Following major reforms of the British National Health Service (NHS) in 1990, the roles of purchasing and providing health services were separated, with the relationship between purchasers and providers governed by contracts. Using a mixed multinomial logit analysis, we show how this policy...

In this paper a model of a profit maximising firm's responses to job search is developed. This model explains the determinants of a firm's wage offer and the probability that a firm will be found in a state where it is optimal to make no offer (i.e. a 'null' offer). Comparative statics results...

This chapter reviews the literature on payment schemes for government purchases of health services. It focuses on four themes: (1) the tension between obtaining appropriate quality of services and keeping the cost of those services at an acceptable level; (2) the role of cost sharing by the...

Dental service providers in the British National Health Service (NHS) operate under a number of remuneration arrangements that give rise to different incentives. Using data derived from the Scottish dental system, we examine the relationships between remuneration, patient exemption status and...

It is known that a variety of economic time series exhibit asymmetry in the sense that the arrival of a recession is prompt, while the recovery from a recession appears protracted. This paper provides an explanation for the asymmetric movement of economic time series over business cycles by...

The predictions of job-search theory for an analysis of unemployment have long been of interest (e.g. see Lippman and McCall (1976 b), Barron (1975) and Feinberg (1977)). In particular an important question is with regard to the duration of search unemployment and its determinants. Unfortunately...

This article examines the profitability of horizontal merger in an open economy with Cournot competition. We find that duopoly is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for domestic merger to be profitable. A cross-border merger, however, can be profitable from any market structure.