A managed-care company must decide on allocating resources of many services to many groups of enrollees. The profit-maximizing allocation rule is characterized. For each group, the marginal utilities across all services are equalized. The equilibrium has an enrollee group shadow price interpretation. The equilibrium spending allocation can be implemented by letting utilitarian physicians decide...

The lack of widely available, affordable broadband Internet access has spurred a movement in which municipalities are rolling out wireless broadband networks. This movement has raised a number of questions including: Why are municipalities acting as the early adopters of wireless broadband technology? How does increased state regulation of municipal broadband networks affect this trend and how ...

INTRODUCTION In 2007, a substantial reform changed the administrative boundaries of the Danish health care system and introduced health care agreements to be signed between municipal and regional authorities. To assess the health care agreements as a tool for coordinating health and social services, a survey was conducted before (2005-2006) and after the reform (2011). THEORY AND METHODS The ...

The national waste legislation, introduced in India in 2000, endorses the principle of "Recycle Before Disposal" and clearly stipulates composting as an option for organic waste treatment. It also recommends waste separation as prerequisite for treatment. Although various composting schemes of different scale, type and organisational structure currently exist in the country, a general overview ...

INTRODUCTION Previous research in performance appraisal (PA) indicates that variation exists in learning and job motivation from performance appraisal between occupational groups. This research evaluates the potential effect of job motivation, learning and self-assessment through performance appraisals for health personnel. CASE DESCRIPTION This article focuses on goal-setting, feedback, part...

In view of fast paced economic growth accompanied with rapid urbanisation, management of municipal solid waste has emerged as one of the major environmental challenges of present times. Indian cities are often characterized by poorly rendered services including waste management-the most ignored of all basic services, on account of various reasons. The situation worsens with increasing populatio...

An approach is developed for identifying key data to be used in asset management in general, and for predicting pipe breaks and selecting appropriate models in particular. The approach is applied to the District of Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada to identify the magnitude of a utility’s pipe burst problems today and in the future, enhance the development of pipe replacement priorities based on foreca...

In addressing the topic of decision making in the water sector, what has been suggested to be useful up to this point is benchmarking. This paper aims at exploring the relationship between the Operating Cost Coverage Index and customer complaints about water and wastewater services for 1898 water utilities in 11 countries, i.e., Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Lithuania, Peru, Poland, Russia, Se...