This paper presents empirical evidence that links private investment to rate of return differential, risk aversion, and several types of political and economic risk. Estimating private investment equation for a panel of 25 developing countries over 21 years yields the following results: (i) socio-political instability characterized by nonviolent protests promotes private investment while violen...

Why would migrant workers in rich countries ever return to poorer countries of origin? In a model of migration and household investment, with borrowing constraints and minimum investment thresholds, return migration occurs for either target-earnings or life-cycle reasons. This paper exploits a unique quasi-experiment to distinguish between these potential explanations for return migration. I ex...

The objective of this study was to demonstrate the business case for telemedicine in nonrural areas. We developed an interactive spreadsheet to conduct multiple financial analyses under different capital investment, revenue, and expense scenarios. We applied the spreadsheet to the specific case of poststroke rehabilitation in urban settings. The setting involved outpatient clinics associated wi...

Although algal biofuels possess great potential, profitable production is quite challenging. Much of this challenge is rooted in the thermodynamic constraints associated with producing fuels with high energy, low entropy, and high exergy from dispersed materials. In this study, a preliminary thermodynamic analysis is presented that calculates the energy, entropy, and exergy of the intermediate ...

OBJECTIVE To demonstrate the application of economics to health care preparedness by estimating the financial return on investment in a substate regional emergency response team and to develop a financial model aimed at sustaining community-level disaster readiness. METHODS Economic evaluation methods were applied to the experience of a regional Pennsylvania response capability. A cost-benefi...

Return-on-investment (ROI) is a concept from the financial world. In the dynamic view, ROI describes the periodically recurring profits (returns) from fixed financial capital (investment). In the static view, ROI describes the one-time income or saving (return) realized as a consequence of a one-time expenditure (investment). In this case, if the return does not occur within a short time, later...