In this paper we investigate households' demand for school meals using a stated preferences approach. Data are collected through phone-structured interviews to 905 residents with children in the German-speaking region of Switzerland during 2007. A Poisson model with random effects is used to...

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of Â…fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of...

We investigate the relationship between costs and quality in nonprofit nursing homes, a key issue in the present context of cost containment measures. In accordance with the economic theory of production, we estimate a three-inputs total cost function for nursing home services using data from 45...

This paper attempts to reconcile the slowdown in wage inequality in the 1990s with the view that international trade was a major factor contributing to the sharp increases in inequality during the 1980s. I present a model that highlights the importance of intermediate products and attributes the...

Argentina is the principal source of tourism in Uruguay. This paper analyzes the effects in the long run of tourism from Argentina on the economic growth of Uruguay. Using quarterly data from 1987.I to 2006.IV, the study uses co-integration analysis and shows the existence of one cointegrated...

This paper explores the cost structure of Swiss hospitals, focusing on differences due to teaching activities and those across different ownership and subsidization types. A stochastic total cost frontier with a Cobb-Douglas functional form has been estimated for a panel of 150 general hospitals...

This paper combines two of the popular approaches used in the trade versus technology debate: the factor content approach and the cost-share regression across manufacturing industries. The resulting method allows to decompose skill upgrading at the industry level into a component attributed to...

The regulation on prescribing and dispensing of antibiotics has a double purpose: to enhance access to antibiotic treatment and to reduce the inappropriate use of drugs. Nevertheless, incentives to dispensing physicians may lead to inefficiencies. We sketch a theoretical model of the market for...

This paper seeks to explain local variations in the use of antibiotics in the community and to assess the welfare loss due to heterogeneous attitudes towards the risk of bacterial infections and resistance. Significant differences are observed in the per capita antibiotic consumption measured in...

We model demand for different classes of antibiotics used for respiratory infections in outpatient care using a linear approximate almost ideal demand system approach. We compute elasticities to socioeconomic determinants of consumption and own- and cross- price elasticities between different...