company to increase not only its market presence, but it also helps to increase share holders value and diversifies the product portfolio. This study is focused on the pharmaceutical industry because of its global presence and due to the importance of pharma industry in our daily lives. Businesses all over the world operate in a cycle of booming and crashing. We found out that most of the mergers which happened in the pharma industry were during the booming period of business. We found out that there are different reasons for both the buying and the selling company to participate in the Merger and Acquisition process. The authors have used secondary source of data collection because meeting in person to collect primary data is not possible due to the current situation of Covid-19. We have decided to use Qualitative approach for data analysis as our research is focused on only the key performance indicators using the data from 4 major mergers. The selection of cases in the study is made considering the geographical presence of the companies. We have tried to cover mergers from diverse markets to understand and show the reader how it affects the key performance indicators in different markets

TAX PROGRESSIVITY AND CORPORATE INCENTIVES TO HEDGE

If a company faces some form of tax progressivity-that is, its marginal tax rate increases over the firm's expected range of reported taxable income-corporate hedging can reduce the firm's expected tax liability by reducing the volatility of pre-tax income. In a study described in this article, the authors used simulation methods to investigate the extent to which tax progressivity arises from various provisions of the tax code, such as the AMT and tax carryforwards and carrybacks. Based on their analysis of over 80,000 COMPUSTAT firm-year observations, the authors find that, in about 50% of the cases, corporations face effective tax functions that exhibit progressivity. The other 50% of cases are about evenly divided between firms that are tax neutral and those facing tax schedules that are "regressive" (again, over the relevant range of expected reported income). 2000 Morgan Stanley.