Health Economics quiz

1. The Evanston North acquisition of Highland Park hospital was unusual because:
   1. The FTC opened its investigation after the merger was consummated.
   2. Evanston North alleged substantial efficiencies were only available to the merged firm.
   3. The FTC had actual evidence of post-merger pricing with which to assess the competitive effects of the merger.
   4. The attorneys for ENK hired economists to conduct empirical   analysis of geographic market definition.
2. Did the FTC win the first round at the ALJ in its litigation against ENH?
   1. Yes
   2. No
3. On appeal, ENH’s case was judged by the Commission.
   1. True
   2. False
4. The Commission voted to uphold the FTC case against ENH.
   1. True
   2. False
5. The FTC initially sought to have ENH divest Highland Park but later settled for a provision that EN and Glendale must negotiate with payors such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield independently.
   1. True
   2. False
6. Which was the most dispositive evidence that the merger was anticompetitive:
   1. Concentration in the antitrust market was made substantially more concentrated by the merger.
   2. EN documents referred to Highland Park’s imposition of price discipline on EN.
   3. Price data was analyzed by Commission economists that showed substantial post-merger price increases.
   4. Documentary evidence of collusion among the five hospitals remaining after merger.
7. Following the Commission’s win over the merger defendants private parties filed suit against ENH for damages from price fixing.
   1. True
   2. False
8. Not all hospital patients can afford to pay for their hospital care and, as well, hospitals are not allowed to turn emergency room patients down or divert them to other hospitals. Allegedly, hospitals make up the deficit through cost shifting.
   1. True
   2. False
9. Unlike regulated firms cost shifting by hospitals is essentially price discrimination.
   1. True
   2. False

QUESTION: Mr. Horwell is unsure that NOBU has the resources to support the entire IMC you suggested in Q3(advertising, personal selling, public relations, social media marketing, sales promotion). Please rank the promotional mix tools (1= highest priority to 4= lowest priority) and justify.

Traveling in Nobu Style: Converting Restaurant Patrons to Hotel Guests The name “Nobu” is synonymous with an exceptional Japanese dining experience, perfected by chef Nobu Matsuhisa over a more than 30-year career. Matsuhisa, together with actor Robert De Niro and restaurateur Drew Nieporent, opened the first Nobu restaurant in 1994 and to date, there are now 38 Nobu restaurants worldwide. But if you talk to Trevor Horwell, the CEO of Nobu Hospitality, Nobu represents much more than just a restaurant experience. It’s a true lifestyle brand that also encompasses a relatively small, but growing portfolio of luxury hotels, too — eight of which are open now, and eight more are in the pipeline. Horwell’s primary focus as CEO is to continue to grow the Nobu Hotels brand and as he opens up diners’ eyes to the fact that cannot only eat at a Nobu but stay at one, too, he hasn’t forgotten the brand’s origins in the process. “We don’t normally do a hotel unless we think that a Nobu Restaurant can do well in that location,” said Horwell. “That’s very important because what we want to do first and foremost is to make sure there is a draw for locals, and that really comes down to the Nobu Restaurant.” Horwell said the majority of his Nobu hotel restaurant diners — 80 percent on average — are local residents, not hotel guests. “It’s not like a tourist restaurant. We like to attract the locals. We want that built-in customer.” “We are defined by the restaurant, in a way,” he said. “We play to our strengths. If you look at the hotel business today, the majority of hotels are suffering because they don’t lead with food and beverage. don’t have strong food-and-beverage concepts, and a lot of hotels are losing money. Today, we play to our strengths because that is one area that we do very, very well, and we bring in locals.” The idea to launch Nobu Hotels, he said, came from the fact that when Nobu Restaurants were located inside of a hotel, they “were the draw for the hotel and we were bringing in customers.” “If I only convert 5 percent of my customers in Nobu Restaurant to stay in our hotels, then at the end of the day, we’re filling out hotels. It’s not a tall order to do that, and you can do that very well and very quickly if you offer the right product.” Nobu Hotels has the advantage of having built its brand over a 24-year period with its restaurants first, followed by the first Nobu hotel that opened within Caesars Palace Las Vegas in 2013. “The first focus for us, really, is to expose the brand to our restaurant customers,” Horwell said. “We touch all types of Nobu customers. And we also provide instant identity. If you put ‘Nobu Hotel’ on a hotel, the word ‘Nobu’ says something and it attracts a certain type of customer.” Horwell said that, for example, when the first Nobu opened, the hotel had “more than one billion media impressions.” So, what’s next for the brand, and how does Horwell plan to grow Nobu Hotels? He explained, “We’re not driven by reservations systems because we’re small. It isn’t as if we need a huge reservations system to fill a 400-room hotel. That’s why a lot of these corporations do well, because they have the reservations platform to fill the big hotels.” Nobu Hotels, by comparison, average anywhere from 100 to 150 rooms generally. “The reason why those young lifestyle brands have emerged is because they’re like us. They are entrepreneurial, they’re unique because it’s a concept that’s come from the heart, from whoever is the original founder. But when it’s absorbed by a corporation, the whole thing changes. At the end of the day, the specialness is lost because then the corporation’s running it, and then, I think you lose what your original concept was all about. I think that’s the biggest issue.” Horwell also doesn’t necessarily think of Nobu Hotels as occupying a place in luxury hospitality, instead referring to the brand as “special.” “I look at our hotels not as luxury,” he said. “I look at them as special. I like us to be special, in each location we’re in. ‘Luxury’ is a word that’s used too much in terms of ‘everything is luxury today.’ For us, we’re ‘special.'” “That’s why I’m saying, from a company perspective, we’re very entrepreneurial. Today’s evolving luxury traveler is seeking “youthfulness” no matter what age they are, and they are “very curious and very adventurous. Because of that, it’s important for hospitality brands, Nobu included, to not just say they’re unique but to really offer unique experiences. He pointed to Nobu Ryokan Malibu in California as an example. The 16-room retreat overlooks the beach and is right by the ocean, and right next door to the Nobu Restaurant in Malibu. It becomes a destination, and that’s something Nobu wants to offer. It’s also a different concept from what the other Nobu Hotels have. While Nobu Hotels are places where there’s an emphasis on bringing in the locals, the Ryokans are meant to be more private. “The Ryokan is actually a place where people don’t want to necessarily be seen,” Horwell explained. “It’s a hideaway, a retreat. You can only book through a general manager and it’s a special place.” He added, “We will do more Ryokans, definitely, in locations that we think is right.” A major focus for Nobu Hotels is to grow the company and the brand with the right talent and partners, as well as make sure that the Nobu Hotels brand is reaching the right consumers. “The most important thing, from our perspective, is to build a relationship with our existing customers,” he said. “It’s about, first and foremost, on digital, working our databases. We like to do that through email, through a lot of channels. We just brought on a new head of digital. Capturing data is very, very important now, and that’s something that is a main focus and her team.” “I think the main thing for us is the customer relationship management (CRM) because you can do so much with it,” he said. “You can know your customer. It’s one part of the business that we are heavily focused in in and we can extract a lot of information from that.” In addition to beefing up its customer relationship management system, Nobu is also testing out a loyalty partnership, of sorts. The Nobu London Shoreditch joined Design Hotels last year, giving the property access to distribution on Design Hotels’ site, as well as a connection to the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program. Three Nobu hotels are also members of Leading Hotels of the World. “A lot of our customers aren’t driven by points,” he said. “When I travel, I don’t go for points. I want to stay in a hotel where I enjoy the staff, the food and beverage, the products — all of that — and I will pay a premium for it.” Appendix A Additional Information about NOBU Nobu Hotels "A Place to go and be seen" By “wrapping” the concept of a luxurious boutique hotel around energized public spaces, Nobu Hotels creates powerful stages for shared experiences of excitement and escapism. Featuring the best of everything with imaginative new restaurants, high- energy bars, relaxing rejuvenation, distinctive service, remarkable retail and an air of celebrity, Nobu Hotels will afford guests and privileged owners the most exclusive entry into unparalleled experiences that lay at the crossroads of innovation and imagination. Source: Excerpted from ‘Nobu Hotels CEO on a Restaurant-First Approach to Hospitality’ by D. Ting. Skift – March 22, 2018. +Experts and image from Nobu restaurant and hotel website

The undrained strength of a clay is 1.2 kips/ft2 , the water table in 4 ft below the ground surface, the total unit weight of the clay is 118 lb/ft3 , and a round shallow foundations with a diameter of 4.25 ft is placed at a depth of 10 ft supports a column load. a. Use a factor of safety of 2.8 and compute the safe column load on the foundation. b. An excavation near the drilled shaft removes the soil down to the water table. What is the effect on the factor of safety? (Hint consider what the physical meaning of the components in the Hansen equation. Which component is impacted by the excavation?)

Why are Km values of enzymes typically at or near the cellular substrate concentration?

Differentiate between near and far transfer. Provide a substantive example of each.

What type of structure exists in central Tennessee near Nashville? Geology

How JOBS act affect private equity investment in the near future?

Lavage Rapide is a Canadian company that owns and operates a large automatic car wash facility near Montreal. The following table provides data concerning the company’s costs:

For example, electricity costs are $1,100 per month plus $0.10 per car washed. The company expects to wash 8,100 cars in August and to collect an average of $5.90 per car washed. The company actually washed 8,200 cars in August.

Required:

Calculate the company's activity variances for August.

Lavage Rapide is a Canadian company that owns and operates a large automatic car wash facility near Montreal. The following table provides data concerning the company’s costs:

For example, electricity costs are $1,400 per month plus $0.05 per car washed. The company expects to wash 8,200 cars in August and to collect an average of $6.90 per car washed. The company actually washed 8,300 cars in August.

Calculate the company's activity variances for August.

The owner of Gino’s Pizza restaurant chain believes that if a restaurant is located near a college campus, then there is a linear relationship between sales and the size of the student population. Suppose data are collected from a sample of n = 10 Gino’s Pizza restaurants located near college campuses with the following reported sample statistics:

We want to find the equation of the least-squares regression line predicting quarterly pizza sales (y) from student population (x).

1. Estimate and interpret the sample correlation between population and sales.

2. Estimate the slope of the linear regression equation of Sales on Population where Population is the dependent variable.

3. Estimate the intercept of the linear regression equation of Sales on Population where Population is the dependent variable.

4. Compute the Total Sum of Squares (SST)

5. Compute the Regression Sum of Squares (SSR)

6. Compute the Error Sum of Squares (SSE)

7. Complete the ANOVA Table for Regression

1. What is the standard error for the slope estimate?

2. Develop a 95% confidence interval estimate for β₁.

3. Test for the Significance of β₁. Use α = 0.05

4. Use an F-test to determine if the regression model is significant.

5. Compute the R² and interpret.

6. Develop a 95% Prediction Interval for a single location that has a student population of 17.

7. Develop a 95% Confidence Interval for the average Sales for a group of locations where the student population is 17.