Existence of pure strategy equilibria among geographically dispersed firms

This paper gives a proof of existence of price equilibria under certain parameters for a model of product differentiation commonly used in the empirical geographic differentiation literature. This proof is needed because the assumptions of Caplin and Nalebuff (1991) are not generally satisfied once data is introduced to geographic models. The theorem also has implications for existence in mixed-logit demand models.Differentiated products

How Context Affects Choice

Due to its origins in the literature on judgment and decision-making, context effects in marketing are construed exclusively in terms of how choices deviate from utility maximization principles as a function of how choices are presented (e.g., framing, sequence, composition). This limits our understanding of a range of other relevant context effects on choice. This paper broadens the scope of context effects to include social (e.g., with friends or family) and situational factors (e.g., location (home/store), time, weather).We define contexts as any factor that has the potential to shift the choice outcomes by altering the process by which the decision is made. We use this lens to integrate the psychology literature on habitual choice, System I and II decision-making, and a recent stream of empirical work that involves social and situational effects into the scope of context effects. We distinguish between exogenous and endogenous context effects, based on whether the decision-maker chooses the context. We then discuss issues of empirically identifying context effects when using either experimentally generated data or naturally occurring secondary data. We conclude with a discussion of trends and opportunities for new research on context effects

Refocusing Loyalty Programs in the Era of Big Data: A Societal Lens Paradigm

Big data and technological change have enabled loyalty programs to become more prevalent and complex. How these developments influence society has been overlooked, both in academic research and in practice. We argue why this issue is important and propose a framework to refocus loyalty programs in the era of big data through a societal lens. We focus on three aspects of the societal lens-inequality, privacy, and sustainability. We discuss how loyalty programs in the big data era impact each of these societal factors, and then illustrate how, by adopting this societal lens paradigm, researchers and practitioners can generate insights and ideas that address the challenges and opportunities that arise from the interaction between loyalty programs and society. Our goal is to broaden the perspectives of researchers and managers so they can enhance loyalty programs to address evolving societal needs

How Costly Is Hospital Quality? A Revealed-Preference Approach

Abstract We analyze the cost of quality improvement in hospitals, dealing with two challenges. Hospital quality is multidimensional and hard to measure, while unobserved productivity may in ‡uence quality supply. We infer the quality of hospitals in Los Angeles from patient choices. We then incorporate 'revealed quality' into a cost function, instrumenting with hospital demand. We …nd that revealed quality di¤erentiates hospitals, but is not strongly correlated with clinical quality. Revealed quality is quite costly, and tends to increase with hospital productivity. Thus, non-clinical aspects of the hospital experience (perhaps including patient amenities) play important roles in hospital demand, competition, and costs. We wish to than

The Time to Offer Treatments for COVID-19

Introduction: COVID-19 has several overlapping phases. Treatment has focused on the late stage of the disease in hospital. Yet, the continuation of the pandemic is by propagation of the disease in outpatients. The current public health strategy relies solely on vaccines to prevent disease. Areas Covered: We searched the major national registries, pubmed.org, and the preprint servers for all ongoing, completed and published trial results with subject numbers of 100 or more on, and used a targeted search to find announcements of unpublished trial results. As of 2/15/2021, we found 111 publications reporting findings in human studies on 14 classes of agents, and on 9 vaccines. There were 62 randomized controlled studies, the rest retrospective observational analyses. Only 21 publications dealt with outpatient care, the rest all in hospitalized patients. Remdesivir and convalescent plasma have emergency use authorization for hospitalized patients in the U.S.A. There is also support for glucocorticoid treatment of the COVID-19 respiratory distress syndrome. Monoclonal antibodies are authorized for outpatients, but the supply is inadequate to treat all at time of diagnosis. Favipiravir, ivermectin, and interferons are approved in certain countries Expert Opinion: Worldwide vaccination is now underway. Vaccines and antibodies are highly antigen specific and new variants are appearing. There is a need for treatment of outpatients who contract the disease, in addition to mass immunization. We call on public health authorities to authorize treatments with known low risk and potential benefit for use in parallel with mass immunization