AIM To determine the costs associated with diabetes to governments, people with diabetes and their carers, and its impact on quality of life in two Pacific Island countries--the Solomon Islands and Nauru. MATERIALS AND METHODS This cross-sectional cost of illness study was conducted on 330 people with type 2 diabetes (197 from the Solomon Islands and 133 from Nauru) using a structured cost of...

The chapters in this volume identify steps that governments of resource-rich countries can take to increase the benefi ts that their countries derive from their holdings of oil, gas, and other resources. The focus on governments is natural: these actions will work only if governments lead the way. We believe these reforms should attract the support of their populations. Moreover, in some cases,...

In today’s global economy manufacturing companies are continuously re-evaluating their location. In many instances companies decide to relocate some or all of their manufacturing activities to so called low labor cost countries. However, the perception that this is cost effective is not always correct. In many instances the costs of producing in low labor cost countries are highly under estimat...

JEL classification: F15 F23 H25 H73 We set up a model of generalised oligopoly where two countries of different size compete for an exogenous, but variable, number of identical firms. The model combines a desire by national governments to attract internationally mobile firms with the existence of location rents that arise even in a symmetric equilibrium where firms are dispersed. As economic in...

We have consistently maintained that companies undertaking offshore systems development are exposed to additional risks that are not present in domestic environments, such asweaker security protections and regulations, potentially limited protections provided by foreign governments, and other, more general risks. It is tautology that any risk is accompanied by an associated cost, and we maintai...

Efforts to improve health care price transparency have garnered significant attention from patients, policy makers, and health insurers. In response to increasing consumer demand, state governments, insurance plans, and health care providers are reporting health care prices. However, such data often do not provide consumers with the most salient information: their own actual out-of-pocket cost ...

This paper explains the time needed to negotiate the costs and benefits of voluntary joint ventures among local governments for economic development purposes. The dyad between local governments is the unit of analysis. The characteristic of the institutional tie is collected for 90 cooperative arrangements identified through a survey of local government officials in 12 metropolitan areas. Since...

We estimate the role of private investments in irrigation in farm productivity growth in West Bengal, India between 1982-95. Using a state-wide farm panel, we find falling irrigation costs generated significant growth in value added per acre for farms. However, changes in irrigation capacity and costs were stimulated by tenancy registration programs implemented by local governments. This helps ...

The government's incentives to bail out inefficient projects are determined by the tradeoff between political benefits and economic costs, the latter depending on the decentralization of government. Two effects of federalism are derived: First, fiscal competition among local governments under factor mobility increases the opportunity costs of bailout and thus serves as a commitment device (the ...

This paper examines the costs and bene ̄ts of government control of enterprises in transition, using a large survey of Chinese state enterprises. We ̄nd that tighter government control causes more unpro ̄table production and more surplus employment and thus tends to distort more severely enterprises' economic decisions. However, tighter government control also tends to reduce agency costs by forc...