Advanced Purchase Research Articles

Understanding sustainable purchase intention of smartphone users interface: Evidence from China.

In recent decades, the fast development of smartphones has resulted in an enormous mass of e-waste besides a carbon footprint increase. In the face of serious environmental concerns, the manufacture and disposal of smartphones have become a primary customer concern. Environmental concerns are becoming a decisive factor when it comes to purchasing a product. Manufacturers have shifted their focus to product design with sustainable requirements in response to these new customer requirements. With all of the affordable technology manufacturers now may consider customer-sustainable requirements. This research aims to examine the relationship between traditional customer requirements, sustainable customer requirements, and sustainable purchase intention for smartphones in China, as well as the mediation effect of sustainable perceived value and the moderation effect of price sensitivity. Customers' preferences are determined by using an online questionnaire. This research proposed an advanced sustainable purchase intention model by conducting an empirical analysis of the data gathered from 379 questionnaires. To gain a competitive advantage, companies should concentrate on meeting traditional and sustainable requirements more than the product price, according to the findings of the research. And contributes to the segmentation of the eco-friendly smartphone market.

Suitability of two WHO research and development initiatives for COVID-19 to promote equitable innovation: the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator and COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.

To analyze the World Health Organization's (WHO's) contribution to promotion of access to innovative technologies by assessing its initiatives on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) research, development, and innovation. A document search was done for previous criteria used by WHO working groups to evaluate innovation and access merits. Two sets of criteria were identified. One set was used to assess the suitability of existing mechanisms to coordinate research, development, and innovation and pool funds globally. The second set was used to measure success in implementing demonstration projects and consider the extent of innovative components being implemented by them. These criteria were applied to the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) initiatives. Scores were classified as: meets the criteria (2); partially meets the criteria (1); does not meet the criteria (0). Both initiatives met all the first set of criteria. C-TAP, an initiative based on a patent pool and other open knowledge approaches, best met the second set of criteria, scoring 7 out of 12 points. ACT-A, based on pooled funds, advanced purchase agreements, and voluntary contributions, met none of the second set of criteria. Equitable access to health technologies has been a recurring problem in recent pandemics and initiatives were proposed to prevent it. However, even though COVID-19 has been the greatest health crisis in the 21st century, market dynamics still prevailed. Income disparities between countries and lack of support for solidarity and a global health approach only aggravated the negative health and economic impacts.

More Pain, More Gain! The Delivery of COVID-19 Vaccines and the Pharmaceutical Industry's Role in Widening the Access Gap.

An effective response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic entails a comprehensive strategy that ensures equitable access to all COVID-19-fighting technologies. To achieve this goal, the international community has acknowledged immunization as a public good. However, a trend of grossly unequal dose distribution emerged, owing, among other factors, to pharmaceutical companies' profit-driven actions, jeopardizing the mechanisms built to increase vaccine access. The contradiction between public health interests and corporate discretion in determining vaccine dose distribution poses critical concerns about the health risks associated with lengthening the duration of the pandemic and the eventual liability of companies for violations of human rights. To evaluate the risks posed to the COVID-19 immunization program, data on vaccine allocation and delivery, vaccine dose application, immunized populations, and the volume of Advanced Purchase Agreements (APAs) between countries and pharmaceutical companies were compiled and assessed. A descriptive analysis was then conducted to analyze the role of pharmaceutical companies in providing equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. When the data is broken down by income (as of June 2021), it shows that high-income countries (HICs) have already crossed the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) 20% immunization threshold. However, countries of all other income levels have yet to achieve this mark for fully vaccinated people. Upper-middle-income countries (UMICs) have approximately 3%, low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have approximately 2% and low-income countries (LICs) have less than 0.1% of fully vaccinated people per hundred. The supply shortage is expected to last until the second half of 2021. As a result of the COVAX failure, a health gap emerged with countries living in a pre-immunization period for an extended time. The existing conflict between the international response to tackle COVID-19 and corporate profit-driven behavior contributed to prolonging pandemic, especially in Africa. Accordingly, there is a need to approve an international treaty that targets the activities of all actors, including the pharmaceutical companies, in protecting human rights and the right to health realms.

AB ÜYE DEVLETLERİNDE COVID-19 AŞILARININ ÖN SATIN ALMA SÖZLEŞMELERİ İÇİN VİYANA SATIM ANTLAŞMASININ (CISG’İN) UYGULANABİLİRLİĞİ

The European Commission has signed advanced purchase agreements with various vaccine manufacturers for the production, purchase and supply of the COVID-19 vaccine in the EU. Some parts of the agreement texts with AstraZeneca, CurevacAg and Pfizer Inc./BioNTech have been blacked out. In these agreements, it is understood that Belgian courts are competent and Belgian law is chosen. In a dispute, it is possible for the competent courts to apply CISG since Belgium is a party to the CISG. Even if choice of law hasn’t been made, the fact that the workplaces of all parties to these ageements are party to CISG, makes the CISG applicable. This study evaluates the applicability of the CISG to advanced purchase agreements (especially made with AstraZeneca) in EU Member States.

Same Pandemic Yet Different COVID-19 Vaccination Roll-Out Rates in Two Small European Islands: A Comparison between Cyprus and Malta.

A mass vaccination strategy is estimated to be the long-term solution to control COVID-19. Different European countries have committed to vaccination strategies with variable population inoculation rates. We sought to investigate the extent to which the COVID-19 vaccination strategies, inoculation rate, and COVID-19 outcome differ between Cyprus and Malta. Data were obtained from the Ministry of Health websites and COVID-19 dashboards, while vaccination data were obtained from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control until mid-June, 2021. Comparative assessments were performed between the two countries using Microsoft® Excel for Mac, Version 16.54. Both islands took part in the European Union’s advanced purchase agreement and received their first batch of vaccines on 27 December 2020. The positivity rate and mortality between December and June differs between the two countries (average positivity rate Cyprus 1.34, Malta 3.37 p ≤ 0.01; average mortality Cyprus 7.29, Malta 9.68 p ≤ 0.01). Both the positivity rate and mortality for Cyprus declined due to strict public health measures and vaccination roll-out in early January (positivity rate by 95% and mortality by 58%). In contrast, for Malta, there was a sharp increase (64% p ≤ 0.01) with almost no public health restrictions in place and soaring cases during the Christmas and Carnival period until March, when lockdown measures were re-introduced. A distinctive difference between Cyprus and Malta in positivity rate (14 per 100,000 population; p ≤ 0.01) can also be observed between January and mid-April 2021. However, from April onwards it is evident that the positivity rate and mortality decline (positivity rate Cyprus by 82%, Malta by 95%; mortality Cyprus by 90%, Malta by 95%, p ≤ 0.01, respectively) in both countries as the vaccination roll-outs progressed, covering about 58.93% of the Maltese population, while Cyprus had fully inoculated about 38.03% of its population. The vaccine strategies and vaccination rates were similar for both countries; yet Malta had the fastest vaccine roll-out. Reluctancy to get vaccinated, significant differences in the vaccination appointment scheduling system, and the freedom of vaccination choice for the citizens in Cyprus may have contributed to a delayed vaccination roll-out. These potential contributing factors should be acknowledged and considered for future vaccination programs and potential COVID-19 boosters.

COVID-19 Vaccines as Global Common Goods: An Integrated Approach of Ethical, Economic Policy and Intellectual Property Management

Abstract The article deals with the current debate about COVID-19 Vaccines as global public/common goods. After a brief introduction on the global epidemiological and economic implication of the pandemic, the problem of the correct characterization of either vaccine or immunization/herd immunity as global public/common good, according to the necessary characteristics outlined by the pertinent economic theories, is addressed. The conclusion is that the term “global public good”/global common goods” has been extensively used in the last two years by policy makers, political leaders, academics, economists, international organizations, NGOs and others health groups, in a sort of “loose way”. Substantially, in order to underscore that equitable access to health products, including vaccines, health and biomedical technologies, medical services, medical devises, whose availability, accessibility, acceptability, affordability to the world is fundamental to tackling the pandemic. The current legal proprietary regime applied to vaccines, extensively covered by IPRs, has transformed an intrinsically non-excludable common/public good (the vaccines, due to their nature and characteristics) in something excludable and rival in consumption. Consequently, the article argues that what is needed is a swift in their legal governance. The current legal discipline of vaccines and health technologies must be changed to bring it into line with the non-excludable nature of these goods. The richest countries in the world, in pursuit of their “vaccine nationalisms”, have already collectively preordered 8.8 billion doses of vaccine, far in excess of need, thus obliging billions of people in the Global South to wait years to be vaccinated. In this respect, the article investigates the EU vaccines strategy and analyzes the Advanced Purchase Agreements signed by the European Commission with the major vaccine producers, enlightening the untenable secrecy and opacity with which the European Union’s executive has handled COVID-19 vaccine supply contracts, and how it has simply paid no more than lip-service to the concept of global common/public good by attributing a broad “private governance” to the pharmaceutical companies. Then, the various arguments, for and against, the Waiver Proposal to several sections of the WTO TRIPS agreement, introduced by India and South Africa on the TRIPS Council on October 2020, have been briefly summarized, accounting the current luck of needed consensus among the various members of the WTO. The article however describes an important number of new global and collaborative efforts already put in place by a myriad public and private actors to allow efficient development and production of vaccines in order to enhance a global access to vaccines. The article concludes by stressing the major developments in the U.S. patent’s landscape and in the Biden Administration’s attitude towards the current global health crisis, that leave hope for “extraordinary measures” to be agreed by the international community in near future. The auspice is that the time has finally arrived for the international community to develop reliable and long term solutions to tackle future global pandemic, preferably by the negotiation of a new WHO global health treaty, to secure universal fair access to essential technologies and vaccines and protecting them as global public/common goods.

Viral Sovereignty, Vaccine Diplomacy, and Vaccine Nationalism: The Institutions of Global Vaccine Access

Viral Sovereignty, Vaccine Diplomacy, and Vaccine Nationalism: The Institutions of Global Vaccine Access

Ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines

Ensuring global access to COVID-19 vaccines

Does Willingness to Pay for Rate Conditions Depend on the Booking Window? A Novel Time-Dependent Conjoint Analysis Approach

This research note draws attention to a novel choice-based conjoint (CBC) model by which guests’ preferences toward hotel room rate conditions can be predicted as a function of time. Through the model, the notion is explored whether willingness to pay for rate conditions (without penalty) depends on the size of the booking window. The modified choice model includes time as an additional “attribute.” This attribute does not present a feature of the choice propositions, but instead is associated with the choice context. An empirical study was carried out to demonstrate the proposed model using three common booking conditions (i.e., free cancelation, free date change, pay on departure). The results show significant and positive time-dependent mean components for cancelation and date change conditions. Despite a limited sample size, all significant effects have expected directions (no parameter reversals) providing evidence of the robustness of the model. The results indicate that the ability to cancel or change a booking is preferred more when the booking window is bigger. Accordingly, as the time period between the advanced purchase and intended date of arrival increases, the willingness to pay for rate conditions also increases. This finding has major practical implications for price and revenue optimization. Limitations of the proposed time-dependent model are discussed.

Intertemporal Price Discrimination: Preference Knowledge and Endogenous Capacity Choice

When tickets are sold in advance, as with airlines, concerts, theaters and sporting events, in some cases advanced sales are made at a discount and in others a premium is charged. This paper argues that the more preference certain consumers are regarding future purchases the more likely firms will charge premiums. Alternatively, the higher a firms capacity, the more likely advanced purchase discount will be offered. Finally, endogenizing capacity choice, it is then shown that firms with high marginal costs of capacity are likely to choose premium pricing while low marginal costs of capacity results in more frequent discount pricing.

Efeito da antecedência de compra nas variações de preço das passagens aéreas: o caso da região metropolitana de São Paulo

O objetivo deste artigo concentra-se em avaliar se existem variações na prática de descontos das passagens aéreas compradas com antecedência entre os voos regionais e ponte aérea e entre voos na alta e na baixa estação. Com o auxílio de um modelo econométrico e com a coleta de dados em um período de três anos (2008, 2009 e 2010) de voos com origem nos aeroportos de Guarulhos e Congonhas, foi observado que a antecedência de compra para voos de ponte aérea reflete em desconto médio de 37%, enquanto para os voos regionais o desconto observado é de 24.3%. Na alta estação os voos passam a ter maiores descontos, em relação à baixa, a partir de compras com antecedência de 30 dias da data do voo. A principal explicação para os resultados pode ser embasada na segmentação entre os passageiros que viajam a negócio e a lazer.

Contract analysis: A performance measures and profit evaluation within two-echelon supply chains

Coordination is regarded as key in managing dependencies between distinctive members of a supply chain through the benefits of coordination mechanisms. Such coordination mechanisms are contracts, implemented to increase total supply chain profit, reduce costs and share risk among supply chain members. However, by contract implementation the retailer is constrained in his purchase by bearing the entire risk of holding the inventory (wholesale price contract) or by limited risk allocated to the supplier (buyback, revenue sharing and quantity flexibility contracts). By implementing an advanced purchase system the risk of inventory is fairly divided between the supplier and the retailer. In order to observe inventory implications on the supply chain bottom line, this article is directed towards the evaluation of performance measures and supply chain profit behavior under buyback, revenue sharing, quantity flexibility and advanced purchase discount contracts versus no coordination and wholesale price systems.

Push, Pull, or Both?: A Behavioral Study of Inventory Risk on Channel Efficiency

In this paper we experimentally investigate how the allocation of inventory risk in a two-stage supply chain affects channel efficiency. We first evaluate two common wholesale price contracts that differ in which party incurs the risk associated with unsold inventory; a push contract in which the retailer incurs the risk, and a pull contract in which the supplier incurs the risk. Our experimental results show that a pull contract achieves higher channel efficiency than that of a push contract, and that behavior systematically deviates from the standard theory. Therefore, we extend the existing theory to incorporate a number of behavioral regularities and structurally estimate its parameters. The estimates suggest that a combination of errors with loss aversion organizes our data remarkably well. Following this we explore a third contract, the advanced purchase discount (APD) contract, which combines certain features of push and pull by allowing both parties to share the inventory risk. We apply our behavioral model to the APD contract in a separate experiment as an out-of-sample test and find that it accurately predicts channel efficiency and qualitatively matches decisions. Lastly, from a managerial perspective, we observe that the APD contract weakly Pareto dominates the push contract; retailers are better off and suppliers are no worse off under the APD contract.

The Customer Valuations Game as a Basis for Teaching Revenue Management

I describe the customer valuations game, a simple intuitive game that can serve as a foundation for teaching revenue management. The game requires little or no preparation, props, or software; takes about two hours to play (and hence can be finished in one session); and illustrates the formation of classical (airline and hotel) revenue management mechanisms such as advanced purchase discounts, booking limits, and fixed multiple prices. I use the game to introduce revenue management and to develop revenue management forecasting and optimization concepts stemming from it. The game is particularly suited for nontechnical audiences.

The Customer Valuations Game as a Basis for Revenue Management

I describe the customer valuations game, a simple intuitive game that can serve as a foundation for teaching revenue management. The game requires little or no preparation, props or software, takes around two hours (and hence can be finished in one session), and illustrates the formation of classical (airline and hotel) revenue management mechanisms such as advanced purchase discounts, booking limits and fixed multiple prices. I normally use the game as a base to introduce RM and to develop RM forecasting and optimization concepts off it. The game is particularly suited for non-technical audiences.

Stimulating Research and Development of Pharmaceutical Products for Neglected Diseases

This article provides an introduction to the problem of pharmaceutical research and development of medicinal products for neglected diseases in developing countries. The prevailing market-based intellectual property incentive model of global pharmaceutical innovation has focussed health research priorities mainly on needs of industrialized countries. Increased international attention to the lack of health tools to prevent or treat diseases affecting impoverished regions has raised the discussion on how to encourage sustainable innovation in this area with little or no market. Proposals include models such as for example prize funds, advanced purchase commitments patent pools or creative licensing strategies and seek to complement the current intellectual property based incentive mechanism and government's innovation policy instruments such as tax credits or public research funds. Indispensable requirement to tackle the issue of neglected diseases, however, is a concerted commitment of all stakeholders on national and international levels.

Project BioShield: What It Is, Why It Is Needed, and Its Accomplishments So Far

Project BioShield is a comprehensive effort involving the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), its component agencies, and other partner federal agencies to speed the research, development, acquisition, and availability of medical countermeasures to improve the government's preparedness for and ability to counter chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threat agents. The legislation authorizes use of the Special Reserve Fund, which makes available $5.6 billion over 10 years for the advanced development and purchase of medical countermeasures. This appropriation is intended to provide an economic incentive to the pharmaceutical industry to develop medical countermeasures for which the government is the only significant market. Acquisitions under Project BioShield are restricted to products in development that are potentially licensable within 8 years from the time of contract award. In exercising the procurement authorities under Project BioShield, HHS has launched acquisition programs to address each of the 4 threat agents, including Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), smallpox virus, botulinum toxins, and radiological/nuclear agents, originally deemed by the Department of Homeland Security to be threats to the US population sufficient to affect national security. At the time of writing, 7 contracts have been awarded: (1) recombinant protective antigen anthrax vaccine, the next-generation anthrax vaccine (contract terminated in December 2006 for default); (2) anthrax vaccine adsorbed, the currently licensed anthrax vaccine; (3) anthrax therapeutics (monoclonal); (4) anthrax therapeutics (human immune globulin); (5) the pediatric formulation of potassium iodide; (6) Ca- and Zn-diethylenetriaminepentaacetate (DTPA), chelating agents to treat ingestion of certain radiological particles; and (7) botulinum antitoxins. Additional acquisition contracts are expected to be awarded in 2007.

Advanced Purchase Commitments for a Malaria Vaccine: Estimating Costs and Effectiveness

To overcome the problem of insufficient research and development (R&D) on vaccines for diseases concentrated in low-income countries, sponsors could commit to purchase viable vaccines if and when they are developed. One or more sponsors would commit to a minimum price that would be paid per person immunized for an eligible product, up to a certain number of individuals immunized. For additional purchases, the price would eventually drop to short-run marginal cost. If no suitable product were developed, no payments would be made. We estimate the offer size which would make the revenues from R&D investments on a malaria vaccine similar to revenues realized from investments in typical existing commercial pharmaceutical products, as well as the degree to which various contract models and assumptions would affect the cost-effectiveness of such a commitment for the case of a malaria vaccine. Under conservative assumptions, we document that the intervention would be highly cost-effective from a public health perspective. Sensitivity analyses suggest most characteristics of a hypothetical malaria vaccine would have little effect on the cost-effectiveness, but that the duration of protection against malaria conferred by a vaccine strongly affects potential cost-effectiveness. Readers can conduct their own sensitivity analyses employing a web-based spreadsheet tool.