Cointegration and control: Assessing the impact of events using time series data

Control groups can provide counterfactual evidence for assessing the impact of an event or policy change on a target variable. We argue that fitting a multivariate time series model offers potential gains over a direct comparison between the target and a weighted average of controls. More importantly, it highlights the assumptions underlying methods such as difference in differences and synthetic control, suggesting ways to test these assumptions. Gains from simple and transparent time series models are analysed using examples from the literature, including the California smoking law of 1989 and German reunification. We argue that selecting controls using a time series strategy is preferable to existing data‐driven regression methods.     

Healthcare resource utilization by patients with treatment-refractory myasthenia gravis in England

Aims: To examine healthcare resource utilization associated with refractory myasthenia gravis (MG) in England.

Materials and methods: This was a retrospective cohort study of linked data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink and the Hospital Episode Statistics database collected between 1997 and 2016. Included patients were ≥18?years of age at the index MG diagnosis. Patients with refractory MG were identified using an algorithm based on treatments received. Healthcare resource utilization since the index date was compared between refractory and non-refractory cohorts.

Results: The study included 1149 patients with MG, of whom 66 (5.7%) were refractory. Sex and age at diagnosis did not significantly differ between the refractory and non-refractory cohorts. Rates of healthcare resource utilization per person-year were significantly higher (p?p?Limitations: The algorithm for identifying refractory patients did not include clinical criteria. Also, treatments administered in hospitals or by specialists were not available in the databases.

Conclusions: Patients in England with refractory MG more often visit healthcare providers, are hospitalized and visit an emergency room than patients with non-refractory MG.     

Analysts’ annual earnings forecasts and changes to the I/B/E/S database

Review of Accounting Studies - I/B/E/S is a common source of analyst earnings forecast data, and the reliability of these data is important for practice and academic research. Examining a common...     

Innovating for Good in Opportunistic Contexts: The Case for Firms’ Environmental Divergence

Journal of Business Ethics - Opportunistic behaviors are considered ethically and strategically troublesome since they disrupt otherwise mutually beneficial relationships. Previous literature has...     

The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure at the Heart of EU Economic Governance Reform

While the euro officially came into being in 1999, it was the introduction of euro notes and coins 20 years ago in January 2002 that made the common currency a tangible reality for European citizens. The circle of member states has since grown from 11 to 19, and a growing section of the population no longer has any personal experience with a “national” currency, yet the debate on the legal and institutional framework underpinning the common currency has never gone away.

     

Brexit: How Will UK Agriculture Fare?

There is little doubt that Brexit would have significant implications for UK agriculture, a sector with strong trade links to the EU and strong reliance on CAP income support. This article reports preliminary results from employing a Computable General Equilibrium Model, a Partial Equilibrium Model and Farm Level Models to explore selected trade and domestic policy scenarios post‐Brexit. These allow for the estimation of changes in producer prices, production and farm incomes against a baseline scenario of continued EU membership. Under a Free Trade Agreement with the EU, agricultural impacts are relatively modest. By contrast, unilateral removal of import tariffs has significant negative impacts on prices, production and incomes. Adoption of the EU's WTO tariff schedule for all imports favours net importers (e.g. dairy) and harms net exporters (e.g. sheep). Given the strong dependence of most UK farms on direct payments, their removal worsens negative impacts of new trade arrangements and offsets positive impacts. Impacts vary across different types and sizes of farm, but also regionally. However, the period of adjustment to new trade and domestic policy conditions may prove very challenging for a large number of farm businesses.     

Rent Sharing and the Compensation of Head Coaches in Power Five College Football

The monopoly and monopsony power of intercollegiate sports create significant rents, but previous studies of intercollegiate football coaches’ salaries implicitly assume that coaches are paid their marginal revenue products. In a two-stage estimation, we show that coaches share in these rents. The first stage shows that several common measures of coaches’ productivity do not affect an athletic department’s variable revenue. When we include these measures in the second-stage salary equation, their impact on pay reflects bargaining power, not productivity. We also find that several measures of fixed revenue, which are independent of the coach’s performance, increase the coach’s pay.