In: Resource and Energy Economics, 2018, vol. 52, p. 137-152
Households make an investment analysis when buying new electrical appliances. Therefore, expectations about future electricity consumption may have an impact on current consumption and investment decisions. Dynamic partial adjustment models of residential electricity demand neglect rational consumer behavior. In this paper we propose a model for residential electricity demand that allows for...
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The aim of this paper is to assess the role of culture in shaping individual preferences to- wards different long-term care (LTC) arrangements. The analysis uses Swiss data from two administrative databases covering the universe of formal LTC providers between 2007 and 2013. Switzerland is a multi-cultural confederation where state administrative borders do not always coincide with cultural...
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The productive efficiency of a firm can be decomposed into two parts, one persistent and one transient. So far, most of the cost efficiency studies estimated frontier models that provide either the transient or the persistent part of productive efficiency. This distinction seems to be appealing also for regulators. During the last decades, public utilities such as water and electricity have...
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Dynamic partial adjustment models of residential electricity demand account for the fact that households may not adjust electricity consumption immediately in response to changes in prices, income, and other relevant factors, because of behavioral habits or adjustment costs for the capital stock of appliances. However, forward-looking behavior is generally neglected. Expectations about future...
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In: Transportation research part A: policy and practice, 2015, vol. 82, p. 158-168
The purpose of this study is to assess differences in the levels of cost efficiency of bus lines operated under competitively tendered contracts and performance-based negotiated contracts. Following the revision of the Swiss railways act in 1996, regional public authorities were given the choice between two different contractual regimes to procure public passenger transport services. We...
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In: Economic Modelling, 2015, vol. 51, p. 289-298
Population aging is challenging governments to find new solutions to finance the increasing demand for nursing home care and slow down the increase in expenditures. In this light, many European countries are currently considering reforms to increase efficiency in the provision of nursing home services. One popular restructuring policy is the transformation of public organizations into private...
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The purpose of this study is to assess differences in the levels of cost efficiency of bus lines operated under competitively tendered contracts and performance-based negotiated contracts. Following the revision of the Swiss railways act in 1996, regional public authorities were given the choice between two different contractual regimes to procure public passenger transport services. We...
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In: Regional Science and urban economics, 2014, vol. 49, p. 242-251
The benefits of separating drug prescribing and dispensing are still unclear, in particular when drug consumption is characterized by important spillovers. We investigate the role of dispensing physicians in the consumption of antibiotics characterized by two opposite external effects: infection prevention and control, and bacterial resistance. We model the interaction between competing...
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In: Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 2014, vol. 85, no. 3, p. 475-495
In this paper we investigate the household demand for childcare during lunchtime at school using a stated preferences approach. Data are collected through phone- structured interviews to 905 residents with children in the German-speaking region of Switzerland during 2007. Poisson models with random and fixed effects are used to explore factors affecting the demand. Ordinal probit models are also...
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We investigate the relationship between costs and quality in nonprofit nursing homes, a key issue in the present context of cost containment measures. In accordance with the economic theory of production, we estimate a three-inputs total cost function for nursing home services using data from 45 nursing homes in Switzerland between 2006 and 2010. Quality is measured by means of clinical...
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