Elisa Long, "How Statistics Guided Me through Life, Death and The Price Is Right"
Long was invited to write an op-ed for the Washington Post connecting the dots between her victory as a contestant on The Price Is Right and her diagnosis and treatment of a rare, aggressive form of breast cancer related to the BRCA1 gene mutation she carries. Long's story demonstrates the extent to which her professional work in health care operations management, policy modeling, simulation and cost-effectiveness analysis of medical technologies has immediate practical implications for life's challenges, mundane and catastrophic. Concentrating on her own probabilities and outcomes as a cancer patient, Long explains why, in the middle of making the most important decisions of her life, she became a game show contestant to test her own professional methods and play the best she possibly could, given tremendous uncertainty in the outcome. "Just as breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease," writes Long, "each game on The Price Is Right differs in both the chance of winning and the potential payoff. Some games are entirely based on luck; others rely more on skill." And, she says, "Intuition can often lead you astray." Which is where numbers come in.
Felipe Caro, Zara: Staying Fast and Fresh (Case Study)
Winner of ecch’s Production and Operations Management award and the New Case Writer competition, this case has been prepared for class discussion and covers the most recent developments at fast-fashion leader Zara, the flagship brand of the Spanish retail conglomerate Inditex. Caro’s collaboration with Zara and the effectiveness of his analytical models in the fast-fashion industry made him a Franz Edelman Laureate in 2009. The case and its teaching note are available at the Case Centre under reference numbers 612-006-1 and 612-006-8.
Christopher S. Tang, “Environmental Incidents and the Market Value of Firms: An Empirical Investigation in the Chinese Context”
Chris Tang and his co-authors examine firms listed on the Shanghai/Shenzhen Stock Exchange to investigate stock market reactions to 294 Chinese manufacturing firms involved in 618 environmental incidents between 2006 and 2013. They find empirical evidence of a significantly negative stock market reaction to announcements of environmental incidents. Chinese firms with higher government share of ownership and recognition for social responsibility tend to be less affected by such incidents; however, Chinese firms with stronger personal political ties are actually affected more when environmental incidents occur. Environmental incidents caused by Chinese firms can have a significantly negative impact on the market value of their overseas customers.
Elisa Long, “HIV Screening via Fourth-Generation Immunoassay or Nucleic Acid Amplification Test in the United States: A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis”
At least 10 percent of the 56,000 annual new HIV infections in the United States are caused by individuals with acute HIV infection. It is unknown whether the health benefits and costs of routine nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) are justified, given the availability of newer fourth-generation immunoassay tests. Pooled NAAT testing every 12 months of MSM and IDUs in the U.S. prevents a modest number of infections, but may be cost effective given sufficiently high HIV prevalence levels. However, testing via fourth-generation immunoassay every six months prevents a greater number of infections, is more economically efficient, and may obviate the benefits of acute HIV screening via NAAT. The CDC cite this evidence in recommendations for increased screening of high-risk individuals.
