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This paper aims to study the value of informal care (IC) time from the perspective of caregivers using two alternative contingent valuation tools – willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to accept (WTA) – and to identify the variables that affect the stated values.

The authors used data from a multi-centre study of 610 adult caregivers conducted in two Spanish regions in 2013. The existence of “protest zeros” and “economic zeros” because of the severe budgetary constraints of the households was also considered. Two-part multivariate models were used to analyse the main factors that explained the declared values of WTA and WTP.

The average WTP and WTA were €3.12 and €5.98 per hour of care, respectively (€3.2 and €6.3 when estimated values for “protest zeros” and “economic zeros” were considered). Some explanatory variables of WTA and WTP are coincident (place of residence and intensity of care time), whereas other variables only help to explain WTP values (household and negative coping with caregiving) or WTA values (age and burden of care). Some nuances are also identified when comparing the results obtained without protest and economic zeros with the estimated values of these special zeros.

Studies analysing the determinants of WTP and WTA in IC settings are very scarce. This paper seeks to provide information to fill this gap. The results indicate that the variables that explain the value of IC from one perspective may differ from the variables that explain it from an alternative perspective. Given the relevance of contextual factors, studies on the topic should be expanded, and care should be taken with the extrapolation of results across countries and settings.

This paper traces the innovative development of the Nottingham Cochlear Implant Programmes. The paediatric programme was the first to be established in the UK in 1989 and remains the largest programme in the UK today, whilst the adult programme developed later, in 1994. The first section of the paper describes trends in service development whilst the second section makes detailed reference to the history of funding arrangements which enabled the programme to become established. The third part of the paper examines the (de)merits of locality purchasing versus centralised purchasing for specialist services, using cochlear implantation as way of illustration. The paper aims to provide an informative history of the development of the service in Nottingham and from this background create debate as to the most appropriate future funding mechanism for cochlear implantation in particular and specialist services in general.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a contingent valuation (CV) survey of health care services, designed to illuminate self-interest and benevolence on the part of one sex for the other.

In a constructed scenario, men and women recorded how much they would be willing to contribute to each of three different types of cancer screening, one of which would be available only to members of the opposite sex.

Over two-thirds of individuals, amongst whom men were more heavily represented, chose an identical CV for all three services. Amongst those who nominated dissimilar values, a willingness to contribute to own-sex screening coupled with an unwillingness to contribute to opposite-sex screening was more common amongst women than amongst men. Both sexes valued own-sex screening more highly than opposite-sex screening yet, compared with men, women were prepared to offer proportionately less for the latter relative to the former. In an associated person trade-off task, women were considerably less likely than men to choose opposite-sex screening at the expense of a type from which they could benefit personally.

To date, very little research has been undertaken on differential responses to health valuation of care provision by sex. The results suggest a degree of asymmetry between the sexes, with respect to self-interest and benevolence.

The purpose of this paper is to assess multidimensional body image concerns in a sample of obese women seeking bariatric surgery at an outpatient hospital clinic in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

A sample of obese adult women seeking bariatric surgery at an outpatient medical clinic in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (n=148) completed various self-report measures of body image concerns, including body image dysphoria, body image quality of life, body image investment, and appearance satisfaction. Participant scores were compared to normative data. Correlations between body image concern measures and body mass index (BMI) were examined.

Participants endorsed more body image dysphoria, more negative body image quality of life, and less appearance satisfaction than normative samples. BMI was not correlated with body image concern scores.

Interventions aimed at reducing body image disturbance in obese women should target multiple components of body image concern. Decisions about who should receive interventions should not be based on BMI status.

The majority of research on body image concerns focuses exclusively on evaluative constructs such as body image dissatisfaction. The current study examined affective, cognitive, and behavioural body image constructs. A better understanding of the multidimensional nature of body image concerns in obese women seeking bariatric surgery informs the development of effective, targeted interventions.

The need to reduce health expenditures raises the discussion on rationing possibilities and there is a growing interest in considering society's perspectives. The aim of this paper was to evaluate Portuguese citizens' opinion regarding the imposition of limits on National Health Service (NHS) spending. We also asked who decides how NHS money is spent, in order to obtain the respondents' views on public involvement.

An online questionnaire was used to collect data. Descriptive and inferential statistics, factorial analysis and a logit model were applied.

Our results showed that most of the respondents believe citizens have low participation on NHS' financial decisions, confirming the lack of public involvement. Health professionals are more likely to agree with limits on NHS spending, which could indicate potential inefficiencies.

From a health policy perspective, we have concluded that different stakeholders should be involved before deciding how public spending limits should be implemented. Health professionals' perspectives should be considered, taking advantage of their experience.

The main novelty of this paper is the evaluation of whether there should be limits on NHS spending, comparing health professionals and non-health professionals.

Pursuit of meaning is at the heart of much of organizational life. It has implications for how different organizational stakeholders associate value to various organizational initiatives. Research on meaning has generally shown that effort increases meaning and favorable valuation of and willingness to pay for economic activities by organizational stakeholders. The authors build on and advance this research by offering theory and experimental evidence showing that effort, particularly at high levels, results in enhanced meaning and favorable valuation when effort does not threaten the focal stakeholders' resources through expectation disconfirmation.

Three experimental studies are designed and conducted in this research. In one study, the authors replicate prior research findings that establish labor generally increases meaning and favorable valuation. In the two subsequent studies, the authors test the proposed hypothesis in this research and check for robustness of the empirical analysis.

The authors find that any internalized threat to the focal stakeholder's resources coupled with a high exertion of effort decreases, rather than increases, meaning and favorable valuation of and willingness to pay for economic activities.

The theory and empirical evidence in this research advance the understanding of how organizational stakeholders may associate effort-induced meaning with various economic activities in counter-intuitive ways. The findings also highlight the importance of recognizing and shaping the expectations of organizational stakeholders in influencing willingness to pay in organizational settings.

Negative perceptions of political risk can prevent capital from being committed to support cross‐border investment. Information about risks that impact infra‐structure projects is often vague, imprecise, subjective, or ambiguous. Political risks in developing countries also often lack meaningful historical and numerical data. A novel fuzzy set approach for quantifying qualitative information on risks (QQIR) in structured finance transactions that bridges the gap between qualitative and quantitative risk assessment methods has been developed. The QQIR Method is validated empirically through the results of an international survey to determine the impact of perceived political risk on Asian infrastructure projects. The impact is measured by the effect on financial project criteria. The impact was assessed across 14 Asian countries and 14 infrastructure sectors. The survey findings are validated by triangulation of three data sets and employing non‐parametric statistics. The validation shows that in 77.5% of all observations the QQIR Method produces mean results that are within 0.85 standard deviations of the absolute values, without elimination of any seemingly unusual or unreasonable responses or data. The validation also shows that with increasing perceived risks, the costs of equity investment, debt finance, and insurance also increase. The QQIR Method is thus a valid tool to quantify perceptions on risks. In this case it has been applied to political risks, but the Method is generic and may be applied to any problem set in which perceptions can be structured and assessed with opinions.

For more than four decades, persistent economic activities and a focused growth strategy resulted in significant infrastructural and other favorable economic and institutional changes in the world's developing nations. High-quality growth is not just a function of sound economic policies but also implementing a broad range of social policies. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) nations have proven their testimony on both these factors. Following their path are some other emerging economies like N-11 (or Next Eleven propounded by Goldman Sachs (2005) Report), which this present study tries to examine as successors of BRICS.

Along with panel data regression modelling, the study has applied econometric procedures robust to heterogeneities across various nations and have been able to produce more reliable results that can be generalized for other similar groups of countries. 11 independent variables (both economic and institutional) have been used to meet the study's objective for a period of 34 years (1985–2018).

The findings of the study reveal that the governments of both the group of countries must work toward their macro-economic stability factors (external debt stocks), technological capabilities (mobile and fixed broadband subscriptions), human capital (health expenditure) and political conditions (mainly the rule of law) to enhance their sustainable economic growth.

This study enhances knowledge of the determinants of economic growth in emerging countries. Firms from BRICS and N-11 may better understand the factors influencing their internationalization process (both economic and institutional). The study is significant not just for the researchers but also for the policymakers of the BRICS and N-11 to understand in which areas their country is leading or lagging. The study is useful even for the policymakers of other emerging countries of the world who might take lessons from these nations (especially BRICS) and follow their success path. This study helps the governments of other groups of emerging countries such as PIN (Pakistan, Indonesia and Nigeria); MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey); CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa), etc. which can follow the path of BRICS economies in growth and formulate policies to increase their economic growth accordingly. At the enterprise level, it helps MNCs understand BRICS and N-11 markets and formulating entry and growth strategies in these most emerging countries of the world.

The present study is unique. It tries to investigate the projections of the Goldman Sachs report after 15 years of its release. It tries to determine the factors responsible for the economic development in the N-11 countries with advanced econometric techniques. Majorly, the focus is to comparatively analyze the growth trajectory for BRICS and N-11 nations and suggest whether N-11 has the potential to become successors of BRICS. A concentrated effort to examine the most significant drivers (both economic and institutional), which may lead to economic progression, has been made in this study.

Implementing the sustainable development goals (SDGs) has proven a significant challenge for companies. While multinational enterprises (MNEs) have shown a real intention to contribute to these goals, they face major barriers in implementing the SDGs in their core business strategies. Extant academic studies on this phenomenon have primarily explored why companies “should” address the SDG agenda but have not (yet) explored what “works,” what does not “work,” and why. Therefore, evidence of a sizable gap between intention and realization is growing. Besides, there is a limited explanation for the existence of this gap and no validated implementation models that could help overcome it. Additionally, management research remains relatively fragmented. The diversity of existing theoretical and empirical frameworks makes it difficult to consolidate scientific and practical insights on “how” to guide companies to accelerate the global goals through their core operations.

This study is one of the first attempts to draw lessons from extant research on effective SDGs’ implementation strategies. For that, we upgrade the “SDG Compass,” which has been recognized as a leading framework for SDGs implementation in companies’ core activities. A critical assessment of the literature on the SDGs implementation has been conducted through a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis. This has helped us identify gaps in the SDG implementation practice and accumulate relevant insights supporting a more integrated and upgraded implementation framework: the SDG Compass+. This framework can advance coordinated theoretical and practical research by identifying the antecedents and critical factors of impactful SDG implementation strategies.

Insurance‐linked securities can benefit both issuers and investors; they supply insurance and reinsurance companies with additional risk capital at reasonable prices (with little or no credit risk), and supply excess returns to investors that are uncorrelated with the returns of other financial assets. This article explains the terminology of insurance and reinsurance, the structure of insurance‐linked securities, and provides an overview of major transactions. First, there is a discussion of how stochastic catastrophe modeling has been applied to assess the risk of natural catastrophes, including the reliability and validation of the risk models. Second, the authors compare the risk‐adjusted returns of recent securitizations on the basis of relative value. Compared with high‐yield bonds, catastrophe (“CAT”) bonds have wide spreads and very attractive Sharpe ratios. In fact, the risk‐adjusted returns on CAT bonds dominate high‐yield bonds. Furthermore, since natural catastrophe risk is essentially uncorrelated with market risk, high expected excess returns make CAT bonds high‐alpha assets. The authors illustrate this point and show that a relatively small allocation of insurance‐linked securities within a fixed income portfolio can enhance the expected return and simultaneously decrease risk, without significantly changing the skewness and kurtosis of the return distribution.