policy making in health is largely thought to be driven by three ‘i's namely ideas, interests and institutions. recent years have seen a shift in approach with increasing reliance being placed on role of evidence for policy making. the present arti­cle ascertains the role of ideas and ideologies in shaping evidence which is used to aid in policy decisions. the article dis­cusses different theor...

background: various decisions have been made on technology application at all levels of the health system in different countries around the world. health technology assessment is considered as one of the best scientific tools at the service of policy- makers. this study attempts to investigate the current challenges of iran’s health technology assessment and provide appropriate strategies to es...

shiffman rightly raises questions about who exercises power in global health, suggesting power is a complex concept, and the way it is exercised is often opaque. power that is not based on financial strength but on knowledge or experience, is difficult to estimate, and yet it may provide the legitimacy to make moral claims on what is, or ought to be, on global health agendas. twenty years ago p...

We show that a firm’s product characteristics are significantly related to its dividend and share repurchase policies. Using text-based analysis of product descriptions in firm 10-Ks, we examine how the propensity to pay dividends and repurchase shares are affected by how a firm’s products evolve over time, the local competition it faces, and the nature of the clientèle for the firm’s products....

Regions within the European Union differ substantially not only with respect to per capita GDP, but also with respect to income inequality within the regions. This paper studies the effects of different types of technology-oriented cohesion policies, aiming at the reduction of regional differences, on the convergence of regions and the dynamics of income inequality within regions. In particular...

Ubiquitous computing environments rely on the availability of location information about people to provide location-specific services. However, location is a sensitive piece of information. For example, it is often possible to gather information about the current activities of a person from her location. Therefore, location information should not be distributed to just anyone. The solution is t...

Models with heterogeneous interacting agents have proven to be quite successful in the past. For instance, such models are able to mimic the dynamics of financial markets quite well. The goal of our paper is to explore whether this approach may offer new insights into the working of certain regulatory policies such as transaction taxes, central bank interventions and trading halts. Although thi...