Common Ownership and Market Entry: Evidence from the Pharmaceutical Industry

Common ownership - where two firms are at least partially owned by the same investor - and its impact on product market outcomes has recently drawn a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners alike. Theoretical and empirical research suggests that common ownership can lead to higher prices. This paper focuses on implications for market entry. To estimate the effect of common ownership on entry decisions, we focus on the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, we consider the entry decisions of generic pharmaceutical firms into drug markets opened up by the end of regulatory protection in the US. We first provide a theoretical framework that shows that a higher level of common ownership between the brand firm (incumbent) and potential generic entrant reduces the generic's incentives to entry. We provide robust evidence for this prediction. The effect is large: a one-standard-deviation increase in common ownership decreases the probability of generic entry by 9-13%. We extend our basic theoretical framework and allow for multiple entrants. Our model shows that for sufficiently high levels of common ownership, the classical idea of entry decisions being strategic substitutes can be reversed into being strategic complements. Our empirical results provide some support for these predictions

VPSIRR (Vulnerability - Pressure - State - Impact - Risk And Response): An Approach To Determine The Condition Of Estuaries And To Assess Where Management Responses Are

Estuaries are highly variable in terms of type and geomorphic classification. The condition of these systems is often a reflection of activities taking place in their catchments and the susceptibility of these systems to each particular pressure. Effective management intervention can be achieved when there is an understanding of the current condition of the estuary or component of the estuary and of the pressures likely to affect them. If this can be linked to the susceptibility of the estuary to the pressure (risk), the management activity can be prioritised. A framework based on the Pressure-State-Impact-Response model, but which also includes the vulnerability of the system to each of the pressures has been developed. A key feature of this framework is that the links between indicators of pressure, state and impact are clearly identified ensuring that only indicators relevant to the local situation are selected. In addition, a risk assessment process has been developed. This approach is called a VPSIRR (Vulnerability - Pressure - State - Impact - Risk - Response)approach. Application of this method increases the likelihood of being able to identify the causes of any observed changes in condition, making it easier to identify appropriate management actions. It also enables information to be provided to the community in a user-friendly manner. We have developed a user friendly computer package which enables the risk that each estuary is under from various pressures to be assessed and linked to condition. The package enables the certainty about various data used to inform the process, to be reported. Importantly, the package enables indicator information to be updated as better information becomes available. It also enables new indicator information to be incorporated into the software should better knowledge become available. This component would only be made available to software administrators. The package produces a colour coded and numeric report card comprising of 5 colours or numbers which is designed to be easily understood and interpreted by users from a variety of backgrounds. The software can be used to inform managers of where to focus management investment, but can also be used to educate people about natural resource issues and the implications of different catchment and estuary based activities. Fact sheets imbedded within the software provide details about the various indicators. These include how to collect data and where necessary, how to analyse them in order to use the software. The fact sheets also provide information on management responses to a variety of issues

The Regeneration Games: Commodities, Gifts and the Economics of London 2012

This paper considers contradictions between two concurrent and tacit conceptions of the Olympic ‘legacy’, setting out one conception that understands the games and their legacies as gifts alongside and as counterpoint to the prevailing discourse, which conceives Olympic assets as commodities. The paper critically examines press and governmental discussion of legacy, in order to locate these in the context of a wider perspective contrasting ‘gift’ and ‘commodity’ Olympics – setting anthropological conceptions of gift-based sociality as a necessary supplement to contractual and dis-embedded socioeconomic organizational assumptions underpinning the commodity Olympics. Costbenefit planning is central to modern city building and mega-event delivery. The paper considers the insufficiency of this approach as the exclusive paradigm within which to frame and manage a dynamic socio-economic and cultural legacy arising from the 2012 games

Muscle fiber conduction velocity is more affected after eccentric than concentric exercise

It has been shown that mean muscle fiber conduction velocity (CV) can be acutely impaired after eccentric exercise. However, it is not known whether this applies to other exercise modes. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to compare the effects of eccentric and concentric exercises on CV, and amplitude and frequency content of surface electromyography (sEMG) signals up to 24 h post-exercise. Multichannel sEMG signals were recorded from biceps brachii muscle of the exercised arm during isometric maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) and electrically evoked contractions induced by motor-point stimulation before, immediately after and 2 h after maximal eccentric (ECC group, N = 12) and concentric (CON group, N = 12) elbow flexor exercises. Isometric MVC decreased in CON by 21.7 ± 12.0% (± SD, p < 0.01) and by 30.0 ± 17.7% (p < 0.001) in ECC immediately post-exercise when compared to baseline. At 2 h post-exercise, ECC showed a reduction in isometric MVC by 24.7 ± 13.7% (p < 0.01) when compared to baseline, while no significant reduction (by 8.0 ± 17.0%, ns) was observed in CON. Similarly, reduction in CV was observed only in ECC both during the isometric MVC (from baseline of 4.16 ± 0.3 to 3.43 ± 0.4 m/s, p < 0.001) and the electrically evoked contractions (from baseline of 4.33 ± 0.4 to 3.82 ± 0.3 m/s, p < 0.001). In conclusion, eccentric exercise can induce a greater and more prolonged reduction in muscle force production capability and CV than concentric exercis

Drug use among British Bangladeshis in London: a macro-structural perspective focusing on disadvantages contributing to individuals’ drug use trajectories and engagement with treatment services

Aims: The main aim of our study was to produce an understanding of factors contributing to drug-using trajectories among men and women from a Bangladeshi background living in East London. Methods: Fifteen semi-structured, one-to-one interviews were conducted with male and female Bangladeshi drug users accessing treatment services. A macro-structural lens was adopted to interpret participants’ accounts of their drug use and explored the intersecting factors that at a micro, meso, and macro level impacted on their drug-using trajectories. Findings: Problem drug use (heroin and crack cocaine) among participants was the result of inter-related factors such as their friendship networks and the embeddedness of drugs in drug-using networks, the structural disadvantages participants experienced, and the need for concealment of their drug use which impacted on participants’ effective utilisation of drug treatment services. Problem drug use was a functional way of responding to and dealing with social, economic, and cultural disconnection from mainstream institutions as participants faced severe multiple disadvantages engendering stigma and shame. Conclusions: We propose a ‘life-focused’ intervention aimed at creating extra opportunities and making critically-needed resources available in the marginalised environment of the study’s participants, which are key to restoring and maintaining agency and sustaining well-being

Austerity urbanism and Olympic counter-legacies: gendering, defending and expanding the urban commons in East London

This article reflects on an occupation led by single mothers to contest the destruction of social housing in post-Olympics East London. In the process, it argues for a more gendered theorisation of the urban commons. Drawing on auto-ethnography, participant observation and qualitative interviews, the article argues three central points: First, that the occupation demonstrates the gendered nature of the urban commons and the leadership of women in defending them from enclosure; second that the defence of an existing urban commons enabled the creation of a new temporary commons characterised by the collectivisation of gendered socially reproductive activities; and third that this commoning has had a lasting impact on housing activism at the city scale and beyond. This impact is conceptualised as an ‘Olympic counter-legacy’ that is characterised by the forging of new relationships and affinities, the strengthening of networked activism and circulation of tactics between campaign groups

Comparison of landscape approaches to define spatial patterns of hillslope-scale sediment delivery ratio

A sediment delivery ratio (SDR) is that fraction of gross erosion that is transported from a given catchment in a given time interval. In essence, a SDR is a scaling factor that relates sediment availability and deposition at different spatial scales. In this paper, we focus on hillslope-scale SDR, i.e. the ratio of sediment produced from hillslopes to that delivered to the stream network. Factors that affect hillslope water movement, and thus entrainment or deposition of sediments, ultimately affecting the SDR, include upslope area, climate, topography, and soil cover. In erosion models, SDR is usually treated as a constant parameter. However, the use of spatially variable SDRs could improve the spatial prediction of the critical sources of sediment, i.e. identification of those areas directly affecting stream water quality. Such information would improve prioritisation of natural resource management effort and investment. Recent literature has described several landscape approaches to represent SDR variability in space, some of which account only for topography, whilst others consider topography and soil cover characteristics. The aim of this study was to evaluate four landscape approaches for their ability to depict spatial patterns of SDR in the Avon-Richardson catchment in the semi-arid Wimmera region (Victoria, South-east Australia). Erosion was assessed using a semi-distributed model (CatchMODS) with disaggregation based in subcatchments of around 40 km2 area. Hillslope gross erosion was assessed with a RUSLE approach. By applying the four landscape approaches using DEM and estimates of land use cover, four landscape index subcatchment distributions were calculated. These were normalised into standard distributions. Then, a sigmoid function was used to transform the standardised indices into SDR-index distributions ranging from zero to one. Finally, subcatchment SDRs were estimated as the product of the SDR-index by a whole-of-catchment SDR value that was estimated by calibration against sediment loads measured at five gauging stations of the study area. The major sources of hillslope erosion were modelled to be located in the southern hilly areas of the catchment. However, a topographic convergence approach predicted as well important contribution of hillslope-erosion sediment loads coming from the eastern flatter cropping land. The introduction of landscape-variable SDRs improved the overall goodness-of-fit of modelled versus observed sediment loads at five gauging stations located in the catchment for only the topographic convergence approach. However, the limited number of observations (11), the location of some gauging stations downstream of active gully erosion, and the lack of gauging stations monitoring the north-eastern part of the catchment hindered the assessment of which spatial distribution of hillslope erosion best represented the real catchment conditions. Further research is needed to define the relationship between landscape indices and SDR; and to evaluate the spatial distribution of erosion against more complete field evidence

IMACS World Congress and MODSIM International Congress on Modelling and Simulation

A sediment delivery ratio (SDR) is that fraction of gross erosion that is transported from a given catchment in a given time interval. In essence, a SDR is a scaling factor that relates sediment availability and deposition at different spatial scales. In this paper, we focus on hillslope-scale SDR, i.e. the ratio of sediment produced from hillslopes to that delivered to the stream network. Factors that affect hillslope water movement, and thus entrainment or deposition of sediments, ultimately affecting the SDR, include upslope area, climate, topography, and soil cover. In erosion models, SDR is usually treated as a constant parameter. However, the use of spatially variable SDRs could improve the spatial prediction of the critical sources of sediment, i.e. identification of those areas directly affecting stream water quality. Such information would improve prioritisation of natural resource management effort and investment. Recent literature has described several landscape approaches to represent SDR variability in space, some of which account only for topography, whilst others consider topography and soil cover characteristics. The aim of this study was to evaluate four landscape approaches for their ability to depict spatial patterns of SDR in the Avon-Richardson catchment in the semi-arid Wimmera region (Victoria, South-east Australia). Erosion was assessed using a semi-distributed model (CatchMODS) with disaggregation based in subcatchments of around 40 km2 area. Hillslope gross erosion was assessed with a RUSLE approach. By applying the four landscape approaches using DEM and estimates of land use cover, four landscape index subcatchment distributions were calculated. These were normalised into standard distributions. Then, a sigmoid function was used to transform the standardised indices into SDR-index distributions ranging from zero to one. Finally, subcatchment SDRs were estimated as the product of the SDR-index by a whole-of-catchment SDR value that was estimated by calibration against sediment loads measured at five gauging stations of the study area. The major sources of hillslope erosion were modelled to be located in the southern hilly areas of the catchment. However, a topographic convergence approach predicted as well important contribution of hillslope-erosion sediment loads coming from the eastern flatter cropping land. The introduction of landscape-variable SDRs improved the overall goodness-of-fit of modelled versus observed sediment loads at five gauging stations located in the catchment for only the topographic convergence approach. However, the limited number of observations (11), the location of some gauging stations downstream of active gully erosion, and the lack of gauging stations monitoring the north-eastern part of the catchment hindered the assessment of which spatial distribution of hillslope erosion best represented the real catchment conditions. Further research is needed to define the relationship between landscape indices and SDR; and to evaluate the spatial distribution of erosion against more complete field evidence

Work-like experiences in the United Kingdom: their role in experiential learning and industry-university collaboration

Work-like experience (WLE) and real-world practice is becoming more important for students as skills gaps are widening. The effects of this gap are becoming more significant also, with negative consequences on productivity and social mobility. Nottingham Business School offers a number of WLE projects, with two options at postgraduate level being the Consultancy Experience Project and In-company Experience Project. This literature review aims to identify the range of similar projects offered across UK higher education, discussing findings around the value and impact on student learning and outcomes to identify potential gaps in knowledge. Among the significant conclusions drawn are the ideas that undergraduate year-long work placements are over-represented in existing research, while WLEs in general, particularly at postgraduate level have received less attention. Significantly, there is little research on the motivations of businesses which take part in these projects. This is even more significant given the growth in scale and the need to encourage more external clients to engage