The economic burden of depression among adults with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States

Aims: Depression is the most frequent comorbidity reported among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Comorbid depression negatively impacts RA patients’ health-related quality-of-life, physical function, mental function, mortality, and experience of pain and symptom severity. The objective of this study was to assess healthcare utilization, expenditures, and work productivity among patients with RA with or without depression.

Materials and methods: Data from adult patients who had at least two visits each related to RA and depression over a 1-year period were extracted from the Truven Health MarketScan research databases. Outcomes comprised healthcare resource utilization, work productivity loss, and direct healthcare costs comparing patients with RA with depression (n?=?3,478) vs patients with RA without depression (n?=?43,222).

Results: Patients with RA and depression had a significantly greater relative risk of hospitalization and number of all-cause and RA-related hospitalizations, utilization of emergency services, days spent in the hospital, physician visits, and RA-related surgeries compared with RA patients without depression. Patients with RA and depression had a higher risk of and experienced more events and days of short-term disability compared with patients without depression. The incremental adjusted annual all-cause and RA-related direct costs were $8,488 (95% CI = $6,793–$10,223) and $578 (95% CI = –$98–$1,243), respectively, when comparing patients with RA and depression vs RA only.

Limitations: The current analysis is subject to the known limitations of retrospective studies based on administrative claims data.

Conclusions: This study suggested increased healthcare utilization, work productivity loss, and economic burden among RA patients due to comorbid depression. These findings emphasize the importance of managing depression and including depression as a factor when devising treatment algorithms for patients with RA.     

Why will Trump lose the trade war?

ABSTRACT

The escalating U.S.–China trade conflicts have increasingly shadowed the outlook of the world economy. The Trump administration aims to achieve its strategic goals including reducing current account deficits, promoting the U.S. manufacturing sector, and curbing Chinese high-tech industries by waging the trade war against China. This paper argues that the current account deficits and the declining manufacturing sector in the U.S. are mainly driven by its internal structural factors, such as low saving rates, high labor costs, and rising service sector, rather than by the import competition from China. Moreover, the trade war further deteriorates the U.S. current account deficits and erode its comparative advantage, and it forces China to invest more in technological innovation and human capital, and thus promote its progress in high-tech industries. Thus, the U.S. will not be able to achieve its strategical goals and eventually lose the trade war.     

基于能量消耗分析的乳状液液滴粒径计算关系式

在油水混输管道中,存在着大量粒径大小不一的乳状液液滴,液滴粒径及分布对油水混合液的粘度有重要影响,从而在很大程度上影响管道的压降。因此,研究乳状液液滴粒径的计算关系式对于描述油水两相的流动特性以及准确计算管道压降具有重要意义。针对4种原油,通过油水体系的乳化实验,研究了搅拌转速、温度及含水率对乳状液液滴粒径的影响。研究发现,搅拌转速增大,乳状液液滴粒径减小;温度升高,乳状液液滴粒径增大,并且在低温下增大的趋势较显著;含水率增加,乳状液液滴粒径有减小趋势,但减小的幅度不大;以火用损率来表征剪切过程中的能量消耗,建立了基于剪切火用损率分析的乳状液液滴粒径计算关系式。     

Firm performance and corporate finance in New Zealand

Low productivity growth in New Zealand has been a paradox. We study New Zealand firms’ profitability, in terms of profit margin and return on assets (ROA), from the viewpoints of productivity enablers using firm-level panel data. We find that tangible fixed investment and a research and development (R&D) tax incentive are associated with higher profitability performance. In addition, the firm size is found to be a key determinant of profit margin. By contrast, we do not find any evidence that intangible investment can improve the profitability. The global financial crisis has not changed the leverage effect on ROA in New Zealand, while the impact of R&D became more prominent after the crisis.     

Incentives to move up: Effects of pay gaps between levels on employee performance

Employees of a certain rank are motivated by the pay gap between them and the levels above (upward comparison), and the pay gap between them and the levels below (downward comparison). In some cases, employees face multiple upward comparisons such as immediate and subsequent upward comparisons. We hypothesise that upward comparison matters more than downward comparison, and in the case of multiple upward comparisons, the immediate one matters more than the subsequent ones. We also hypothesise that the pay gap effect resulting from the upward/downward comparison ought to be non‐linear in that performance increases with pay gap size at a decreasing rate. The results from two empirical studies, namely, a longitudinal field study and a laboratory experiment, largely support our hypotheses.     

“两山”理论指导下的楠溪江乡村振兴发展研究

近年来,绿色发展理念深入人心,其核心要义是生态文明建设。楠溪江面临着"守着金饭碗却没饭吃"的尴尬局面,因此在乡村振兴的号角中,将"绿水青山"转化为"金山银山"便成了重点和难点。在"两山"理论的指导下,构建新的发展模式,旨在提高楠溪江的发展效益和质量,以期能为其走出"两山"困境、实现乡村振兴提供思路。     

Public acceptance of and heterogeneity in behavioral beach trip responses to offshore wind farm development in Catalonia (Spain)

A combined travel cost – contingent behaviour survey of residents and tourists in Catalonia is conducted on-site to examine the effects on beach recreational demand of developing an offshore wind farm (OWF) project. The survey considers four potential OWF scenarios with different degrees of visual impact. We allow for heterogeneity in trip preferences among individuals and control for on-site sampling through the use of a random parameters negative binomial (RPNB) model and a Multivariate Poisson log-normal (MPLN) model, respectively. The welfare measures derived from the RPNB model relate to the current beach users only, whereas those from the MPLN model refer to the general population of residents and tourists in Catalonia. The results show the importance of the specific place of location of the OWF project and how the installation of wind turbines would significantly decrease the demand for trips, depending on their degree of visual impacts, leading to a substantial welfare loss. However, the results also show that the project mainly would cause a displacement of trips to other beaches within Catalonia rather than outside Catalonia and that the welfare per trip measures generated by the RPNB and MPLN models substantially differ. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.     

数字普惠金融对地方税收影响的实证研究

采用北京大学测度的2011—2018年数字普惠金融指数与地方税收面板数据，研究了数字普惠金融发展与地方税收之间的关系。研究发现，数字普惠金融能够显著地促进地方税收增长，在考虑了内生性等因素后，这一结论仍然稳健地成立。分位数回归表明，数字普惠金融在低分位数上对地方税收影响小且统计显著性弱，在高分位数上数字普惠金融对地方税收的影响大且统计显著性强。数字普惠金融对地方税收的影响存在门槛效应，在不同发展阶段，其对地方税收影响有显著差异。数字普惠金融促进税收增长主要是通过数字普惠金融覆盖广度提高和移动化、便利化等程度加深实现的。     

混合股权制衡度与真实盈余管理行为

混合所有制改革形成了非国有股与国有股相互制衡的股权结构。通过研究国有企业中非国有股权和国有股权相互制衡的程度与真实盈余管理行为的关系发现：混合股权制衡度显著抑制了国有企业的真实盈余管理行为，但当国有性质股权占比小于非国有性质股权占比时上述抑制作用减弱。另外,参与混合所有制改革的金融类、外资类股权相比民营类股权制衡度，对真实盈余管理行为发挥了更显著的治理作用。机制检验发现，混合股权制衡一方面通过提升业绩，提高对真实盈余管理动机的抑制作用，从而缓解了真实盈余管理行为；另一方面通过提升内部控制对真实盈余管理的抑制作用，降低了真实盈余管理行为。以上结论有助于深化国有企业混合所有制改革，为提升混改中的审计监管质量提供参考。     

Prospect Theory,Fairness, and the Escalation of Conflict at a Negotiation Impasse*

We study a bilateral negotiation set-up where, at a bargaining impasse, the disadvantaged party chooses whether to escalate the conflict or not. Escalation is costly for both parties, and it results in a random draw of the winner of the escalated conflict. We derive the behavioral predictions of a simple social utility function, which is convex in disadvantageous inequality, thus connecting the inequity aversion and the prospect theory models. Our causal laboratory evidence is, to a large extent, consistent with the predicted effects. Among other things, the model predicts that the escalation rate is higher when escalation outcomes are riskier, and that the disagreement rate is lower when the cost of escalating the conflict is higher.