technological learning environments and organizational practices cross sectoral evidence from britain this study explores the co occurrence of technological and organizational learning processes by analyzing the adoption and use of four types of human resource management hrm practices rewarding problem solving top down management and decentralization in the 1990s across different technological learning environments using a sample of british workplaces we show that the level of use of diverse hrm practices aimed at creating different learning incentives is persistently heterogeneous across technological learning environments suggesting that hrm forms an essential part of the technological learning structure of firms copyright 2011 the author 2011 published by oxford university press on behalf of associazione icc all rights reserved oxford university press

social evaluation functions economic isolation and the suits index of progressivity abstract we propose a class of social evaluation functions which capture the well being of economically isolated individuals in a society this specification is linked to the important sociological literature on socioeconomic isolation and to the increasing importance of social exclusion as a basis for the formulation of social policy from these social evaluation functions which obey standard axioms of welfare economics associated classes of indices of inequality tax departure from proportionality and tax redistribution are derived an important special case of these indices is the popular suits index of progressivity for which no social welfare foundation has previously been provided we illustrate this interpretation of the suits indices using the british regime of personal income taxes and national insurance contributions we find that they reduce economic isolation by up to 10

market structure uncertainty and intrafirm diffusion the case of optical scanners in grocery stores this study uses monthly data on the adoption of optical scanners by sixty three grocery chains in thirty two large u s cities to identify the determinants of the rate of intrafirm diffusion the methodology involves a two stage approach that relates market environment characteristics to the estimated rate of intrafirm diffusion the results indicate that firms with larger market shares adopt a new innovation scanners more quickly initially but diffuse the innovation through their stores more slowly than firms with smaller market shares in addition firms that lag competitors in the initial adoption of scanners tend to diffuse the innovation more quickly copyright 1992 by mit press

the effects of expectations on technology adoption some empirical evidence n rosenberg 1976 argues that in many markets prospective buyers for an innovation are strongly influenced by expectations concerning the timing and significance of future improvements the primary objectives of this article are to provide a model of the innovation decision process of user firms that expect improvements in current best technology and to offer an empirical study that tests the model s predictions among other results the author finds empirical support for rosenberg s argument and demonstrates theoretically that compared to models without technological expectations and learning the optimal decision process is nonmonotonic copyright 1994 by blackwell publishing ltd

determinants of environmental investments testing the structural model abstract the main purpose of this study is to provide the needed additional quantitative evidence regarding the introduction of environmental technologies and to increase the possibility for generalization and thus policy application of conclusions to achieve that purpose a conceptual model is developed and then tested on a large database of firms from various industries with the use of structural equation modeling the results show that policy measures past environmental investments the importance of environmental technologies for customers and the firm performance have a positive effect on environmental investments furthermore the results show that policy measures are a second order three factor construct

innovations and the economics of new technology spreading within and across users gaps and way forward r d subsidies are often considered the main policy tool to stimulate the competitiveness and the innovativeness of firms this is especially true for innovations designed to produce greener products or cleaner and more energy efficient technologies however a consistent literature has now shown that even when a clean or a cost reducing technology is ready available in the market its spreading within intra or across inter households or firms takes several years and in some cases decades therefore it is not only important to generate innovations via investments in r d but it is also important that such innovations are adopted and used by firms this paper briefly illustrates the main theoretical approaches to the analysis of the factors leading to inter firm diffusion and emphasise the existing gap led by the paucity of literature on intra firm diffusion a final section briefly discusses some methodological issues surrounding the diffusion of consumer non durable technologies within and across households and how ad hoc models can be used to test the validity of environmental policies

the determinants of technology adoption the case of the banking firm using data on the adoption of automatic teller machines by firms in the banking industry this study examines the relationship between the decision to adopt new technology and its determinants since banking firms differ considerably in terms of the competitive environments in which they operate focusing on this one innovation in this industry allows a stronger test of the relationship between market structure and the adoption of new technology than has been previously conducted using a failure time estimation procedure we find that larger banks and banks operating in more concentrated local banking markets register a higher conditional probability of adopting this new technology all else equal we also find that other results are consistent with the underlying model and that the bank s regulatory environment shapes its adoption decision in plausible ways

who pays for health care in asia we estimate the distributional incidence of health care financing in 13 asian territories that account for 55 of the asian population in all territories higher income households contribute more to the financing of health care the better off contribute more as a proportion of ability to pay in most low and lower middle income territories health care financing is slightly regressive in three high income economies with universal social insurance direct taxation is the most progressive source of finance and is most so in poorer economies in universal systems social insurance is proportional to regressive in high income economies the out of pocket oop payments are proportional or regressive while in low income economies the better off spend relatively more oop but in most low middle income countries the better off not only pay more they also get more health care

investment in technological innovations an option pricing approach abstract this paper develops a model of the optimal investment strategy for a firm confronted with a sequence of technological innovations we incorporate many of the most important characteristics of real world technology markets for example we permit innovations to be stochastic in their arrival times and their profitability we also incorporate learning so that firms adopting current innovations become better able to benefit from future innovations the model yields four distinct investment strategies the model is then used to predict actual firm policy these implications are discussed and compared with observed firm behavior

a measure of horizontal inequity politicians academicians and the general public alike have perceived that the status quo tax and transfer legislation creates inequities among living units tax laws create numerous situations in which living units with seemingly equal abilities to pay are taxed quite different amounts state by state differences in welfare eligibility rules benefit schedules and administrative procedures the general unavailability of cash welfare to childless nonaged healthy couples and single individuals and other features of transfer programs similarly provide vastly different levels of income support to units with equal needs advocates of major tax and welfare reform have marshalled such evidence into a central argument in favor of their proposals while there is wide agreement that the process of redistributing incomes abounds with inequities there have been few attempts to quantify their extent 2 this paper develops a measure of horizontal inequity and illustrates its use section ii discusses the concept of horizontal equity then builds upon familiar lorenz curve gini coefficient analysis to derive the inequity index the third part considers some problems of implementing the measure and illustrates it section iv provides a short conclusion

progressivity horizontal equity and reranking in health care finance a decomposition analysis for the netherlands this paper employs the method of aronson et al 1994 to decompose the redistributive effect of the dutch health care financing system into three components a progressivity component a classical horizontal equity component and a reranking component results are presented for the health care financing system as a whole as well as for its constituent parts a final section sets out to uncover the relative importance in terms of their effects on progressivity horizontal equity and reranking of the key institutional features of one component of the dutch system the awbz social insurance scheme

the redistributive effect of health care finance in twelve oecd countries the oecd countries finance their health care through a mixture of taxes social insurance contributions private insurance premiums and out of pocket payments the various payment sources have very different implications for both vertical and horizontal equity and on redistributive effect which is a function of both this paper presents results on the income redistribution consequences of the health care financing mixes adopted in twelve oecd countries by decomposing the overall income redistributive effect into a progressivity horizontal inequity and reranking component the general finding of this study is that the vertical effect is much more important than horizontal inequity and reranking in determining the overall redistributive effect but that their relative importance varies by source of payment public finance sources tend to have small positive redistributive effects and less differential treatment while private financing sources generally have larger negative redistributive effects which are to a substantial degree caused by differential treatment

multi stage product development with exploration value enhancing preemptive and innovation options abstract we provide a real options framework for the analysis of product development that incorporates research and exploration actions product attribute value enhancing actions with uncertain outcome as well as preemption and innovation options we derive two stage analytic formulas and propose a general multi period solution using a numerical lattice approach our analysis reveals that exploration actions are more important when the project is out or at the money near zero npv and less important for high project values in a multi stage setting exploration actions are important even for in the money projects when follow on actions exist that can enhance the expected value of the project with path dependency early actions are more valuable since they enhance the impact or reduce the cost of subsequent actions preemptive controls affecting rare event jump frequency and innovations that introduce positive jumps are more valuable for firms with higher frequency of competitive threats involving low volatility

empirical measurement of horizontal inequity abstract horizontal inequity is the unequal treatment of equals a crucial problem arising when measuring its extent is how should differential treatment which has some equity justification be distinguished from that which does not the literature to date has suggested that genuine equals can be identified and thence the problem solved by adjusting incomes prior to calculations using equivalence scales the paper argues that there are some good reasons for considering an alternative approach labelled partial symmetry in this the emphasis is on measuring horizontal inequity within each group of households with the same equity relevant characteristics rather than on adjusting incomes and then using the same measure for all households in the population the approaches are compared theoritically with reference to summary indices based on the generalised entropy family and to the conditions required to make partial orderings of different redistributions exploratory empirical work suggests there has been a substantial reduction in the horizontal inequity of u k direct taxes between 1976 and 1981 whichever approach is used the sources of the inequity observed are analysed in detail

intra plant diffusion of new technology role of productivity in the study of steel refining furnaces abstract this paper examines intra plant diffusion of new technology in the japanese steel industry the introduction of the basic oxygen furnace bof was the greatest breakthrough in steel refining in the last century using unique panel data the paper estimates total factor productivity by technology type and associates the estimates with intra plant diffusion the paper finds that intra plant diffusion accounts for about a half of the industry productivity growth large plants are likely to adopt the new technology earlier but retain the old technology longer than their smaller counterparts

are more innovative firms less vulnerable to new environmental regulation compliance with pollution limits and standards requires firms to implement adaptation processes that are not only costly themselves but also affect future profits in as much as they modify production systems and methods this paper attempts to respond to the question of how technological knowledge moderates the effect that the implementation of a new environmental regulation has on the results of affected firms the regulation selected for this study is the integrated pollution prevention and control act ippc a multivariate regression model mvrm has been applied to the regulatory event the most important implication of this paper is that technological knowledge prepares a firm for adapting to a greater environmental demand such as may be derived from a new regulation

equity during an economic crisis financing of the argentine health system this article analyses the redistributive effect caused by health financing and the distribution of healthcare utilization in argentina before and during the severe 2001 2002 economic crisis both dramatically changed during this period the redistributive effect became much more positive and utilization shifted from pro poor to pro rich this clearly demonstrates that when utilization is contingent on financing changes can occur rapidly and that an integrated approach is required when monitoring equity from a policy perspective the argentine health system appears vulnerable to economic downturns mainly due to high reliance on out of pocket payments and the strong link between health insurance and employment

non capital investment costs and the adoption of cad and cnc in the u s metalworking industries many studies have shown that firm size is the strongest and most consistent predictor of the adoption of technological innovations but the causes for this relationship are debated i investigate the relationships between various size measures and the adoption of computer aided design cad and computer numerically controlled cnc machine tools plant size is the dominant factor in predicting cad and cnc adoption other measures such as firm size or multiplant operations have independent effects that are not present after controlling for plant size i test four potential explanations for the results noncapital cost spreading equipment replacement risk aversion and learning there is support only for the first explanation

rank stock order and epidemic effects in the diffusion of new process technologies an empirical model in this article we construct a general duration model of technology adoption that incorporates the main factors discussed in different theories of diffusion of new process technologies the model is applied to data on diffusion of cnc in the uk engineering industry although we find strong evidence in support of rank and endogenous learning effects there seems to be little evidence in support of the stock and order effects the main factors affecting the diffusion of cnc are found to be endogenous learning firm size industry growth rates the cost of the technology and expected changes in the cost of the technology

the intra firm diffusion of new process technologies the study of intra firm diffusion has largely been neglected and the limited extant literature overwhelmingly relies upon uncertainty reduction via information spreading or epidemic learning as the main driver in this paper an alternative approach is taken whereby the intra firm diffusion of new process technologies reflects the profitability of new technology adoption as proxied by firm characteristics the approach is tested using data relating to the diffusion of computer numerically controlled machine tools within firms in the uk engineering and metalworking sectors the empirical analysis does not reject the hypothesis that profitability considerations are important with a number of firm characteristics being isolated as of special relevance including firm size and the use of complementary technologies and managerial techniques however there is little support for the traditional epidemic effect

the role of technological expectations in a mixed model of international diffusion of process innovations the case of open end spinning rotors abstract in the years following the introduction of open end rotors a major innovation in cotton spinning technological change in spinning has been characterized by fast rates of introduction of incremental innovations this has made possible considerable improvements in the quality of products as well as reductions in the cost of spinning this case seems especially appropriate for analysing the effects of incremental innovations on the rate of diffusion one the one hand expectations of continuing incremental change may have actually slowed the diffusion of open end rotors contrarily increased profitability from their adoption may have reinforced the rate of diffusion a mixed model of diffusion one that is able to evaluate the role of supply forces such as the introduction of incremental innovations and at the same time the role of bounded rationality and learning by imitating has been developed it draws on the behavioural literature and upon the epidemic approach due to mansfield results of an econometric test on international data available for 26 countries confirm that the rate of introduction of incremental innovations has reduced the rate of diffusion this is especially the case in countries where the technological change in spinning was originated and consequently technological expectations were higher

complementarity and cumulative learning effects in early diffusion of multiple technologies this paper concentrates on the contextual diffusion of flexible automation production and design engineering technologies in the italian metalworking industry the authors use duration data analysis with explanatory covariates to point out the role of complementarities between the technologies examined and learning by using effects matured with experience of previously available technologies in shaping diffusion paths the impact of industry and plant specific control variables as well as that of the stock of previous adopters on adoption probabilities is also taken into account in addition the authors analyze duration versus calendar time dependence of adoption probabilities copyright 1995 by blackwell publishing ltd

redistribution effect and unequal income tax treatment decomposing the post tax gini coefficient across groups of pre tax equals reveals the separate contributions to the redistributive effect of an income tax of 1 the effective schedule the vertical effect 2 the unequal treatment of equals arising from departures from this effective schedule the horizontal effect and 3 the reranking of unequals as a result of such departures the reranking effect the methodology is applied to u k microdata throughout the period 1978 91 reranking understates the negative contribution to redistributive effect of unequal tax treatment by about one third and is far outweighed by the vertical effect copyright 1994 by royal economic society

equity in health care finance in palestine the triple effects revealed this paper presents an application of the urban and lambert upgraded ajl decomposition approach that was designed to deal with the problem of close income equals in equity analysis and as applied to the area of health care finance contrary to most previous studies vertical and horizontal inequities and the triple effects of inter groups intra group and entire group reranking of various financing schemes are estimated with statistical significance calculated using the bootstrap method application is made on the three financing schemes present in the case of the occupied palestinian territory results demonstrate the relative importance of the three forms of reranking in determining overall inequality the paper offers policy recommendations to limit the existing inequalities in the system and to enhance the capacity of the governmental insurance scheme

a new measure of horizontal equity in this paper we propose a new measure of horizontal equity that overcomes many of the shortcomings of previous proposed measures our starting point is the observation that a well behaved social welfare function need not evaluate global vertical equity differences in after tax income using the same weights it applies to local horizontal equity differences even though this constraint has been applied in the past following work on the structure of individual preferences we show that a social welfare function can imply different preferences toward horizontal and vertical equity adopting the general approach to the measurement of inequality developed by atkinson 1970 we use such a social welfare function to derive measures of inequality that are decomposable into components naturally interpreted as indices of horizontal and vertical equity in particular the former index measures deviations from the fundamental principle that equals be treated equally finally we apply our new measure to two tax return data sets evaluating the degree to which the horizontal equity of the us personal income tax has changed over time and how horizontal equity would be altered by one version of recent proposals to do away with the so called marriage penalty this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

an evolutionary pattern of innovation diffusion the case of flexible automation abstract the aim of this paper is to provide evidence supporting an evolutionary model of the process of innovation diffusion relying on an extensive field study the paper analyses the pattern of adoption of the entire set of innovations deriving from the flexible automation paradigm on the part of a large sample of italian metalworking firms owing to the relevance of the technology examined and to the size of the sample the case illustrates quite representatively the dynamics of the early stage of development of radical and complex innovations the main results of the paper confirm the importance of firm size and market structure to explain the characteristics of the innovation diffusion process at the same time they emphasize that the localized search procedures on the part of potential users involve a step by step approach to adoption namely the technological and organizational profile of firms turns out to play a decisive role in favouring diffusion moreover empirical support is provided for the existence of persistent market disequilibria along the diffusion paths witnessed by the extent of the retrofitting phenomenon

interdependences in the intrafirm diffusion of technological innovations confronting the rational and social accounts of diffusion this article investigates the intrafirm diffusion of technological innovations and the interdependences that exist among rival firms in this process previous research has offered two potential explanations for these interdependences social accounts in which they result from institutional pressures and rational accounts in which firms are interdependent as a result of how adoption by rivals affects expectations about the profitability of the technology the article offers two contributions first we propose a competitive interaction mechanism that is consistent with the fundamentals of rational accounts of diffusion second the empirical analysis shows the dominance of the proposed rational mechanism over social accounts of innovation diffusion in the generation of interdependences in the process of intrafirm diffusion

the development and use of machine tools in historical perspective abstract improvements and diffusion of machine tools have had a major impact on productivity in manufacturing industry since the industrial revolution the impact has been both direct and indirect the direct impact consists of rising labor productivity through the use of faster more accurate more mechanized machines and of the higher capital productivity through higher operating rates greater reliability and higher utilization rates the indirect impact arises as the use of new or improved machine tools has necessitated or facilitated organizational changes affecting both labor capital raw materials and energy the magnitude of these impacts has varied over the years with the areas of application as new production methods have made possible entirely new products or lowered the cost of existing products sufficiently to create new markets the first part of the paper contains a review of the historical development of machine tool technology since the industrial revolution paying particular attention to the role of interaction between producers and users of machine tools the second part focuses on the way in which recent development differs from that in earlier periods in particular it is found that the major changes in machine tool technology from the so called american system of manufactures in the early 19th century to the development of detroit automation in the 1950s have tended to improve mass production methods by contrast the development of numerical control beginning in 1948 has opened up the possibility of extending industrial production methods and automation to areas previously characterized more by handicraft methods even though this technology is not yet fully utilized it is clear that the economics of industrial production has been revolutionized by the cost reduction of small scale production relative to large scale and the degree of flexibility offered by the technology the third section of the paper deals with the present development trends particularly discussing the increasing importance of flexibility and the shifting emphasis from development of individual pieces of machinery to integration and control of entire manufacturing processes i a through the use of industrial robots the reasons for the need for greater flexibility in manufacturing are also identified

an analysis of factors affecting price volatility of the us oil market abstract this paper studies the price volatility of the crude oil market by examining the market structure of opec the stable and unstable demand structure and related elasticity of demand in particular the impacts of prosperity and recession of the world economy and the resulting demand shift on crude oil price are investigated the error correction model is used to estimate the demand relations and related elasticity the income effect on demand functions is evaluated to shed light on future prices a simulation of potential oil prices under different scenarios on a cut of one million barrels per day by opec is evaluated from our simulation given the 4 cut in opec production the oil price is expected to increase unless the recession is severe the magnitude and scope of a price hike would be diminished if non opec or domestic production were greatly expanded

evaluating effective income tax progression abstract an algorithm to compute effective income tax progression is devised for use when taxes are a function of both money income and other socioeconomic attributes and the data is in grouped summary form suppressing non income information effective progression can be evaluated at percentiles in the distribution of either money or equivalent income the normative significance of the new measures is explained in both cases the methodology is illustrated by application to u s individual income tax annual data for 1950 1987 yielding contour plots which show how effective progression has varied across the income distribution and with the passage of time

statistical inference for the measurement of the incidence of taxes and transfers we establish the asymptotic sampling distribution of general functions of quantile based estimators computed from samples that are not necessarily independent the results provide the statistical framework within which to assess the progressivity of taxes and benefits their horizontal inequity and the change in the inequality of income which they cause by the same token these findings characterise the sampling distribution of a number of popular indices of progressivity horizontal inequity and redistribution they can also be used to assess welfare and inequality changes using panel data and to assess poverty when it depends on estimated population quantiles we illustrate these results using micro data on the incidence of taxes and benefits in canada

intra firm diffusion of green energy technologies and the choice of policy instruments environmental benefits only unfold if green environmentally friendly technologies are widely diffused and intensively deployed within a firm we investigate how different types of policies directly and in combination affect the number of different green energy technologies adopted by a single firm intra firm diffusion using data from a dedicated survey on the diffusion of green energy technologies of 1200 swiss firms and applying well identified econometric models we found that energy taxes are a very effective policy instrument for the intra firm diffusion of green energy technologies even more important however are non political measures that show the largest effect among all tested instruments additional analyses show that a time consistency in policy making is more important for energy tax regimes than for regulations and b no evidence for complementarities between the policy types could be identified

energy markets and regulation essays in honor of m a adelman edited by richard l gordon henry d jacoby and martin b zimmerman mit press london uk 1987 384 pp 33 75

redistributive effect progressivity and differential tax treatment personal income taxes in twelve oecd countries this paper decomposes the redistributive effect of the personal income taxes pits of twelve oecd countries into four components i an average rate effect ii a departure from proportionality or progressivity effect iii a horizontal equity effect and iv a reranking effect the product of i and ii indicates the vertical redistribution associated with the pit and the sum of iii and iv indicates the impact on the distribution of income of differential tax treatment the average tax rate is found to be low in france and high in the nordic countries and the pit is found to be most progressive in france ireland and spain and least progressive in denmark and sweden taking i and ii together denmark and the us achieve broadly similar levels of vertical redistributive effect differential treatment is found to have a much smaller effect on income redistribution as a proportion of redistributive effect than the vertical redistribution caused by progressivity though there are differences between countries these differences appear to be due principally to a different emphasis on deductions such as tax deductibility of mortgage interest payments and insurance premiums and on local income tax

opec and other commodity cartels a comparison abstract the economic literature provides specific characteristics for cartels although the theory of international cartels is not well developed in the literature and every cartel is unique some of these characteristics exist in each cartel this study investigates the existence of these characteristics in six known commodity cartels including opec in addition it compares the oil companies cartel the seven sisters to opec and summarizes the findings of opec econometric models developed in the literature in the last 25 years and concludes that the results do not support cartel or competitive models for opec although other cartels are more successful than opec many books and articles in economics use opec as a cartel example neither statistical tests nor theory support the popular use of opec as a cartel example indeed this article concludes that opec is composed of saudi arabia the dominant world producer plus several distinct sub groups and that separate models are required to explain the behavior of each assigning the power of some opec members to opec has caused confusion about its behavior recent opec success is attributed to political natural and technical capacity limitations in the oil fields that prevented countries from cheating on their quota in other words opec adherence to the quota except for saudi arabia is anything but voluntary

on the diffusion of new technology a game theoretic approach this paper is an attempt at a rigorous albeit not exceedingly general analysis of the diffusion of new technology in particular consider an industry composed of two firms each using the current best practice technology the firms are assumed to be operating at nash equilibrium output levels generating a market price given demand and profit allocations when a cost reducing innovation is announced each firm must determine when if ever to adopt it based in part upon the discounted cost of implementing the new technology and in part upon the behavior of the rival firm if either firm adopts before the other it can expect to make substantial profits at the expense of the other firm on the other hand the discounted sum of purchase price and adjustment costs may decline with the lengthening of the adjustment period as various quasi fixed factors become more easily variable therefore although waiting costs the firm more in terms of foregone profits it may save money on the cost of purchasing the new technology thus the firm must weigh the costs and benefits of delaying adoption as well as take account of its rival s strategic behavior

inter and intra firm effects in the diffusion of new process technology using primarily the example of computerised numerically controlled machine tools cnc in the uk metalworking and engineering industry it is shown that even many years after the date of first use of a new technology although the larger proportion of firms may be using that technology because the extent of intra firm diffusion is limited the proportion of total industry output produced on that technology may be quite small using backward projection techniques it is further shown that intra firm diffusion tends to lag behind inter firm diffusion over the whole of the diffusion process and inter firm diffusion patterns and extent may thus be poor indicators of overall diffusion although intra firm diffusion is therefore crucial to the understanding of overall diffusion patterns the existing literature relating to it has severe limitations and there are no associated policy results it is argued that much greater emphasis should be placed on intra firm issues in future diffusion research it is also suggested that discussions of intra firm policy could usefully proceed within the context of already established general diffusion policy principles

firm size and the adoption of flexible automation data on the diffusion of flexible automation systems in the italian metalworking industry are used to point out the role of size for the adoption of complex systemic innovations plant and firm sizes turn out to be positively correlated to adoption rates moreover adoption is more likely ceteris paribus in plants which are part of large industrial groups this pattern applies in general and is particularly remarkable for more advanced solutions in this light guidelines for industrial policies that focus on financial support the diffusion of industrial standards and the correction of asymmetries in the availability of know how and skills are proposed

equity in the finance of health care some further international comparisons this paper presents further international comparisons of progressivity of health care financing systems the paper builds on the work of wagstaff et al wagstaff a van doorslaer e et al 1992 equity in the finance of health care some international comparisons journal of health economics 11 pp 361 387 but extends it in a number of directions we modify the methodology used there and achieve a higher degree of cross country comparability in variable definitions we update and extend the cross section of countries and we present evidence on trends in financing mixes and progressivity

e business usage across and within firms in the uk profitability externalities and policy using data from the third uk community innovation survey we model the usage of e business across and within firms in the uk in the year 2000 as a single observation upon an integrated process of inter and intra firm diffusion the intra firm dimension is a significant extension to standard analysis the model estimates indicate that the pattern of e business usage reflects the heterogeneity of firms in terms of size other innovative activity and labour force skills generating differences in the payoffs to use as well as market and non market intermediated externalities the policy implications of the findings are discussed c 2008 elsevier b v all rights reserved

progressivity horizontal inequality and reranking caused by health system financing a decomposition analysis for switzerland abstract this paper presents an application of the duclos et al duclos j y jalbert v araar a 2003 classical horizontal inequity and reranking an integrated approach research on economic inequality 10 65 100 decomposition to an analysis of the 1998 swiss health system financing we see that in addition to measuring horizontal inequality in the classical sense this decomposition is more efficient and flexible than earlier ones it is also pointed out that methods involving a nonparametric estimation lead to asymptotically biased vertical and horizontal effects a procedure to estimate this bias is given finally it is shown that despite a major reform health system financing is still very regressive and social health insurance is more regressive than direct financing

measuring income tax discrimination we propose a procedure for measuring the effect of systematic discrimination in the income tax different socioeconomic groups are assumed to face different tax schedules we show that a welfare loss is caused by the group specificity of schedules the dollar value of which is our measure of discrimination defining vertical equity as the dollar value of the tax system s welfare superiority over an equal yield flat tax discrimination equates to a loss in vertical equity the australian income tax is found to discriminate against wage and salary earners causing a roughly 1 loss of social welfare in 1984