Cost Information Research Articles

PERANCANGAN SISTEM INFORMASI ANALIS BREAK EVEN POINT DAN STOK PADA BUDIDAYA AYAM POTONG BERBASIS WEB

Although broiler chicken farming offers many benefits, there are also risks of losses, especially when production costs are not accurately recorded, leading to inaccurate per-unit pricing that can harm farmers. To assist farmers in accurately determining the Break Even Point (BEP) price for each chicken, a web-based cost and stock management information system for broiler farming has been developed. To provide a clear and sequential software lifecycle approach, this system was built using the waterfall method, which includes the stages of requirements analysis, design specifications, coding, testing, and maintenance. Each stage produces measurable outcomes before proceeding to the next. The development results indicate that the system successfully records the total production costs, including detailed costs for feed, medicine, operational expenses, and chicken stock. By using the formula BEP = total production cost/number of live chickens, the system achieves accurate pricing for broiler chickens. Based on these findings, future research is suggested to improve the user interface for greater appeal, optimize system accessibility on mobile devices, and integrate this system with other systems.

Supporting Organizations in Improving Employee Bulk E-mail --- A Tool Design and Evaluation Study

Organizations often send bulk emails to employees to make them aware of policy changes, organization plans, and events. Many of these emails, however, are long digests with many separate messages that waste employees' time and reduce their awareness. This study introduces CommTool--a prototype tool to help organizational communicators better understand their emails' performance and cost. We first interviewed 5 communicators and identified the need to measure the performance of each message within bulk email. Then we iteratively designed and deployed an organizational bulk email evaluation platform (CommTool), which enables communicators to get diverse message-level metrics such as reading time, relevance rate, comments, etc. We evaluated these designs through a 2-month field deployment with 5 communicators and 149 organization employees. We found that 1) the message-level metrics, such as reading time and relevance rate, helped communicators understand their audience and design bulk emails; 2) the cost and reputation metrics did not influence the organization leaders' decisions. We summarize with suggestions on designing organizational bulk email evaluation platforms that provide message-level performance and cost information.

Note on Optimal Procurement Mechanisms for Assembly

Problem definition: We consider contract confidentiality in a decentralized supply chain, in which a single principal orders different components from different agents, each of which has private cost information. The principal may commit to publicly observed bilateral contracts or offer secretly observed contracts to each agent simultaneously. We also consider the problem of sequential contracting. Methodology/results: By correcting the main analysis in Hu and Qi [Hu B, Qi A (2018) Optimal procurement mechanisms for assembly. Manufacturing Service Oper. Management 20(4):655–666], we employ passive beliefs to study secret contracting. We show that there is a unique configuration of two-part tariffs under secret offers in both simultaneous and sequential contracting. We also extend the analysis to take into account ex post individual rationality (IR), which is arguably more relevant in this assembly setting. With ex post IR, we show that the traditional two-part tariffs should be augmented with payment adjustments. Managerial implications: We find that the efficiency achieved through public offers can be maintained with secret offers in this assembly setting contrary to conventional wisdom. Our analysis, thus, offers an explanation for why nondisclosure agreements are important and common in practice. Funding: This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72192805]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2024.0907 .

Health care costs in the United States by demographic characteristics and comorbidity status

Current real-world health care cost information is needed to project future expenditures and inform policy. We estimated adults' 2019 health care costs in the United States (US) by age, sex, race/ethnicity, geographic region, and comorbidity. We aggregated and summarized health care costs in 2021 US dollars using claims data derived from Optum's de-identified Clinformatics® Data Mart database, which includes inpatient, outpatient, and prescription claims for commercial and Medicare Advantage beneficiaries nationwide. A total of 9,227,901 adults were included in the analysis. The largest group represented was 71-75 years old (13%), female (53%), White (68%), received care in the South (41%), and had commercial health insurance (56%). There was a positive relationship between health care cost and age. Females had a 1.3-fold multiplicative increase in costs compared to males (95% CI 1.33-1.34). There were 92.5% of individuals who had health claims in the Northeast, 89.6% in the Midwest, 88.9% in the South, 77.1% in the West, and 12.7% with unknown geographic region. Patients with severe renal failure, heart failure, or metastatic cancer incurred the highest mean yearly costs ($139,844, $113,031, and $85,299, respectively). Metastatic cancer and severe renal failure were associated with a 5.3-fold multiplicative increase in costs compared with not having these conditions, after adjusting for potential confounders (95% CI, 5.26-5.41 and 4.98-5.16, respectively). We identified patient characteristics and medical conditions that are associated with high health care cost burden and could benefit from tailored interventions. We provided detailed cost estimates to aid health care modeling, cost projection, and cost-minimizing interventions.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab and chemotherapy for the treatment of metastatic, persistent, or recurrent cervical cancer (BEATcc)

ABSTRACT Background The addition of atezolizumab to bevacizumab plus platinum regimen has demonstrated notable improvements in treating metastatic, persistent, or recurrent cervical cancer, but its cost-effectiveness requires further investigation. From a US payer perspective, we aimed to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of atezolizumab plus bevacizumab and chemotherapy vs. standard chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for metastatic, persistent, or recurrent cervical cancer. Methods A partitioned survival model based on the data from the BEATcc trial was used to calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), using cost and health utility information obtained from literature and publicly accessible databases. One-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed to evaluate the model’s responsiveness to variations in parameters. Results The addition of atezolizumab resulted in an additional 0.839 quality-adjusted life years (QALY) at an additional cost of $458,237, leading to an ICER of $545,943/QALY. One-way sensitivity analysis indicated that the cost of atezolizumab had the greatest impact on the ICER, followed by the utility value of progression-free survival (PFS) and follow-up costs. Probabilistic sensitivity analysis showed a 0% cost-effectiveness probability at the current willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold of $150,000 per QALY. Conclusion Adding atezolizumab to chemotherapy is cost-prohibitive in the US and may not be cost-effective for patients.

Digital technology adoption among smallholder farmers in Vietnam: Implications for digital agricultural extension strategies

AbstractThis study explores the adoption of digital technology among smallholders in Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. Data were gathered by doing a survey of 455 farmers analysed by descriptive analysis and a Poisson Regression model. Key knowledge gaps include an incomplete understanding of farmers' digital technology adoption and insufficient empirical evidence supporting potential determinants in smallholders' digital adoption. Findings indicate active use of digital tools in agriculture, with factors such as education, farm size, digital experience, knowledge exchange frequency, access to digital information and internet costs positively influencing adoption. The study advocates for tailored training and targeted interventions to enhance adoption rates.

Information sharing decision of retail platform: platform's risk aversion and competing suppliers

An increasing number of retail platforms are adopting blockchain technology to mitigate information asymmetries and share data with upstream suppliers, thereby reducing demand uncertainty. However, these platforms often engage with multiple upstream suppliers of varying product quality. This study constructs a game-theoretic model within a supply chain framework, featuring a risk-averse retail platform and two upstream suppliers of different quality levels. As the core leader of the game, the retail platform decides whether to share demand information with the two competing suppliers after implementing the technology. Using mean-variance theory, this study addresses a key question: Which types of suppliers should be included in information sharing on a retail platform? The results show that when the unit cost of information sharing is low, allowing both suppliers to share demand information is most beneficial. Conversely, when the unit cost is high, only high-quality suppliers should be included. Notably, as the unit cost of information sharing and the intensity of competition between high-quality and low-quality products increase, low-quality suppliers are excluded from information sharing. Additionally, the model indicates that the greatest social welfare can be achieved whether both high-quality and low-quality suppliers are authorized to join the information sharing network, or only high-quality suppliers are included.

Policy Solutions for Enhancing Drug Pricing Transparency and Reducing Health Care Costs in the United States

The excessive cost of prescription pharmaceuticals in the United States is an often-recognized issue for consumers, healthcare providers, and insurance companies alike. A major contributing factor to excess cost is the lack of transparency in drug pricing, which makes it difficult for stakeholders to understand the actual costs of medications. In this article, we look at two basic policy measures to ameliorate this issue. First, we explore providing consumers with clear information on medication costs at the point of prescription, specifically in outpatient doctors' offices. This policy seeks to empower patients and enhance informed decision-making by integrating drug cost information into electronic health records (EHRs), allowing physicians to discuss cost-effective alternatives with their patients. Second, we investigate potential federal regulations that would require pharmaceutical companies to publicly disclose reasons for price hikes, using specific benchmarks as guidelines. These regulations would mandate pharmaceutical companies to report heavy price increases and the factors contributing to these hikes, thereby holding manufacturers accountable and promoting price stability. By addressing these two policy measures, the article aims to enhance drug price transparency and reduce healthcare costs.

Research on Innovation of Food Logistics Supply Chain Management

In the context of globalization and constantly changing consumer demand, the management of food logistics supply chains has become increasingly complex and important. This paper mainly studies the problems and innovative methods in food logistics supply chain management, aiming to improve the efficiency and adaptability of the supply chain by optimizing management strategies. This paper adopts literature analysis and case analysis methods to analyze in detail the problems of information asymmetry, cost control, transportation efficiency, and inventory management in the food logistics supply chain. It proposes innovative supplier management models, digital management, modern supply chain management concepts, inter chain cooperation, and risk management solutions. Research has found that adopting information-sharing mechanisms and advanced information technology, as well as strengthening collaboration among various links in the supply chain, can effectively improve management efficiency and reduce operating costs. This study provides some useful references for food logistics enterprises in practical operation, helping them improve service quality and reduce operating costs in a fiercely competitive market environment, enhance market competitiveness, ensure food safety and freshness, and meet the growing needs of consumers.

Cost and benefit of parafoveal information during reading acquisition as revealed by finger movement patterns

Contrary to expert readers, children learning to read have limited ability to preprocess letters in parafoveal vision. Parafoveal letters induce crowding cost: the features of neighboring letters interfere with target letter identification. We longitudinally studied the weight of parafoveal cost and benefit in two group of children (N = 42), during their first school year (Group 1) and at the end of second school year (Groupe 2). Using a novel digit-tracking method, a blurred text was presented and rendered unblurred by touching the screen, allowing the user to discover a window of visible text as the finger moved along it. We compared two conditions: (1) a large window, where crowding was enhanced by the presence of parafoveal information; (2) a small window, where crowding was suppressed by blurred parafoveal information. Finger kinematics were simultaneously recorded. We found that at the beginning of first-grade, digital fixations - brief slowing or stopping of the finger on a specific point - are significantly longer in the large compared to the small window condition, as parafoveal crowding increases text processing difficulty. This effect diminishes and disappears at the end of second-grade as reading performance improves. In the large window condition, longer digital saccades - rapid movements of the finger changing position - appear by the end of first grade suggesting that parafoveal exposure become more beneficial than harmful when children acquire basic reading skills. Our results show that in beginning readers, crowding has a cognitive cost that interfere with the speed of the learning reading process. Our findings are relevant to the field of education by showing that visual crowding in first grade should not be underestimated.

The effects of financial development on crop productivity: ARDL evidence from Indian agriculture

Purpose This work aims to empirically investigate the effects of financial development on crop productivity of India. Design/methodology/approach Time series data such as crop production index, International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) financial development index, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, arable land, rural population, trade openness and physical capital from 1980 to 2020 was used. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach of cointegration was used to determine the long-run equilibrium relationship between the selected time series. Also, ARDL long- and short-run coefficients were estimated to examine the effects of selected variables on crop productivity. Furthermore, to establish the robustness of results, long-run estimators such as fully modified least squares and the dynamic least squares were also used. Finally, using the vector error-correction model, causality between the selected time series was examined. Findings The ARDL cointegration test confirmed the existence of long-run equilibrium relationship among agricultural productivity, financial development, capital formation, GDP per capita, arable land, rural population and trade openness. The estimated long-run elasticities from all the three techniques and the short-run elasticities of ARDL have consistently suggested that the elasticity of financial development is higher (1.55% and 1.40%, respectively) in explaining the crop productivity of India. The short-run causality estimates indicated the presence of positive bidirectional causality between crop productivity and financial development and seven positive unidirectional causal relationships between the selected variables. Practical implications Agricultural credit being an important non-land input and essential for overall growth and sustenance of agricultural sector, the policymakers should ensure the overall development of its financial sector which will reduce the intermediation, informational and other transactional costs associated with agricultural credit. This will possibly result in timely availability and access to adequate and low-cost credit from institutional sources. Originality/value Though extensive research is available on the effects of financial development on economic growth, limited research is available concerning the impact of financial development on crop productivity, especially for an emerging economy like India. For India, predominantly studies have investigated the impact of farm credit on crop productivity but have not exclusively examined the effects of financial development on agricultural productivity. Therefore, this study not only adds to the empirical literature but also provides new evidence on the nexus between financial development and crop productivity by examining the effects of financial development on crop productivity using the composite financial development index developed by the IMF using the ARDL bounds test for cointegration and other econometric estimators.

Impacts of international trade on the SMT view of the economy

AbstractShiozawa, Morioka and Taniguchi (2019)’s Microfoundations for Evolutionary Economics (Springer Japan) provided an alternative view (SMT view) of the economy to the orthodox equilibrium view of the economy. According to the SMT view, demand and supply are matched by quantity adjustment under fixed prices, and prices function as a transmitter of cost information downstream as well as a guide for choice and development of techniques. This paper examines the impacts of international trade on the SMT view based on the new theory of international values (NTIV). In a closed economy, prices are uniquely determined even if there are many choices of techniques by the minimal price theorem. With international trade, due to the multiplicity of wages, prices are not uniquely determined. Whether this fact allows demand to participate in the determination of prices is examined, and it is clarified that because of the disparity of real production possibility set from the hypothetical one, which is effective in determining prices, demand loses the power of equilibration. This fact opens up the possibility and even necessity of production taking place below the maximal boundary, which is accompanied by unemployment. Individual firms’ behavior in the choice and development of techniques and the process of price conversion that are consistent with the SMT view and the NTIV is formulated. A residual unsolved question of wage adjustment following technological changes is identified.

Determinants of the functionality of cost accounting systems in social welfare organizations: Exploratory study using cluster analysis

This paper presents a quantitative exploration of the functionality of cost accounting systems and their determinants in social welfare organizations. We conducted a questionnaire survey of managers of social welfare organizations running special nursing homes for the elderly and conducted a cluster analysis based on the data collected. The questionnaire was created based on the scales used in previous studies, with some new scales developed. For data analysis, the statistical analysis environment R was used. The clValid package of R was used to assess the validity of the cluster analysis. Based on the results of the analysis in this paper, it is expected that social welfare organizations that pursue cost leadership strategies and have a strong public interest orientation will benefit greatly by being able to utilize a highly functional cost accounting system. Such organizations will be able to improve their business efficiency by utilizing cost information, and their social contribution activities based on the resulting resources will truly be a contribution to public welfare. The findings from this study are of practical significance because they can be used by business managers of social welfare organizations to review the functionality of their cost accounting systems. We also focus on the degree to which nonprofit organizations focus on social contribution activities (in this paper, we call this public interest orientation). The public interest orientation of an organization is thought to affect the functionality of the cost accounting system in the same way as the organization’s strategy, but there has not been enough quantitative research on this point. By focusing on the public interest orientation of social welfare organizations, this study contributes to deepening our knowledge in this area.

Information or Noise? Examining the Effect of Discretionary Disclosure of Accounting Estimates on Financial Analyst Forecasts

Whether discretionary disclosure of accounting estimates increases or decreases the decision usefulness of financial information is a fundamental issue in accounting and finance. Our paper speaks to this issue by examining the effect of discretionary disclosure of accounting estimates on the forecasting behaviour of financial analysts, who are sophisticated users of financial information and play a crucial role as an information intermediary in the capital markets. We find that discretionary disclosure of accounting estimates (made in the 10‐K management discussion and analysis and financial statement footnotes) reduces analyst forecast errors and analysts’ tendency to round their annual earnings forecasts. These effects are more pronounced when analysts issue forecasts for companies with high accounting reporting complexity. Overall, the results suggest that discretionary disclosure of accounting estimates reduces information costs by providing relevant information for analysts’ forecasting decisions.

Experiences of abortion care in Australia: a qualitative study examining multiple dimensions of access

BackgroundThe United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals identify universal access to sexual and reproductive health services as a global priority. Yet barriers to abortion access remain, including legal restrictions, cost, stigma, and limited services and information. The aim was to identify barriers to and facilitators of abortion care access experienced in Australia.MethodsThis qualitative phenomenological study examined abortion access in Australia, where abortion is decriminalised, from March 2020 to December 2022. We used social media and flyers in clinics to recruit adults who had sought abortion care, then interviewed them in-depth. We mapped participant experiences to five dimensions of access identified by Levesque et al.’s patient-centred access to healthcare framework: approachability, acceptability, availability and accommodation, affordability, and appropriateness.ResultsThe 24 participants lived across Australia and sought abortion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Approachability: Before seeking abortion, most did not know where to access information about the service and where to obtain it. Acceptability: Many were uncomfortable disclosing their abortion to family or friends; they reported that healthcare providers demonstrated varying levels of support. Availability and accommodation: Regional participants travelled far and faced long wait-times, exacerbated by pandemic restrictions. Affordability: Participants described financial stress paying for the service, travel, and related expenses. Appropriateness: Most participants expected judgemental care. Experiences varied widely: many participants experienced unempathetic, rushed, or judgemental interactions with healthcare staff, and many also reported at least one non-judgmental and supportive interaction on the same pathway to care.DiscussionAbortion seekers experienced varying obstacles when seeking care. The findings illustrate the need for population- and system-level initiatives such as: providing accurate information about and normalising abortion; implementing system-level strategies to reduce wait times, travel, and costs, especially for rural populations; and developing regulatory and quality improvement initiatives to increase the workforce and its readiness to provide high-quality, non-judgemental abortion care. Challenges seeking care during pandemic restrictions illustrate the importance of social support during care and choice between abortion modalities and service types. Consumer voices can help understand the diverse pathways to abortion care and inform solutions to overcome the multidimensional barriers to access.

Applying acoustical criteria to architectural projects

The requirements for building acoustics should be integrated into the architectural project as early as the preliminary design phase.The materials, densities and thicknesses used in the manufacture of building elements vary from country to country. Therefore, in each country there are building products with different sound insulation properties resulting from the different characteristics of the building elements. We are developing a local building element database addin for a BIM programme that the architect can easily insert into the project by classifying the sound insulation properties of the building elements used in Turkey according to their thickness, density and layer properties, which are determined by calculation or measurement. In the future, we plan to integrate additional properties of the building elements, such as fire resistance, sustainability and cost information, which will facilitate the design of the building.

Affective motivations for substance misuse differentially relate to consideration of multiple costs during effortful decision making.

Heightened sensitivity to costs during decision making consistently has been related to substance use. However, no work in this area has manipulated cost information to examine how people evaluate and compare multiple costs. Furthermore, limited work has examined how affective motivations for substance use modulate the evaluation of cost information. We administered a loss-frame variant of the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task in a diverse community sample (N = 126). Individuals who use substances to avoid negative affect allocated comparable effort across varying likelihoods of loss and computational modeling parameters indicated that they did not systematically consider cost information, which ultimately led these individuals to exert effort when it was disadvantageous to do so. Individuals who use substances to enhance positive affect allocated effort when loss magnitudes were small, suggesting that they effectively compared costs and worked to minimize those costs. Motivations for substance use differentially relate to the comparison of costly information, ultimately influencing effective decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Store brand entry with asymmetric cost information

This study conducts a research on the dominated-retailer’s establishment strategy of a store brand in a supply chain, in which the retailer possesses private knowledge of the store brand’s product cost, while the manufacturer is only informed about the distribution of this cost information. The store brand entry with asymmetric information initiates a signaling game between the chain members. Through comparing equilibrium outcomes, we find that the pooling equilibrium consistently prevails as the dominant equilibrium, suggesting that the informed retailer is reluctant to reveal the cost information to her national brand cooperative manufacturer. We also explore the influence of a retailer’s store brand entry on the national-brand manufacturer’s performance. The findings reveal that, with asymmetric cost information, mutually beneficial outcomes for all parties involved can be achieved by the establishment of a store brand. Furthermore, we delve into how the asymmetric cost information affects the performance of the chain members. Surprisingly, our findings demonstrate that asymmetric cost information may be desirable not only for retailer, but also for the less informed manufacturer under specific circumstances. This suggests the possibility of supply chain members reaching a mutual agreement on the structure of asymmetric cost information.

Signaling or not? The pricing strategy under fairness concerns and cost information asymmetry

Supply chain fairness issues have become crucial and prevalent recently, whereas the operational decisions in the fair chain are more and more challenging when involving information asymmetry. Considering the fact that the upstream supplier of a chain generally has private production cost information, this paper investigates how the supplier strategically makes pricing decisions under the own private information and the downstream fairness concerns. Based on inequity aversion theory, we set up a signaling game between the supplier and the retailer with two kinds of inequity aversion, disadvantageous inequity aversion and advantageous inequity aversion, respectively. Compared with the scenario of symmetric information, under asymmetric information, we find that: the high-cost supplier distorts the wholesale price upward to avoid the low-cost supplier's price mimicry when the retailer has disadvantageous inequity aversion and the cost difference between the two types of suppliers is small; the supply chain's expected profit and expected utility may increase due to the reason that the low-cost supplier distorts his wholesale price downward when the retailer has advantageous inequity aversion, which mitigates the double marginalization. Moreover, we extend the base model to the scenario of endogenous prior probability on supplier cost type and we show that when the retailer has disadvantageous inequity aversion, cost information asymmetry may improve the willingness of the high-cost supplier to become the low-cost supplier. Our results can provide some practical insights on managing cost information asymmetry from the perspectives of the supply chain and the industry.

Effect of ESG rating disagreement on stock price informativeness: Empirical evidence from China's capital market

We assess the level of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating disagreement among Chinese listed companies using ESG data from eight ESG rating providers and examine the impact of ESG rating disagreement on stock price informativeness. Our results indicate a significant and positive correlation between ESG rating disagreement and stock price synchronicity. This suggests that different ESG ratings impede the integration of company-specific details into stock prices, thereby reducing the stock price's informativeness. The opacity of corporate information and agency costs can both be used to interpret this result. We also explore the transmission channels through which ESG rating disagreement affects stock price informativeness. Our findings reveal that such disagreement lowers the quality of analysts' predictions and impedes investors' access to information, affecting the informativeness of stock prices. Furthermore, we observe that ESG rating disagreement has a greater impact on stock price synchronicity for companies with high ESG ratings and those operating in highly competitive industries. Increased media coverage would mitigate the effect of ESG rating disagreement on stock price synchronicity. Overall, our findings contribute to the literature on ESG rating disagreement and demonstrate the critical role of ESG rating disagreement in the informativeness of stock prices.