Business Economics articles from April 2007

Business Economics archives from April 2007

From the editor.(Editorial)
April 1, 2007... Reflecting the diverse concerns of economics in business, this issue's papers address five apparently-unrelated topics. (In economics, many of us suspect that everything is related to everything else, even if we do not know how.) Each of...

Housing activity and consumer spending: the link is not as strong as often supposed.
April 1, 2007... The current expansion has seen record-high levels of transactions in housing, extraordinary growth in the aggregate value of owner-occupied housing, and large increases in the amount of funds realized from the refinancing of mortgage debt. Many...

Dynamic adjustments in transfer pricing agreements.
April 1, 2007... This paper examines the issue of using past economic performance to benchmark transfer prices in advance pricing agreements (APAs) and explores methods that allow transfer prices to reflect current economic performance. The paper applies these...

The propensity to sue: why do people seek legal actions? A sense of grievance appears to be as important as economic factors.
April 1, 2007... Tort costs as a fraction of U.S. GDP have increased over three-fold in the past 50 years, now hovering slightly above two percent. Although there has been much ink spilled blaming the plaintiffs' bar and so-called hellhole jurisdictions, less...

Consumer-driven healthcare: information, incentives, enrollment, and implications for national health expenditures; There are reasons for optimism.
April 1, 2007... We highlight the importance of information for consumer-driven healthcare (CDHC), describe barriers, display data on adoption rates and product features, and use a new health modeling approach to investigate the potential impact on national...

New dimensions of financial liberalization in Japan: differences between the financial structures of Japan and the United States are likely to persist.
April 1, 2007... This article contrasts the development of Japanese financial institutions over the past 50 years to that of the United States and compares the two countries' household savings behavior. Although reform and liberalization is driving the Japanese...

New monthly hours and earnings measures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Current Employment Statistics program.(FOCUS ON STATISTICS)(Survey)
April 1, 2007... On April 6, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) began the release of new monthly measures of hours and earnings for March 2006 to January 2007, based on newly collected data from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey. The measures...

Redefining Health Care: Creating Volume-Based Competition on Results.(Book review)
April 1, 2007... Redefining Health Care: Creating Volume-Based Competition on Results By Michael Porter and Elizabeth. Olmsted Teisberg. 2006. Harvard Business School Press, 506 pages, $35 hardcover. Have you ever wondered why the medical marketplace...