The "managed care revolution of the 1990s" achieved an important, if temporary, success. It stabilized health insurance premiums and National Health Expenditures (NHE) as a percent of GDP for 5 or 6 years. But it now appears to be failing. High and rapidly increasing health expenditures create serious problems for our society. Managed care has also faced criticism from consumers for “more managing, and not enough caring.”

What does this mean? What ae some of the pros? Cons?

5. The Argentine peso was fixed through a currency board at Ps1.00/$ throughout the 1990s. In January 2002 the Argentine peso was floated. On January 29, 2003 it was trading at Ps3.65/$. During that one-year period Argentina's inflation rate was 20% on an annualized basis.

Inflation in the United States during that same period was 2.5% annualized.

1. What should have been the exchange rate in January 2003 if PPP held?

2. By what percentage was the Argentine peso undervalued on an annualized basis?

1. What were the probable causes of undervaluation?

In the 1990s politicians in Washington D.C. were looking for ways to balance the budget. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan brought attention to the importance of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and its link to cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in several areas of the federal budget--most notably Social Security. Alan Greenspan argued that the CPI overstated inflation and thus led to unjustified COLAs. According to Alan Greenspan, these unjustified COLAs therefore increased the deficit, and if the overstatements in the CPI were corrected this would contribute to balancing the budget.

The Senate Finance Committee created the Boskin Commission in the 1990s to examine possible overstatements of the CPI. The commission came out with its estimate that the CPI overstated inflation by 1.1%.

Answer the following questions:

1. If the Boskin Commission's estimate was right and the CPI overstates inflation by 1.1 % every year--what does that say about real GDP per capita and living standards in general in the United States, which are affected by the CPI ?

2. What are some of the sources of this possible overstatement of the CPI, which is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics?

In the 1990s politicians in Washington D.C. were looking for ways to balance the budget. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan brought attention to the importance of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and its link to cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in several areas of the federal budget--most notably Social Security. Alan Greenspan argued that the CPI overstated inflation and thus led to unjustified COLAs. According to Alan Greenspan, these unjustified COLAs therefore increased the deficit, and if the overstatements in the CPI were corrected this would contribute to balancing the budget.

The Senate Finance Committee created the Boskin Commission in the 1990s to examine possible overstatements of the CPI. The commission came out with its estimate that the CPI overstated inflation by 1.1%.

Answer the following questions:

1. If the Boskin Commission's estimate was right and the CPI overstates inflation by 1.1 % every year--what does that say about real GDP per capita and living standards in general in the United States, which are affected by the CPI ?

2. What are some of the sources of this possible overstatement of the CPI, which is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics?

Russia and South Korea experienced exchange rate crises in the late 1990s, but their response was markedly different. First, Russia experienced a dramatic decrease in the value of the Russian ruble relative to the U.S. dollar in 1998. The Russian government responded by suspending payments on foreign debt. Similarly, South Korea experienced a decrease in the value of the won in 1997. In contrast, South Korea did not default on its debt.

Why might these two countries have behaved differently in response to their respective crises? What are the benefits of default? What are the drawbacks?

In the 1990s, a task force was formed among executives of seven regional transportation agencies in the New York–New Jersey area.11 The mission of the task force was to investi- gate the feasibility and desirability of adopting electronic toll collection (ETC) for the inter- regional roadways of the area. Electronic toll collection is accom- plished by providing commuters with small transceivers (tags) that emit a tuned radio signal. Receivers placed at tollbooths are able to receive the radio signal and identify the commuter associated with the particular signal. Commuters establish ETC accounts that are debited for each use of a toll road or facility, thus elimi- nating the need for the commuter to pay by cash or token. Because the radio signal can be read from a car in motion, ETC can reduce traffic jams at toll plazas by allowing tag holders to pass through at moderate speeds. At the time the New York and New Jersey agencies were studying the service, electronic toll collection was already being used successfully in Texas and Louisiana. Even though several of the agencies had individually considered implementing ETC, they recognized that independent adoption would fall far short of the potential benefits achievable with an integrated interregional system. The task force was most interested in identifying the ideal configuration of service attributes for each agency’s commuters and determining how similar or different these configurations might be across agencies. The task force identified a lengthy list of attributes that was ultimately culled to six questions:

• How many accounts are necessary and what statements will be received?

• How and where does one pay for E-ZPass?

• What lanes are available for use and how they are controlled?

• Is the tag transferable to other vehicles?

• What is the price of the tag and possible service charge?

• What are other possible uses for the E-ZPass tag (airport parking, gasoline purchases, and so forth)?

From a researcher’s perspective, it also seemed important to assess commuter demand for the service. However, the task force was not convinced that it needed a projection of demand, because it was committed to implementing ETC regardless of initial com- muter acceptance. The task force considered its primary role to be investigating commuters’ preferences for how the service should be configured ideally.

Questions

1. Evaluate the problem-definition process. Has the problem been defined adequately so that a relevant decision statement can be written?

2. What type of research design would you recommend for this project?

3. What research questions might be tested?

4. What might a dummy table include in this research proposal?

Subject: Business Research Management

Please write more than 500 words.

Hello, this is Jessie Hardcastle over at the Refugee Resettlement Organization. We are dealing with a large number of women with infants who have recently been resettled in our town. However, the doctors tell us that they have some malnutrition problems and need information about how to eat healthily. The doctor has given them vitamins but they need basic nutrition for new mothers and infants up to 2 years old. Could you put together an educational program for them and choose examples of a good menu for a week for the mothers? They could also use the information on WIC, and on proper feeding of infants from newborn to 2 years old."

Question 1

The American Pet Products Association conducted a survey in 2011 and determined that 60% of dog owners have only one dog, 28% have two dogs, and 12% have three or more. Supposing that you have decided to conduct your own survey and have collected the data below, determine whether your data supports the results of the APPA study. Use a significance level of 0.05.

Data: Out of 119 dog owners, 70 had one dog and 30 had two dogs.

What is the p-value when testing whether your data supports the results of the APPA study? (note: The question asked has been updated)

Question 1 options:

Question 2

A survey of 325 middle school students from a city school district asks, among other things, for students’ gender, whether they prefer cats or dogs, and whether they prefer basketball or football. With these data, we can investigate whether, in this city, girls prefer cats over dogs, whether gender matters in terms of favorite sport, and whether there is a relationship between favorite pet and favorite sport.

Here are part of the data:

Suppose that you plan to use a chi-square test for determining whether there is any gender gap in the preference of certain pets (cats/dogs).

What is the p-value?

Question 2 options:

Question 3

Suppose we have survey data for 1,000 randomly selected local pet owners. We wish to determine if the population proportion of local ferret owners is different from the national average of 6.5%. Out of the 1000 selected pet owners, 85 are ferret owners.

Test whether there is a significant difference between the local ferret rate and the national average.

The p-value is

Question 3 options:

Question 4

Suppose we have survey data for 1,000 randomly selected local pet owners. We wish to determine if the population proportion of local ferret owners is different from the national average of 6.5%. Out of the 1000 selected pet owners, 85 are ferret owners.

Give a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of local ferret owners.

Question 4 options:

Question 5

A high school math teacher believes that male and female students who graduated from the school perform equally well on SAT math test. She randomly chooses 10 male students and 10 female students who graduated from this school. The following are the SAT math scores of the 20 students:

Male: 23, 30, 27, 29, 22, 34, 36, 28, 28, 31
Female: 22, 33, 30, 28, 28, 31, 34, 25, 29, 21

Test the teacher's claim.

What is the p-value?

Question 5 options:

Strategic Human Resources – Assignment Sheet 2
Case Study:
In the past, the decision criteria for mergers and acquisitions were typically based on considerations such as the strategic fit of the merged organizations, financial criteria, and operational criteria. Mergers and acquisitions were often conducted without much regard for the human resource issues that would be faced when the organizations were joined. As a result, several undesirable effects on the organizations’ human resources commonly occurred. Nonetheless, competitive conditions favor mergers and acquisitions and they remain a frequent occurrence. Examples of mergers among some of the largest companies include the following: Honeywell and Allied Signal, British Petroleum and Amoco, Exxon and Mobil, Lockheed and Martin, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, SBC and Pacific Telesis, America Online and Time Warner, Burlington Northern and Santa Fe, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific, Daimler-Benz and Chrysler, Ford and Volvo, and Bank of America and Nations Bank.
Layoffs often accompany mergers or acquisitions, particularly if the two organizations are from the same industry. In addition to layoffs related to redundancies, top managers of acquiring firms may terminate some competent employees because they do not fit in with the new culture of the merged organization or because their loyalty to the new management may be suspect. The desire for a good fit with the cultural objectives of the new organization and loyalty are understandable. However, the depletion of the stock of human resources deserves serious consideration, just as with physical resources. Unfortunately, the way that mergers and acquisitions have been carried out has often conveyed a lack of concern for human resources.
A sense of this disregard is revealed in the following observation:
Post combination integration strategies vary in tactics, some resemble to “marriage & love’ but in reality, collaborative mergers are much more hostile in implementing forceful decision and financial takeovers. Yet, as a cursory scan of virtually any newspaper or popular business magazine readily reveals, the simple fact is that the latter are much more common than the former.
The cumulative effects of these developments often cause employee morale and loyalty to decline, and feelings of betrayal may develop. Nonetheless, such adverse consequences are not inevitable. A few companies, such as Cisco Systems, which has made over 50 acquisitions (https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/about/corporate-strategy-office/acquisitions/acquisitions-list-years.html), are very adept in handling the human resource issues associated with these actions. An example of one of Cisco’s practices is illustrative. At Cisco Systems, no one from an acquired firm is laid off without the personal approval of Cisco’s CEO as well as the CEO of the firm that was acquired.

QUESTIONS:

1. Interview someone who has been through a merger or acquisition. Find out how they felt as an employee. Determine how they and their coworkers were affected. Ask about the effects on productivity, loyalty, and morale. Find out what human resource practices were used and obtain their evaluations of what was helpful or harmful.