Dear Readers: At this, the fifth anniversary of the German Agency for Health Technology Assessment (DAHTA@DIMDI) we present a new medium for a new age: the electronic journal GMSHealth Technology Assessment. The journal expands the current palette of publication media of DIMDI. The agency, DAHTA@DIMDI, thereby utilizes the potential of DIMDI's participation in the German Medical Science portal ...

Transaction cost and agency theorists have frequently cited trucks as prototypical userowned assets, and have consequently predicted a predominance of self-employed drivers who contract with motor carriers. In fact, owner-operators accounted for less than one-third of trucking activity conducted by large interstate trucking firms in 1991, a proportion that has changed little since deregulation....

We develop an incomplete contract model to analyze the enlargement strategy of a club facing a membership applicant. Wealth and the degree of conformity with the club’s standards de...ne the applicant’s type. Only a fully conforming entrant bene...ts the club, but conformity is a pure cost to the applicant. The club choses between early admittance, using its institutions to monitor the reform p...

The social contract has been about rights and responsibilities in human societies. Facebook and its role in manufacturing and sustaining a global social contract, a new “we” is clearly one of the research areas that needs more attention. A new “we” is coming of age in the new age of connectivity and communication with a new outlook toward responsibility and rights at individual and collective l...

Although numerous studies have examined trends in nosocomial fungal infections, few have specifically addressed the cost of care associated with candidemia. This study analyzes the direct medical costs associated with treating candidemia in the United States. The study design was a cost-of-illness analysis estimating the average cost of candidemia for a single episode of care. Data were obtaine...

Editorials 67 Meeting the high and increasing price of medicines for rare disorders is an ongoing dilemma for patients, insurers and governments worldwide. In New Zealand, the difficulty has been highlighted by lobbyists campaigning for funding eculizumab for paroxysmal nocturnal haemoglobinuria and for enzyme replacement therapies including alglucosidase alfa for glycogen storage disease type ...

In the first essay (joint work with Bryan Routledge), we calculate the value implications of suboptimal capital budgeting decisions in an asset-pricing model calibrated to match the standard asset pricing empirical properties – in particular, the time-variation in the equity premium. Specifically, we calculate that an investment policy that ignores the time variation in the equity premium, such...

This paper outlines a scheduling process for improving high-frequency bus service reliability based on a model which uses Automatic Vehicle Location and Automatic Passenger Count data. Developing a schedule for high-frequency bus routes involves balancing the costs to the passengers and the cost to the transit agency. Passengers are interested in short travel times and short, reliable waiting t...

This paper aims to understand the transaction costs implications of two different governance modes for large scale contracting of HIV prevention services to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in 2 states in India as part of the National AIDS Control Programme between 2001 and 2003. Interviews at purposively selected case study NGOs, contracting agencies and key informants as well as document...