The few existing empirical studies of U.S.-Japan trade agreements have relied primarily on descriptive statistics or univariate time series methods. We conduct a more powerful test by evaluating agreements in the context of well-specified econometric models. Consistent with trade theory, import demand is modeled as a cointegrating relationship with income and relative price variables, where a t...

Empirical evidence shows that biodiversity conservation policies implemented in agriculture sector in many OECD countries have not been environmentally effective nor cost-effective. There are several new policy mechanisms available to improve both environmental effectiveness and the cost-effectiveness, including spatially differentiated payments and conservation auctions. In this paper a theore...

Letter of Credit is an international payment instrument whereby the issuing bank undertakes to pay the beneficiary, against presentation of certain stipulated documents, according to the conditions of the Letter of Credit. Discounting of LC for the short-term financing of the seller, due to the independent and irrevocable undertaking of the bank to make payment, is prevalent. Beneficiary gets t...

Background: Physiotherapy services constitute a principle part of health care systems, and interest in their use has increased in the recent decades.  This study was conducted to investigate the utilization and OOP payment for physiotherapy services in public hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran.    Methods: This cross-sectional study was c...

The issue of the cost containment effects of payment systems on per diem payments by Medicaid to nursing homes is addressed. Estimates of real payment rates as a function of broadly defined payment system classifications and economic and demographic variables using State-level data are presented. Little support for the notion that prospective payment systems substantially restrain payment rates...

BACKGROUND Regional trade agreements are major international policy instruments that shape macro-economic and political systems. There is widespread debate as to whether and how these agreements pose risks to public health. Here we perform a comprehensive systematic review of quantitative studies of the health impact of trade and investment agreements. We identified studies from searches in Pub...

Service Level Agreements may be used to establish agreements on the quality of a service between a service provider and a service consumer. The roles of service provider and service consumer may realised in different shapes ranging from individuals to institutions, software agents or other systems acting on behalf of physical entities or steered by those. This paper gives an overview on the sta...

We present a theory of why some countries negotiate trade agreements during economic downturns. We argue that political leaders can gain from such agreements because of the signals they send to their publics. Publics are less likely to blame leaders for bad economic conditions when they have implemented sound economic policies, such as signing and implementing agreements designed to liberalize ...

Normally, a common user sign license agreement without understanding the agreement. License agreements are a form of information, which describes product's usage and its terms and conditions. Habitually, users agree with it but without understanding. In the today’s information age, there is no integration of license agreements with any current technology. The contents of license agreements are ...