This paper analyses the behaviour of pharmaceutical companies that face the threat of having their drugs excluded from reimbursement and the markets characterised also by price caps. We conclude that price elasticity of demand and cost differentials cause the price discounts which drug firms...

This paper analyses the impact of patents on the dynamics of new drug introduction into different national markets. By studying a set of markets for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of developing countries, we find that patents only make the introduction of new drugs significantly quicker in the case...

In the context of a compound Poisson risk model, we define a threshold proportional reinsurance strategy: A retention level k1 is applied whenever the reserves are less than a determinate threshold b, and a retention level k2 is applied in the other case. We obtain the integro-differential...

In terms of global warming, early peak forecasts in oil and natural gas seem reasonably good news because most emissions arise from fossil fuel burning. However, this can be misleading if coal resources are as enormous as some estimations report because a switch between low carbon content fossil...

The paper analyses the link between human capital and regional economic growth in the European Union. Using different indicators of human capital calculated from census microdata, we conclude that the recent economic performance of European regions is associated to an increase in overeducation....

The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception, the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they...

Our first objective is to compare the degree of concentration in manufacturing and services, with special emphasis on its evolution in these two sectors, using a sensitivity analysis for different concentration indices and different geographic units of analysis: municipalities and local labour...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of intermunicipal cooperation and privatization on the delivery costs of urban solid waste services. The results of our empirical analysis, which we conducted among a sample of very small municipalities, indicate that small towns that cooperate...

The use of tolls is being widespread around the world. Its ability to fund infrastructure projects and to solve budget constraints have been the main rationale behind its renewed interest. However, less attention has been payed to the safety effects derived from this policy in a moment of...

This paper provides novel empirical evidence of the indirect effect of educational attainment on regional economic growth, through its influence on the profitability of investment in physical capital. We test the hypothesis that the regional heterogeneity of the return to physical capital can be...