DIC Entertainment (pronounced "deek", rendered "DiC") was an international film and television production company. In addition to animated (and occasionally live-action) television shows such as Ulysses 31 (1980), Inspector Gadget (1983–1986), The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991), and the first two seasons of the English adaptation of Sailor Moon (1995–1998), DIC produced live-action feature films while under Disney, including 1998's Meet the Deedles and 1999's Inspector Gadget.
It was founded in 1971 as DIC Audiovisuel by Frenchman Jean Chalopin in Paris, as a subsidiary of Radio-Television Luxembourg (RTL). "DIC" was originally an acronym for Diffusion, Information et Communication. The company was also known as The Incredible World of DiC, DiC. Audiovisuel, DiC Enterprises, DIC Animation City and DIC Productions. In 2008, the studio closed its doors, and was reallocated to Cookie Jar Entertainment.[5]
Most employers providing health insurance
offer a menu of plans and allow employees to
choose the plan they prefer. As a result, the
demographic mixes of insureds and, consequently,
costs differ dramatically across plans.
The average 60-year-old, for example, spends
more than twice as much annually as the average
30-year-old. A single high-cost individual
can incur costs equal to the total of several
hundred low-cost insureds. Because of this
variability, insurers are deeply concerned
about how people choose their plans, as are
employers and governments that finance and
monitor them, and analysts who study them.
We seek to understand who insures in which
health-insurance plan, and why they do it. This
information wil! enable us to correctly calculate
cost differentials between plans, and to set
premiums accordingly.
The mix of people in a plan in a particular
year depends on who began there, and who
moves in and out. Economists have long been
fascinated by the movers. The tendency for
sick (healthy) people to join plans offering
rich (lean) services at high (low) cost
is termed "adverse selection" (Michael
Rothschild and Joseph Stiglitz. 1976; Charles
Wilson, 1987). Most discussion of adverse selection,
concentrating on the decision of
whether to purchase insurance, focuses on
high risks moving to very generous plans, with
the low risks choosing to go without insurance
coverage. But for mandatory or heavily subsidized
insurance, such as employer-provided
health care, everybody will be insured, and
* Attman: Department of Economics, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA 02138; Cutler: Department of Economics,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, and
National Bureau of Economic Research; Zeckhauser:
Kennedy School of Govemment. Harvard University,
Cambridge. MA 02138. and National Bureau of Economic
Research. We are grateful to Charles Slavin and Roger
Feldman for helpful discussions and to the National institutes
on Aging for research support. The data used in this
paper are proprietary.
thus other groups might be important as well:
low-risk movers seeking lower prices, new enrollees.
and people who stay put.
We focus in this paper on why premiums
differ so much across health-insurance plans.
We show that adverse selection is quantitatively
important, but that it is more a result of
low-risk people moving out of generous plans
than of high-risk people moving into those
plans. We then document the opposite of adverse
selection, a concept we term "adverse
retention." Adverse retention is the tendency
for people who stay put to magnify cost differentials
between plans, as they will if they
differ in age and costs are more than linear
with age. We show that adverse retention has
about 60 percent as large an effect on healthplan
premiums as does adverse selection.
The financial year ended 29 December 2007 was another of outstanding progress for Merlin. The core business delivered
double digit EBITDA growth for the seventh year in succession with consequent increases in operating profit, while in
May the acquisition of The Tussauds Group doubled the size of the Group again. Merlin is now one of the biggest leisure
Groups in the UK and within the visitor attraction market is second only to Disney on a world wide basis.
As would be expected, considerable management time and resource was expended on the Tussauds transaction in the first
half of the year and subsequently on the integration with Merlin. I am delighted to report that this latter undertaking has
been highly successful, with business plans, reporting systems, H.R. strategies and targeted synergy initiatives all now
substantially in place. That this has been implemented so quickly and effectively is tribute to the enthusiasm, dedication
and professionalism of all the Merlin employees involved.
From a trading perspective, excellent performances were recorded by the LEGOLAND Parks, Madame Tussauds, The
London Eye and the Dungeons. Our European theme parks experienced a difficult summer as May, June and July became
the wettest on record. Nonetheless all recovered a significant proportion of their business, with very strong August and
October trading. By year end the overall result for the combined Group was exactly on plan; a performance which very
much underlines the success of our strategy in building a broad based Group with natural hedging against external factors
such as weather.
In terms of new developments, our Midway roll-out programme continued with the successful openings of Hanover SEA
LIFE Centre, Madame Tussauds Washington DC and the first LEGOLAND Discovery Centre (LDC) in Berlin. This
latter opening is particularly significant as we believe there is massive potential in the aggressive roll-out of an indoor,
limited dwell time, LEGOLAND attraction concept. Two further sites are already underway for openings in 2008, along
with new SEA LIFE Centres in Italy and California and our ninth Madame Tussauds in Berlin.
Within our theme park Operating Groups, major new ride launches were executed at LEGOLAND Windsor and Heide
Park. In addition the strategy to position all our theme parks as destination resorts, with increasing numbers of multi-day
visits, was reinforced by the opening of two superb new hotels at Chessington World of Adventures and Heide Park. A
programme of further hotel and other accommodation developments is now being aggressively pursued and already a
new Holiday Village will open during summer 2008 at LEGOLAND Deutschland.
Since the year end we have continued to move forward. We have acquired the London Aquarium to add to our London
cluster of businesses and signed a deal to develop and operate a new LEGOLAND Park in Dubai which is scheduled to
open in 2011. Madame Tussauds Hollywood is already under construction for opening in 2009 and later that year a new
LDC will open at the Xanadu Centre in New Jersey, together with the Pepsi Globe observation wheel which will be
operated by Merlin.
Finally, it is extremely pleasing to announce the successful completion of a number of employee training and
development courses and the commencement of several new programmes. Merlin is first and foremost a people business
and we pride ourselves on the vast array of talented individuals across the Group and the investment we are able to make
in developing their careers and skills.
It was founded in 1971 as DIC Audiovisuel by Frenchman Jean Chalopin in Paris, as a subsidiary of Radio-Television Luxembourg (RTL). "DIC" was originally an acronym for Diffusion, Information et Communication. The company was also known as The Incredible World of DiC, DiC. Audiovisuel, DiC Enterprises, DIC Animation City and DIC Productions. In 2008, the studio closed its doors, and was reallocated to Cookie Jar Entertainment.[5]
Most employers providing health insurance
offer a menu of plans and allow employees to
choose the plan they prefer. As a result, the
demographic mixes of insureds and, consequently,
costs differ dramatically across plans.
The average 60-year-old, for example, spends
more than twice as much annually as the average
30-year-old. A single high-cost individual
can incur costs equal to the total of several
hundred low-cost insureds. Because of this
variability, insurers are deeply concerned
about how people choose their plans, as are
employers and governments that finance and
monitor them, and analysts who study them.
We seek to understand who insures in which
health-insurance plan, and why they do it. This
information wil! enable us to correctly calculate
cost differentials between plans, and to set
premiums accordingly.
The mix of people in a plan in a particular
year depends on who began there, and who
moves in and out. Economists have long been
fascinated by the movers. The tendency for
sick (healthy) people to join plans offering
rich (lean) services at high (low) cost
is termed "adverse selection" (Michael
Rothschild and Joseph Stiglitz. 1976; Charles
Wilson, 1987). Most discussion of adverse selection,
concentrating on the decision of
whether to purchase insurance, focuses on
high risks moving to very generous plans, with
the low risks choosing to go without insurance
coverage. But for mandatory or heavily subsidized
insurance, such as employer-provided
health care, everybody will be insured, and
* Attman: Department of Economics, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA 02138; Cutler: Department of Economics,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, and
National Bureau of Economic Research; Zeckhauser:
Kennedy School of Govemment. Harvard University,
Cambridge. MA 02138. and National Bureau of Economic
Research. We are grateful to Charles Slavin and Roger
Feldman for helpful discussions and to the National institutes
on Aging for research support. The data used in this
paper are proprietary.
thus other groups might be important as well:
low-risk movers seeking lower prices, new enrollees.
and people who stay put.
We focus in this paper on why premiums
differ so much across health-insurance plans.
We show that adverse selection is quantitatively
important, but that it is more a result of
low-risk people moving out of generous plans
than of high-risk people moving into those
plans. We then document the opposite of adverse
selection, a concept we term "adverse
retention." Adverse retention is the tendency
for people who stay put to magnify cost differentials
between plans, as they will if they
differ in age and costs are more than linear
with age. We show that adverse retention has
about 60 percent as large an effect on healthplan
premiums as does adverse selection.
The financial year ended 29 December 2007 was another of outstanding progress for Merlin. The core business delivered
double digit EBITDA growth for the seventh year in succession with consequent increases in operating profit, while in
May the acquisition of The Tussauds Group doubled the size of the Group again. Merlin is now one of the biggest leisure
Groups in the UK and within the visitor attraction market is second only to Disney on a world wide basis.
As would be expected, considerable management time and resource was expended on the Tussauds transaction in the first
half of the year and subsequently on the integration with Merlin. I am delighted to report that this latter undertaking has
been highly successful, with business plans, reporting systems, H.R. strategies and targeted synergy initiatives all now
substantially in place. That this has been implemented so quickly and effectively is tribute to the enthusiasm, dedication
and professionalism of all the Merlin employees involved.
From a trading perspective, excellent performances were recorded by the LEGOLAND Parks, Madame Tussauds, The
London Eye and the Dungeons. Our European theme parks experienced a difficult summer as May, June and July became
the wettest on record. Nonetheless all recovered a significant proportion of their business, with very strong August and
October trading. By year end the overall result for the combined Group was exactly on plan; a performance which very
much underlines the success of our strategy in building a broad based Group with natural hedging against external factors
such as weather.
In terms of new developments, our Midway roll-out programme continued with the successful openings of Hanover SEA
LIFE Centre, Madame Tussauds Washington DC and the first LEGOLAND Discovery Centre (LDC) in Berlin. This
latter opening is particularly significant as we believe there is massive potential in the aggressive roll-out of an indoor,
limited dwell time, LEGOLAND attraction concept. Two further sites are already underway for openings in 2008, along
with new SEA LIFE Centres in Italy and California and our ninth Madame Tussauds in Berlin.
Within our theme park Operating Groups, major new ride launches were executed at LEGOLAND Windsor and Heide
Park. In addition the strategy to position all our theme parks as destination resorts, with increasing numbers of multi-day
visits, was reinforced by the opening of two superb new hotels at Chessington World of Adventures and Heide Park. A
programme of further hotel and other accommodation developments is now being aggressively pursued and already a
new Holiday Village will open during summer 2008 at LEGOLAND Deutschland.
Since the year end we have continued to move forward. We have acquired the London Aquarium to add to our London
cluster of businesses and signed a deal to develop and operate a new LEGOLAND Park in Dubai which is scheduled to
open in 2011. Madame Tussauds Hollywood is already under construction for opening in 2009 and later that year a new
LDC will open at the Xanadu Centre in New Jersey, together with the Pepsi Globe observation wheel which will be
operated by Merlin.
Finally, it is extremely pleasing to announce the successful completion of a number of employee training and
development courses and the commencement of several new programmes. Merlin is first and foremost a people business
and we pride ourselves on the vast array of talented individuals across the Group and the investment we are able to make
in developing their careers and skills.