Sustained Price Research Articles

Pharmaceutical net price transparency across european markets: Insights from a multi-agent simulation model

With pharmaceutical health policy striving for fair and sustainable pricing under increasing budgetary pressures, public stakeholders are more and more willing to be involved in transparent access decision-making related to novel medicines, considered by them to be a societal good. Full net price transparency (NPT) is believed by many to promote price competition and to increase equity by making pharmaceutical products accessible to all. Using agent-based simulations, we find that a full NPT system implemented across EU countries would not be viable. This while, acting as rational economic agents, a group of middle- and lower-income countries would not be willing to give up their confidential agreements with the pharmaceutical industry. Even partial NPT would delay access predominantly in middle- to lower-income countries. Hence, we conclude that implementing net price transparency across Europe would be challenging to reach from a political perspective. Especially in lower-income countries there would remain a plea to be left free to negotiate confidential discounts with drug manufacturers. This while, counterintuitively, in those countries NPT will be seen to be unjust while violating Ramsey pricing and distributive justice principles.

A comment on Hamilton (2016) “Measuring sustainability in the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting”

Hamilton (2016) shows that an imperfect economy with extraction cost and any substitutability among inputs is sustainable along an exponentially decreasing path of extraction (EDP) under a generalized Hartwick rule with resource rent measured in SEEA-2012 (System of Environmental-Economic Accounting) units. Mathematically, the result is correct. The problem is that Hamilton offers this approach as “the correct policy rule for sustainability”, although this saving rule may be inapplicable to real economies because the prescribed investment may exceed output. In particular, the Cobb–Douglas economy’s output goes to zero along EDP even if there is no cost, no health damage from resource use, and all output is invested. The prescribed investment is feasible for the economy with the infinite resource–capital elasticity of substitution. This economy also may be sustainable, depending on initial conditions, along EDP with a reasonable constant saving rate. This result extends Hartwick (2003) disclaimer about substitutability among inputs to the generalized version of the rule. Moreover, the result shows that the assessment of sustainability and accounting prices for real economies depends, besides allocation mechanism, on specification of technology and initial conditions.

Experimental Outdoor Public Lighting Installation Powered by a Hydraulic Turbine Installed in the Municipal Water Supply Network

Sustainability and energy prices make the use of energy obtained from renewable sources on an urban scale and for isolated local facilities necessary for municipal authorities. Moreover, when the demand of energy is at night, as for street lighting installations, the use of accumulative systems is necessary, which means a major drawback due to a short lifetime expectancy and high cost. The use of batteries can require more than 70% of the budget of these lighting systems and has a critical impact in the project. The problem to solve is finding different renewable energy sources that can produce energy throughout the day, especially during the night, at the same time at which it is consumed. As one of the competences of municipal authorities is water supply networks, this paper analyzes the use of energy recovery turbines within these installations as an alternative to photovoltaic generators. To study the viability and effectiveness of this alternative, the water flows available in the network of a medium-size municipality were monitored and analyzed in depth to assess the amount of recoverable energy. In addition, an energy recovery turbine (ERT) station was set up, installing a bypass around one of the pressure-reducing valves (PRV) of the installation where energy is dissipated without practical use. The results obtained imply that the system proposed has economical and technical viability, is reliable and guarantees full service in all the seasons’ conditions. Moreover, the needs of the energy storage capacity are much lower (~8%) than with solar panels.

Improving the Affordability of Anticancer Medicines Demands Evidence-Based Policy Solutions.

The high cost of many new anticancer medicines significantly impedes breakthrough discoveries from reaching patients. A commonly heard refrain is that high prices are necessary to compensate for the high costs of research and development (R&D). Yet, there are promising policy proposals aimed at improving affordability without compromising innovation. In seeking new policy solutions, we argue for a shift away from entrenched opinion toward an evidence-based discourse that is grounded in experiments and real-world pilot studies. We offer a novel perspective and practical recommendations on how empirical evidence could and should be gathered to inform evidence-based policy interventions that lead to sustainable medicine prices in oncology.See related article by Franzen et al. (Cancer Res Commun 2022;2:39-47).

Consumer renaissance in Alternative Agri-Food Networks between collective action and co-production

In recent years, a dramatic increase in Alternative Agri-Food Networks (AAFNs) has been interpreted by experts of the sector as triggered by innovative food supply chains capable to reconnect producers with consumers. Simultaneously, the worldwide growth of consumers’ initiatives towards AAFNs is reducing the distance with producers shortening the supply chain and enhancing its value added. Examples of these consumers’ experiences have been reported in Japan, Europe, the USA, and Canada, and differ according to the degree of participants’ commitment to the logistics and the management of the initiatives. In general terms, these experiences could represent instances of co-production practices involving thousands of citizens who are seeking quality, sustainable, healthy, and ethical products and services reducing the uncertainty of food credence attributes. In this framework, the overall objective of this paper is to contribute to the scanty literature on food associations and cooperatives co-producing private goods with citizens contributing to marketing services such as procurement, storage, pricing, and quality assurance. Specifically, the focus is on the experience of Camilla, a food consumption cooperative that recently established an outlet to stock and sell food and non-food quality goods in Bologna (Italy). Camilla is the first Italian experience of a shop self-managed by its customers - who are also the owners - who practice critical consumption by supplying organic products at fair and sustainable prices while promoting small local productions as well as Fair Trade productions. A deep, participatory, and immersive ethnographic project was carried out between January and October 2019 to understand the functioning, the motivations and the drivers underpinning the process of citizens’ self-organisation in the domain of the food sector. Results provide useful insights on the way in which these innovative AAFNs are organised and on the reasons pushing people to join these initiatives. Key questions emerging from outcomes of the Camilla case study are discussed from an empirical and theoretical point of view.

Study on the Influencing Factors and Willingness to Pay of Consumers Purchasing Ecological Agricultural Products.

With the steady rise of China's agricultural production and management level, the market of ecological agricultural products has developed rapidly, and consumers are increasingly concerned about ecological agricultural products. Consumers' cognition and purchase intention are the keys to determine their future development. This research is aimed at ensuring that consumers have access to high-quality ecological agricultural products, thereby promoting the supply and production of ecological agricultural products, minimizing agricultural carbon emissions, and providing information on sustainable food pricing. Based on the research status at home and abroad, this study combines the questionnaire survey method to study the influencing factors and willingness to pay of consumers purchasing ecological agricultural products. A total of 601 online questionnaires from consumers in Harbin, a city in northeastern China, were collected, and statistical factor analysis, principal component analysis, and regression analysis were used to study the influencing factors of consumers' purchase of ecological agricultural products from both positive and negative aspects, and in-depth analysis of the reasons why consumers refuse to pay, get the most real willingness to pay and related influencing factors, and quantify the influence of various variables on consumers' purchasing behavior was done. On this basis, a logit model of survival analysis is constructed to study the premium payment level of consumers for ecological agricultural products, and the payment premium is 24.95%. The research results show that married, who have purchased ecological agricultural products, the higher the understanding of ecological agricultural products, the consumers who buy ecological agricultural products in farmers' markets, Meituan and community group purchases, and the households with higher monthly consumption of agricultural products have a significant positive correlation with consumers' purchase of ecological agricultural products. The higher the education level, the older the age, and the larger the family size were significantly negatively correlated with consumers' purchase of ecological agricultural products.

Diagnosing and Overcoming Sustained Food Price Volatility: Enabling a National Market for Food

The agricultural markets in India sure from high price volatility. There may be an element of a Samuelson Cobweb Model at work, which generates a cycle of boom and bust. When food prices are high, consumers protest and in the years when food prices are low, farmers are in distress and demand loan waivers. Four policy pathways address the cobweb model: storage, national trade, international trade and futures trading. We argue that the Constitution imposes an obligation upon the Union government to achieve a national market. We work out an implementable set of steps through which the Union government can obtain a national market for agricultural produce.

Scenario development to create a sustainable price of rice: A system thinking approach

The provision of rice in sufficient quantities and affordable prices is the main objective of agricultural development. However, there are higher margins of inequality for traders in the rice supply chain, making farmers and consumers at a disadvantage. Previous research has overcome this problem by focusing on milling only in the rice milling industry, with the same goal, this study uses a system dynamics to develop a conceptual model with an e-commerce based commerce system scenario. Further research can be carried out by developing the system thinking from this study that can increase profits across all rice supply chain actors.

Institutional factors of transition to "green" economy

The goal is to reveal the essence of the "green" economy, mechanisms and factors that determine the process of transition to environmentally oriented model, a new vector of sustainable development. Methods - analysis, comparison, systematization, study and generalization of information. Results - domestic and foreign research works on institutional factors contributing to the creation of ecosystems have been studied. The authors proposed the formulation of the most accurate and capacious modern definition of the mechanism for production of environmentally friendly products. The article is devoted to the study of the main aspects of the "green" economy, according to which the activities of enterprises should be aimed at the rational use of natural resources and preservation of natural diversity. The possibility of its relationship with the specifics of the activities of economic entities of the agro-industrial complex has been revealed. Attention is focused on the reasons for their low innovative activity in agricultural sector. An economic analysis of the indicators of agricultural entities, including those with State participation, was done in reorientation aimed to reduce environmental risks. Conclusions – the following actions are needed: transformations from the extensive export-raw-material type of economic development to the environmentally balanced one, structural and technological changes, sustainable pricing, elimination of ineffective subsidies, public procurement, increased public investment in infrastructure, the use of preferential lending to agricultural enterprises, regardless of ownership, which effectively implement environmental protection, introduction of special taxation of environmentally harmful agricultural products, as well as the products which are produced using hazardous technologies. Conservation of ecosystem services increases social security and increases the income of the rural population. It is required to develop agro-technological measures to produce organic food, taking into account the climatic conditions of the regions.

Sustainable Financing and Transfer Pricing – How Environmental, Social and Governance Considerations Seep through into the Arm’s Length Principle

In this article the authors discuss the potential transfer pricing challenges that are expected to appear with current developments of sustainable financing. The article analyses in particular key aspects of accurate delineation of sustainable financing for transfer pricing purposes, as well as comparability factors for intercompany sustainable financing.

Bertrand competition under asymmetric conditions

Abstract Analyzing price competition through game theory is one of the most important frameworks of oligopoly theory, especially in industrial organizations. Numerous studies have been conducted in this direction, as companies are forced to adjust their sustainable pricing policy to operate in the long term. Thus, the players make a regular adjustment of the pricing strategy. Of all the models developed based on Bertrand’s reference model (1883), the most analyzed were those in which informational symmetry predominated. Since informational symmetry presents only a theoretical framework, economists have turned their attention to information asymmetry. This type of information best describes a complex economic game, as it creates an information gap between players and generates opportunities in the decision-making process. Thus, asymmetric information is the main parameter of the decision-making process that determines decision makers to resort to different decision strategies than those assumed by the analytical model. Any asymmetric Bertrand model predicts competitive and efficient market outcomes, a direct relationship between a firm’s conduct, market structure and finally market performance. This paper undertakes an analysis of the Bertrand model in the case of demand and asymmetric costs. We determine the Bertrand-Nash equilibrium under the scenario in which close, but not perfect substitutes exist for the differentiated product with hypothetical data. Then we highlight what happens with profits when we consider that discrete cross marginal demand gradually increases. For more research, there are numerous studies based on sequential games, Bayesian games and signaling games both in discrete time and in continuous time.

Deeper investigation of oxygen-containing compounds in oleaginous feedstock (animal fat) by preparative column chromatography and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry

The production of renewable fuels as biodiesel and bio-jet fuel is usually originated by the transformation and processing of oleaginous feedstocks, mainly composed of triacylglycerols. Currently, a significant part of the triacylglycerol production relies on grassy oil crops or other woody oil plants, representing more than 120 million metric tons every year. Considering that the worldwide triacylglycerol demand is expected to rise in the future, alternative routes are necessary to ensure a sustainable biodiesel industry and limit diesel price volatility. In this context, the use of animal fats could be an interesting alternative for biodiesel production as the production of animal byproducts represents nearly 17 million tons per year in the European Union only (2020). Animal fats, however, contain large amounts of no-esterified fatty acids and other oxygen compounds, reducing the yield of biodiesel. Therefore, a specific pretreatment is needed before the trans-esterification process. The setup of such appropriate pretreatments requires detailed upstream characterization of the minor components present in the feedstock. For this purpose, the minor component profile of animal fat was investigated by comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry. This was preceded by an innovative sample fractionation and focalization of these minor components by a preparative liquid chromatographic column method. The overall method permitted to extract different levels of information from the two-dimensional chromatograms, leading to a tentative identification of more than 150 compounds, mainly oxygenated, belonging to different chemical classes.

Costing Analysis of Scalable Carbon-Based Perovskite Modules Using Bottom Up Technique.

In recent years, perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have achieved a remarkable power conversion efficiency of 25.5%, indicating that they are a promising alternative to dominant Si photovoltaic (PV) technology. This technology is expected to solve the world's energy demand with minimal investment and very low CO2 emissions. The market has shown a lot of interest in PSCs technology. A technoeconomic analysis is a useful tool for tracking manufacturing costs and forecasting whether technology will eventually achieve market‐driven prices. A technoeconomic analysis of a 100 MW carbon‐based perovskite solar module (CPSM) factory located in India is presented in this paper. Two CPSMs architectures—high‐temperature processed CPSMs (Module A) and low‐temperature processed CPSM's (Module B)—are expected to offer minimum sustainable prices (MSPs) of $ 0.21 W‐1 and $ 0.15 W‐1. On the basis of MSP, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is calculated to be 3.40 ¢ kWh‐1 for module A and 3.02 ¢ kWh‐1 for module B, with a 10‐year module lifetime assumption. The same modules with a 25‐year lifespan have LCOEs of 1.66 and 1.47 ¢ kWh‐1, respectively. These estimates are comparable to market dominant crystalline silicon solar modules, and they are also favorable for utilizing perovskite solar cell technology.

An Integrated Pythagorean fuzzy soft computing approach to environmental management systems for sustainable energy pricing

This study aims to analyse environmental management systems for sustainable energy price. For this purpose, a new fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model is generated. First, seven different criteria are defined with supported literature. After that, these factors are weighted by considering decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) methodology based on 2-tuple hesitant interval-valued Pythagorean fuzzy sets (HIVPFs). Furthermore, different pricing strategies are also ranked by using HIVPF technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and Vise Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR). Also, a sensitivity analysis is also performed by considering six different conditions. The main contribution of this study is proposing a new mathematical model to solve a significant problem regarding energy prices. It is concluded that the results of both TOPSIS and VIKOR are quite similar. On the other side, it is also understood that the results of six different cases are almost the same. This situation explains that analysis results are reliable and coherent. The findings indicate that safety incidence and waste management are the most crucial factors for the sustainability of the energy price. In addition, skimming is the best pricing strategy for the energy industry. Within this framework, energy companies should firstly offer high prices to the market. After that, the price should be reduced when there is a decrease in the demand.

Cross-Cultural Comparison of Sustainable Agro-Food Consumption from Consumers’ Perspectives: Cases from Taiwan and France

Sustainable agro-food consumption is a model intended to conserve the resources of today for future need. Consumers play a crucial role in transitioning towards sustainable food consumption, as they judge the attributes of products on the market and are the final decision-makers when it comes to changing consumption habits. Consequently, investigations on agro-food consumption from consumers’ perspectives are of great value. Therefore, we first referred to 60 articles to summarize 11 important factors of sustainable food consumption and identified three possible policy measures from the perspectives of consumers and cultural conditions, evaluating them using cases from both France and Taiwan. In addition, this study showed the dissimilarities between eco-consumption preferences for the two case areas, also evaluating consumers’ expectations on future policy alternatives through the application of the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and a survey. Moreover, demographic comparisons have been undertaken to support, explain, and re-examine the results. The results show that the key factors for sustainable food consumption are product accessibility, tradition, and regional factors. Policy measures focus on product certification and information. Due to different perceptions regarding product differentiation, people in Taiwan pay less attention to sustainable food prices. In France, obvious age-differentiated preferences as regards the promotion of policies were revealed: young people preferred certification, whilst elderly people preferred the provision of information.

Effect of Online Collective Intelligence in Wine Industry: Focus on Correlation between Wine Quality Ratings and On-Premise Prices

This study aims to explore whether wine CI (Collective Intelligence) platforms, such as Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, can provide a wine rating effect on price, as Robert Parker’s does in the Korean wine market. To achieve the purpose of the study, we collected information with wine evaluation ratings and on-premise prices from three wine evaluation sites and seven restaurants in South Korea. The researchers calculated the Pearson’s rho between the wine evaluation ratings and on-premise prices based on country, region, vintage, and type of wine. Based on the results of the study, the CI of wine ratings shows statistically the same association degree to price as wine guru Robert Parker’s score. This study can academically extend the research of CI’s application in the wine industry and provide strong support for a sustainable e-business model and pricing tactics in the wine industry.

Work-related practices of local managers of live music events in Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) and their impact on cultural participation

PurposeThe purpose of this article is to illuminate the relations of work-related practices of local managers of live music events in Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL) and barriers and needs of vulnerable customers (VC) in order to explore possibilities to increase cultural participation of VC.Design/methodology/approachThis article explores work-related practices of managers of live music events in OWL and asks if and to what extent these practices have an influence on the cultural participation of “vulnerable customers” (VC). It combines the findings of two studies: a) an explorative investigation on the work-related self-conceptions of managers of live music events in OWL (Study 1), and b) a sub-project on cultural participation of VC, which is part of the research project “kulturPreis. Increasing cultural participation through innovative and economically sustainable pricing concepts”, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Study 2).FindingsIt can be stated that there is an imbalance of knowledge: while VC tend to have a clear understanding of which barriers are the responsibility of managers of live music events, managers tend to lack knowledge regarding the needs of VC, and regarding the interrelationships between financial and social barriers facing them. Whether this knowledge and understanding can be developed in the future depends on the possibilities of exchanges between managers of live music events, cultural institutions, welfare organisations, political institutions and not least VC.Originality/valueBased on these studies, this article combines different approaches by linking work-related practices of managers of live music events with cultural participation of VC.

"A Study on Satisfaction, Continuous Transaction and Recommendation Intention of Private Banking Use"

In this study, in order to identify the satisfaction factors of private banking users, to induce sustainable transactions in the future, and to contribute to the activation of private banking through recommendations by others, important variables among tasks undertaken at the private banking center were accumulated through prior research and targeted for K Bank. As a result of the overall situation, it can be seen that over 3 billion of wealthy people have a relatively high education level of college graduates or higher, the proportion of men in their 40s, metropolitan areas, and men, and it is judged that they are using private banking in selected occupational groups. As a result of the structural equation, first, the factors affecting user satisfaction were 0.193 for real estate service characteristics, 0.037 for indirect investment service characteristics, 0.133 for legal and tax service characteristics, and 0.262 for additional service characteristics, showing a significant level at P<0.05. Second, factors influencing continued private banking transactions were real estate service characteristics of 0.149, indirect investment services characteristics of 0.019, and legal and tax services characteristics of 0.129, showing significant results at P<0.05. Third, the influence of user satisfaction on continuous transactions was 0.625, and the influence of user satisfaction on recommendation intention was 0.708, which had a positive effect. Fourth, the influence relationship on the recommendation intention of sustained transaction price is 0.763. As a result of this study, meaningful results were derived by measuring the satisfaction of private banking users, but there is a limit to the spatial scope of Seoul and the metropolitan area. In addition, there is a limit to representing all private banking users targeting a customer of one of the commercial banks. Therefore, future studies will propose a study targeting private banking users for all banks, and a study on strategic plans for profitability of private banking centers will also be needed.

Techno-economic assessment of titanium dioxide nanorod-based perovskite solar cells: From lab-scale to large-scale manufacturing

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have shown remarkable progress in recent years. Different materials and structures have been developed to improve the photoconversion efficiency and operational stability of PSCs. However, the economic and technical impacts of materials and design choice on the large-scale deployment are not well addressed in the literature. In this research, a pathway for producing titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanorod-based perovskite solar modules was established and their manufacturing cost was estimated through the development of data-intensive, bottom-up techno-economic models. Material, utilities, and equipment requirements from available laboratory data to a mass production annual capacity of up to 21 MW were estimated through the development of scale factors. The minimum sustainable price and levelized cost of electricity were calculated. The direct manufacturing cost of the reference PSC module was estimated at $80.23/m2 and $0.73/W with a production capacity of 3.5 MWp. These costs decline to $47.15/m2 and $0.43/W at 21 MW production capacity. Material costs dominate the overall costs, fluorine-doped tin oxide glass being the most expensive material. The perovskite solar cell panels, when installed in residential homes in Alberta, Canada, were calculated to have a competitive levelized cost of electricity ranging from 7 to 17 cents per kWh. However, the cost was found to be extremely sensitive to the module efficiency, lifetime, and the solar insolation at the location of installation.

Restoring Nature at Lower Food Production Costs

Growing competition for land, water and energy call for global strategies ensuring affordable food production at minimum environmental impacts. Economic modelling studies suggest trade-off relationships between environmental sustainability and food prices. However, evidence based on empirical cost-functions supporting such trade-offs remains scarce at the global level. Here, based on cost engineering modelling, we show that optimised spatial allocation of 10 major crops, would reduce current costs of agricultural production by approximately 40% while improving environmental performance. Although production inputs per unit of output increase at local scales, a reduction of cultivated land of 50% overcompensates the slightly higher field-scale costs enabling improved overall cost-effectiveness. Our results suggest that long-run food prices are bound to continue to decrease under strong environmental policies. Policies supporting sustainability transitions in the land sector should focus on managing local barriers to the implementation of high-yield regenerative agricultural practices delivering multiple regional and global public goods.