Hospital Ownership Mix Efficiency in the US: An Exploratory Study

This paper offers an empirical test of ownership mix efficiency in the U.S. hospital services industry. The test compares the benefits of quality assurance with the costs from the attenuation of property rights that result from an increased presence of nonprofit organizations. The empirical results suggest that too many not-for-profit and public hospitals may exist in the typical market area of the U.S. The policy implication is that more quality of care per dollar might be obtained by attracting a greater percentage of for-profit hospitals into some market areas. This conclusion, however, is tempered with several caveats. We discuss these and also make recommendations for further research.

Do Agglomeration Economies Exist in the Hospital Services Industry

Given the importance of knowledge flows and the continued emphasis on face-to-face encounters especially for medical care, close proximity of hospitals may be essential for the efficient delivery of medical care. That is, hospital productivity might be greater where hospitals cluster and allow knowledge to more easily and quickly disperse among personnel in the various organizations. To add to the understanding about agglomeration economies in the hospital services sector, this study analyzes how the clustering of hospitals in the various metropolitan areas of the US affects industry wide productivity. The multiple regression analysis is conducted on a cross-sectional basis for both 1993 and 1999 and by using first differencing of the data between the two years. The observed productivity improvements resulting from the clustering of hospitals provides yet another justification for encouraging a larger number of hospitals in metropolitan areas.

Testing for Ownership Mix Efficiency: The Case of the Nursing Home Industry

This paper offers an empirical test of ownership mix efficiency in the U.S. nursing home industry. We test to compare the benefits of quality assurance with the costs from the attenuation of property rights that result from an increased presence of nonprofit organizations. The empirical results suggest that too few nonprofit nursing homes may exist in the typical market area of the U.S. The policy implication is that more quality of care per dollar might be obtained by attracting a greater percentage of nonprofit nursing homes into most market areas.

Explaining Pharmaceutical R&D Growth Rates at the Industry Level: New Perspectives and Insights

This paper uses aggregate data for the major pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. to study the rate of growth in pharmaceutical R&D intensity over the period from 1952 to 2001. The theoretical model argues and the empirical findings suggest that pharmaceutical R&D spending increases with real drug prices, after holding constant other determinants of R&D. Simulations based on our multiple regression model indicate that the capitalized value of pharmaceutical R&D spending would have been about 30 percent lower if the federal government had limited the rate of growth in drug price increases to the rate of growth in the general consumer price index during the period 1980 to 2001. Moreover, a drug price control regime would have resulted in 330 to 365 fewer new drugs brought to the global market during that same time period.Health and Safety

La condition de non-contiguïté accentuelle en français : théorie et pratique

Dell (1984) soutient que la condition de non-contiguïté accentuelle, qui est propre au français, interdit d’accentuer deux syllabes consécutives dans un même tronçon intonatif. En vertu de ce principe, un mot d’une syllabe en fin de tronçon désaccentue la syllabe finale du mot précédent; il faudrait donc prononcer les seaux de l’élève roux coulent comme si l’on disait les seaux de l’élève roucoulent. J’ai fait enregistrer par l’auteur en studio à Paris une centaine d’exemples tirés de son article pour les analyser phonétiquement et les soumettre à des tests de perception. Certaines de ses réalisations contredisent sa théorie.Dell (1984) maintains that the lack of accentual contiguity in French does not allow the stressing of consecutive syllables within the same intonational stretch. According to this principle, a monosyllabic word at the end of a stretch "unstresses" the final syllable of the preceding word; therefore, les seaux de l’élève roux coulent should be intoned as would be les seaux de l’élève roucoulent. We recorded the author's realization of about a hundred examples drawn from his own article in order to make a phonetic analysis and a number of perception tests. We found that some of them contradict the author's theory

Une alliance synergique pour la réussite des étudiants autochtones au Cégep de Baie-Comeau

Revue de la persévérance et de la réussite scolaires chez les Premiers Peuples, vol. 1, 2014Comprend des références bibliographique