Medical practice and malpractice litigation in an evolutionary context

We model the interactions between the behaviors of physicians and patients, subject to clinical and legal risks, by means of evolutionary game theory. We propose an original game in which patients may sue their physician for medical malpractice, and physicians have to choose between two alternative treatments, with different levels of benefits and risks. The safer treatment is also the less effective, therefore its provision corresponds, under the assumptions of our model, to practicing negative defensive medicine. We study the Nash equilibria, test their stability in the replicator dynamics, and analyze their welfare properties. We find that the accuracy of the judicial system plays an important role, with possible counter-intuitive effects related to legal reforms. If the court is not sufficiently accurate, defensive medicine can be favored, paradoxically, by an increase in the probability that defensive physicians are sanctioned by the court. A similar outcome can be generated also by an increase in the compensation paid to patients by physicians, when sanctioned for medical malpractice.     

Scenario planning in public policy: Understanding use,impacts and the role of institutional context factors

Scenario planning has formed a growing area of interest on the interface of academia and public and private sector policy-making. While methodological approaches are well covered in the academic literature, less attention has been paid to studying the use, impacts and effectiveness of scenario planning in public policy-making. This article combines preliminary findings from a review of evaluative scenario literature with workshop discussions among scenario practitioners, using environmental relevant policies as a case study. Subject to the nascent evaluative scenario literature, our preliminary findings highlight that scenario planning still is often executed in a rather ad-hoc and isolated manner and is mostly geared towards indirect decision support such as agenda-setting and issue-framing. The slim evidence base aggravates the assessment, but the potential of scenario planning to prepare public policy-making for the uncertainties and surprises of future developments and better manage complex decisions involving conflicting societal interests is clearly not fully utilized. Political and institutional context factors need to be treated with greater care in the future. Making better decisions under conditions of deep uncertainty does not only require rigorous analysis, but also political will and more stable institutional settings and organisational capacities to build up trust and experience with adaptive, flexible process formats. We synthesize our analysis with a discussion of further research needs.     

Forecasting inflation with an uncertain output gap

The output gap is a crucial concept in the monetary policy framework, indicating demand pressure that generates inflation. However, its definition and estimation raise a number of theoretical and empirical questions. This paper evaluates a series of univariate and multivariate methods for extracting the output gap in Norway, and compares their value added in predicting inflation. We find that models including the output gap have better predictive power than models based on alternative indicators, and they forecast significantly better than simple benchmark models. Furthermore multivariate measures of the output gap perform better than the univariate gaps. Comments from two anonymous referees, Q. Farooq Akram, Tommy Sveen, Ken West, Fredrik Wulfsberg and seminar participants in Norges Bank are gratefully acknowledged. All mistakes remain our own. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of Norges Bank.     

Economic planning for market economies : The optimality of planning in an economy with uncertainty and asymmetrical information

The paper is based on a disequilibrium model which is Keynesian in the ‘short run’, ie with given expectations, but which admits of a continuum of equilibria when expectations are rational. Expectations are adaptive (so that they are rational only in the long run) but can be influenced by an indicative plan. The government and the private sector have differing information sets, each knowing some things the other sector does not (spontaneously) know. It is shown that in this world, an optimal plan dominates a self-fulfilling plan, which in turn dominates a no-planning equilibrium.     

Money as a medium of exchange and monetary growth in an underdevelopment context

This paper constructs a neoclassical monetary growth model applicable to less developed economies, in that (1) the economy is assumed to be labour-surplus (as a result of which its steady-state growth rate is an endogenous variable), and (2) differential savings propensities on the part of profit- and wage-earners are postulated. The model predicts that an increase in the rate of monetary expansion increases the steady-state rate of inflation, increases the capital-labour ratio, reduces the money-labour ratio, and reduces the steady-state growth rate. Because of this last-mentioned fact, an inflationary policy is held to be unfavorable to economic development, despite the fact that it increases the capital-labour ratio. Some implications of the analysis for the well-known ‘choice of techniques’ problem are also discussed.     

Forecasting and Futurology

The Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has published forecasts of the Australian economy since the late 1960s. These forecasts (usually 12 to 18 months ahead) have been dominated by short-term macroeconomic factors. Compared with when the IAESR commenced its forecasting, there are now many forecasters who concentrate on the performance of the Australian economy over the short term. There is, however, a dearth of regular commentary which focuses on policy options for the medium to long term. This article is the first of many which will aim to fill this perceived gap. In so doing we shall adopt a wider concept of forecasting called futurology. In this approach, many constraints of traditional forecasting are relaxed. In particular, we allow responses by economic agents to policy changes. This will suggest plausible situations in which different outcomes are possible. Our purpose is not to suggest what the future will be, but what it might be under different scenarios. Here, we put together some necessary ingredients to facilitate futurology. We review recent Australian economic performance, consider the implications of meeting a goal of five per cent unemployment by the year 2000 and outline some important influences on likely future growth. We suggest that new growth theory may provide a policy framework to achieve both high growth and low unemployment, noting the constraints imposed by increasing globalisation. In subsequent articles, we shall employ these ingredients to write out plausible timepaths setting out how desirable end-points (including the reduction of unemployment) may be achieved.     

International Telecommunications Forecasting: an Investigation of Alternative Functional Forms

This paper provides an investigation of alternative models of international telecommunications traffic for several of the main streams emanating from Australia. Specifically, several alternative functional forms are compared with the standard double-log specification so often used in such studies. The motivation for such a study is twofold. In the first place, the double-log specification generates elasticities that are constant over time. Given the intertemporal changes in the budget share of telecommunications, this may not be a resonable formulation. The second motivation derives from teh need to use the demand models to forecast. Although the double-log model may provide a good within-sample fit, this is no gurantee that it will provide good post-sample forecasts.     

Forecasting inflation in China

This paper forecasts inflation in China over a 12-month horizon. The analysis runs 15 alternative models and finds that only those considering many predictors via a principal component display a better relative forecasting performance than the univariate benchmark.     

Forecasting and random processes

On the simple model of a (univariate) random process some general problems of “random logic” are discussed. New random approaches to explorative, normative and systematic (normex) forecasting are developed, and some applications are suggested.     

Social context,financial stakes and hypothetical bias: an induced value referendum experiment

This article investigates the effect of social context in an induced value, public good referendum experiment. In a split-sample treatment, social context is simulated by requiring participants to potentially have to disclose their vote to the group (voting disclosure) across both hypothetical and real settings. The experimental design also varies the cost (a coercive tax), and includes an uncertain level of benefit from the public good. The design allows investigation of the role of social context in both hypothetical and real referenda and its interaction with changes in the financial stakes involved (costs and potential benefits). Results show evidence of hypothetical bias, but also a social context effect that occurs in both real and hypothetical settings. This social context effect is larger than the effect of hypothetical bias, but is muted by the magnitude of costs and potential benefits. Hypothetical cases are also shown to be more prone to the social context effect.     

Technology Forecasting Activities in Japan

Japan started its development in science and technology later than other countries but was nevertheless quite successful. Many factors contributed to this success—and one of them was the adaptation of large foresight studies at the end of the 1960s. In Japan, the Science and Technology Agency (STA), among others, in 1971 started to conduct a large study on the future of science and technology. The Delphi method was one technique used for foresight activities. This was not considered a tool of prediction but an instrument to systematically look into the long-term future. Among the aims of this type of national activity is the identification of areas of strategic research and of generic technologies most likely to yield the greatest economic and social benefits. Although many countries stopped their national foresight activities in the 1970s, the Japanese Delphi process continued and was applied every five years. In 1997, the sixth study was finished. Yet, Japanese technology policies are less consistent than is commonly believed and involve an assortment of policy measures and actors/agencies pragmatically devised to address diverse, ever-changing, and sometimes conflicting needs embedded in a broad range of issues. Forecasting results provide the “language” to communicate among Japanese actors in science, technology, and society.     

Estimation and Forecasting in Models with Multiple Breaks

This paper develops a new approach to change-point modelling that allows the number of change-points in the observed sample to be unknown. The model we develop assumes that regime durations have a Poisson distribution. It approximately nests the two most common approaches: the time-varying parameter (TVP) model with a change-point every period and the change-point model with a small number of regimes. We focus considerable attention on the construction of reasonable hierarchical priors both for regime durations and for the parameters that characterize each regime. A Markov chain Monte Carlo posterior sampler is constructed to estimate a version of our model, which allows for change in conditional means and variances. We show how real-time forecasting can be done in an efficient manner using sequential importance sampling. Our techniques are found to work well in an empirical exercise involving U.S. GDP growth and inflation. Empirical results suggest that the number of change-points is larger than previously estimated in these series and the implied model is similar to a TVP (with stochastic volatility) model.     

北京市人均GDP的时间序列分析及预测

人均GDP是具有重要经济意义的指标,它的增长具有一定的内在规律性,文章建立了北京市人均GDP的时间序列模型,分析研究了模型的稳定性和可外推性,预测了2005年～2010年北京市人均GDP的发展水平,说明北京市人均GDP具有一定的时间趋势。     

User producer interaction in context

User producer interaction (UPI) increases chances for successful innovations. It is not always clear, however, what type of interaction is necessary in a particular context. This article identifies seven different types of UPI: constructing linkages, broadening, characterizing users, upstream involvement, first user enrollment, feedback, and downstream innovation. Specific contextual dimensions from which these UPI types derive relevance are discussed. The technological dimension of this context is conceptualized based on a distinction between types of technologies that differ in the degree to which they are customizable to user demands. Four case studies show that technological characteristics indeed matter for UPI, as do the heterogeneity of users and the phase of technology development.     

马尔柯夫预测模型及其实证分析

经济预测的方法有许多，其中马尔柯夫预测法是应用概率中马尔柯夫链的理论和方法来研究分析有关经济数据的变化规律，并由此预测未来变化趋势的一种重要方法，这种方法已在市场预测分析和市场管理决策中得到广泛的应用。本文结合具体安全重点分析了如何应用马氏链进行市场占有率和期望利润的预测。     

What level of decentralization is better in an environmental context? An application to water policies

This paper analyses the optimal division of environmental policymaking functions among the different levels of government. Using fiscal federalism theory, we identify the most appropriate level of decentralization in each case. The paper focuses on water resources policies, with an application to Spanish regions during the 1996–2001 period. A simulation allows the implementation of more efficient policies in the context of water resources. The results of the empirical exercise show that a decentralized scenario is preferred under strong differences among preferences.      

Return of the lost letter: Experimental framing does not enhance altruism in an everyday context

Debate surrounds interpretation of prosocial behavior in experimental games. Skeptics of the thesis that evolution produced a propensity for noncontingent altruism speculate that such results reflect the presence of information suggesting reputational consequences, including awareness that one is participating in an experiment. To examine the effects on prosocial behavior of awareness that research is being conducted, return rates were measured on ‘lost’ envelopes, some of which carried the message that they were dropped as part of an investigation. Return rates were not enhanced by such messages, indicating that awareness that one is in an experiment does not increase prosocial behavior.