Taxonomic issues related to biological control prospects for the ragweed borer, Epiblema strenuana (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae).

The ragweed borer, Epiblema strenuana (Walker, 1863), has a long history of use as a biological control agent against important weed pests in the family Asteraceae. Recently, E. strenuana has been reported feeding on the invasive perennials Ambrosia confertiflora and A. tenuifolia in Israel. The geographic location of Israel has raised concern over the possibility that the moth may spread to areas such as Ethiopia where the oil-seed crop Guizotia abyssinica is cultivated, as this is a potential host for E. strenuana. However, the taxonomic status of E. strenuana and a current synonym, E. minutana (Kearfott, 1905) is unclear. These taxa have been treated as separate species in the past, and they potentially have different feeding habits and damage different parts of the plant. We analyzed DNA data and adult morphology and determined that E. minutana, stat. rev., is a valid species which we raise from synonymy with E. strenuana. Wing coloration, the shape of the female sterigma, and COI DNA barcodes are consistently different between the two species. We also determined that the species previously identified as E. strenuana in Israel is actually E. minutana. While detailed host range tests have been conducted on the E. strenuana populations released in Australia and China, the host range of E. minutana remains to be clarified. We discuss the history of biological control using E. strenuana and the implications for finding E. minutana in Israel. We also provide species redescriptions for E. strenuana and E. minutana and illustrate diagnostic characters.

Soft Budget Constraints in Public Hospitals.

A soft budget constraint arises when a government is unable to commit to not 'bailout' a public hospital if the public hospital exhausts its budget before the end of the budget period. It is shown that if the political costs of a 'bailout' are relatively small, then the public hospital exhausts the welfare-maximising budget before the end of the budget period and a 'bailout' occurs. In anticipation, the government offers a budget to the public hospital that may be greater than or less than the welfare-maximising budget. In either case, the public hospital treats 'too many' elective patients before the 'bailout' and 'too few' after. The introduction of a private hospital reduces the size of any 'bailout' and increases welfare.

Health services use and lifestyle choices of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

In many countries, the health outcomes of Indigenous populations are far worse than those of non-Indigenous populations. Two possible reasons for these differences are poor lifestyle choices and a lack of access to health services when ill. This paper uses Australian data on 17,449 adults, which was collected in the National Health Survey 2004-05 and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey 2004-05, to examine whether Indigenous Australians make different lifestyle choices and health services use than non-Indigenous Australians. After controlling for a range of observable characteristics, it is found that Indigenous Australian are more likely to make poorer lifestyle choices, but are more likely to use health services than non-Indigenous Australians. There is evidence that these results are magnified for Indigenous Australians who live in remote areas. As the lifestyle choices of Indigenous Australians are so different from those of non-Indigenous Australians, the payoff from policies aimed at changing these choices is likely to be large both in terms of the efficient use of the health budget and more importantly in terms of health outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

The type species of Eucosma Hübner (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae: Eucosmini).

Eucosma Hübner is the largest genus in the Tortricidae with more than 290 named species. Historically, there has been confusion about the assignment of species to Eucosma and related genera, a problem which is perpetuated by the lack of a type specimen for the type species, E. circulana Hübner. Here we designate a neotype for E. circulana following analysis of eight North American species having similarities with that taxon. Eucosma circulana and E. gemellana Heinrich are redescribed, the latter being elevated from subspecies to species status. Eucosma paragemellana, new species, is described from specimens previously confused with E. gemellana, and E. fraudabilis Heinrich is reviewed.

Revised world catalogue of Eucopina, Eucosma, Pelochrista, and Phaneta (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae: Eucosmini).

A revised world catalogue of Eucopina, Eucosma, Pelochrista, and Phaneta is provided. Assignment to genus is based on generic redescriptions by Gilligan et al. (2013). A total of 709 names (including subspecies and synonyms) are listed, including 251 new combinations and 52 revised combinations.

Specialist payment schemes and patient selection in private and public hospitals.

It has been observed that specialist physicians who work in private hospitals are usually paid by fee-for-service while specialist physicians who work in public hospitals are usually paid by salary. This paper provides an explanation for this observation. Essentially, fee-for-service aligns the interests of income preferring specialists with profit maximizing private hospitals and results in private hospitals treating a high proportion of short stay patients. On the other hand, salary aligns the interests of fairness preferring specialists with benevolent public hospitals that commit to admit all patients irrespective of their expected length of stay.

The drug bargaining game: pharmaceutical regulation in Australia.

Many countries, including Australia, regulate the price consumers pay for pharmaceuticals. In this paper, the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is modelled as a multi-stage game played between the regulator and pharmaceutical firms. Conditions are derived under which vertically differentiated firms are regulated and a number of issues are discussed. These include efficiency, regulated firm profitability, leakage, and price discrimination. An extension examines the introduction of new drugs and concludes that if all the benefits of a new drug are to be realised, then existing agreements and transfers (per-unit subsidies) need to be renegotiated.

Moral hazard and adverse selection in Australian private hospitals: 1989-1990.

The Australian hospital system is characterized by the co-existence of private hospitals, where individuals pay for services and public hospitals, where services are free to all but delivered after a waiting time. The decision to purchase insurance for private hospital treatment depends on the trade-off between the price of treatment, waiting time, and the insurance premium. Clearly, the potential for adverse selection and moral hazard exists. When the endogeneity of the insurance decision is accounted for, the extent of moral hazard can substantially increase the expected length of a hospital stay by a factor of up to 3.