Long‐term care and pay‐for‐performance programs

Pay‐for‐performance programs are gradually spreading across Asia. This paper builds on the longer experience in the United States to offer lessons for Asia. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services has introduced several pay‐for‐performance programs since 2012 to encourage hospitals to improve quality of care and reduce costs. Some state Medicaid programs have also introduced pay‐for‐performance for nursing homes. Long‐term care providers play an important role in hospital pay‐for‐performance programs because they can affect the readmission rate and also total episode payments. A good pay‐for‐performance program will focus on improving quality of care that affects health outcomes. In addition, that quality must vary across providers and be measurable. Furthermore, it is important that the measures be reported in a timely way, that both demand and supply respond to the measures, and that the measures be risk adjusted. Empirical data from Medicare beneficiaries in the state of Michigan show that mean episode payments and readmission rates in skilled nursing facilities vary widely and are sensitive to the number of observations. These practical matters create challenges for implementing pay‐for‐performance in practice. There is an extensive literature review of pay‐for‐performance in long‐term care in the United States and in Asia.     

The Impact of Labour Market Reforms and Economic Performance on the Matching of the Short‐term and the Long‐term Unemployed

As a reaction to high and persistent unemployment in Germany, the largest labour market reforms in post‐war history were implemented between 2003 and 2005. We analyse the impact of the reforms and its coincidence with an economic expansion on the efficiency of matching out of unemployment. Especially focussing on searcher heterogeneity, we estimate a system of stock‐flow matching functions for short‐term and long‐term unemployment (three‐stage least squares) on the basis of administrative data. In sum, the reforms increased matching efficiency for both groups, but the effect was larger for the long‐term unemployed. The interaction of reforms and economic expansion, however, was not influential.     

Long‐term care policy with lazy rotten kids

This paper studies the determination of informal long‐term care (LTC) provided by children in a scenario which is somewhere in between perfect altruism and selfish exchanges. Parents are altruistic but children are purely selfish, and neither side can make credible commitments. The model is based on Becker's “rotten kid” specification except that it explicitly accounts for the sequence of decisions. In Becker's world, with a single good efficiency is achieved. We show that when family aid is introduced the outcome is likely to be inefficient. Still, the rotten kid mechanism is at work and ensures that a positive level of LTC is provided as long as the bequest motive is operative. We identify the inefficiencies by comparing the laissez‐faire (subgame perfect) equilibrium to the first‐best allocation. We first assume that families are identical ex ante and then consider the case where dynasties differ in wealth. We study how the provision of LTC can be improved by public policies. Interestingly, crowding out of private aid by public LTC is not a problem in this setting. With an operative bequest motive, public LTC will have no impact on private aid. More amazingly still, when the bequest motive is (initially) not operative, public insurance may even enhance the provision of informal aid.     

Availability of Long‐term Care Facilities and Middle‐aged People's Labor Supply in Japan

This paper estimates the effect of the availability of long‐term care facilities in the prefecture or medical district where middle‐aged men and women reside on their labor supply. Prefecture‐ and medical district‐ level panel datasets of the capacity of long‐term care facilities are merged with individual level employment data, and each individual's employment status is regressed on the capacities of long‐term care facilities. I find no evidence for a positive impact of the long‐term care availability on labor supply, although the estimates are unstable in sign and not estimated precisely enough to draw any strong conclusions.     

The Role of Market Sentiment in Asset Allocations and Stock Returns

Abstract

The authors investigate the role of mutual fund flows in incorporating market sentiment into asset prices. They show that retail investors adjust their investments among mutual fund categories in response to changes in market sentiment. Consistent with sentiment-induced price pressure through fund flows, they further find that firms favored by mutual funds, such as large-cap, dividend payers, and firms with high institutional ownership are sensitive to market sentiment. The authors construct a pricing factor representing sentiment risk and find that the sentiment factor is significant in standard asset pricing models and robust to various sorting procedure.     

Long‐term care and intrafamily moral hazard: Optimal public policy

The paper studies optimal public long‐term care (LTC) policy in the context of intrafamily moral hazard suggested by Pauly. The model considers a representative family consisting of an adult child and her elderly parent who might become dependent, in which case he places a special value on the LTC provided to him by his child. Since the child's caregiving is decreasing in the amount of insurance coverage, the parent prefers to underinsure, which is socially suboptimal. The child's choice of caregiving is also inefficient since she does not internalize its positive effect on the parent. The paper tackles these inefficiencies and shows that intrafamily moral hazard is a sufficient justification for public intervention targeted at insurance. If not necessarily for the introduction of mandatory public insurance, then at least for the taxation or subsidization of private insurance premiums.     

企业金融资产配置对双元创新的影响

以2014-2016年非金融上市公司为样本,研究不同种类的金融资产配置对双元创新的影响,考察高管激励方式在两者之间的调节效应,并基于产权异质性作进一步检验。引入ITCV方法测量内生性问题是否改变了回归结果,以检验结论的稳健性。研究发现：①短期金融资产配置对双元创新不产生蓄水池效应;②长期金融资产配置对探索式创新具有挤出效应,而对开发式创新挤出效应受到产权异质性的影响;③相对于开发式创新,长期金融资产对探索式创新的挤出效应更加显著;④国有企业中,股权激励有助于弱化长期金融资产配置对双元创新的挤出效应,而在非国有企业中,这一调节效应并不显著;⑤相对于探索式创新,薪酬激励弱化长期金融资产配置对开发式创新的挤出效应更加显著。     

An Empirical Economic Development Based Model of International Banking Risk and Risk Scoring

The paper reconsiders the relationship between international banking risk and economic development. It is shown quite conclusively that the significant explanatory variables of international banking risk scores (when international banking risk is used as a proxy for country risk) are the income elasticity of demand for imports (when the latter is used as an indicator of economic growth and development), the phase of industrialization (based on country per capita income), and certain historical economic and financial variables (external debt levels and international bank size according to total assets). The investigation arrives at a new approach to risk scoring systems and models.     

公共项目利益相关者委托代理风险评价研究

有效的识别和评价公共项目利益相关者委托代理风险,有助于明确政府与代理方的责、权、利关系,避免项目实施中的责任推诿,创新公共项目的管理工具,提高项目的管理水平和整体效益。文章在剖析公共项目的契约本质和利益相关者委托代理关系的基础上,识别公共项目委托代理风险的构成,并构建委托代理风险评价指标体系,采用云重心模型测量加权偏离度来衡量云重心的改变,准确地确定评价指标的基本评定值,从而解决定性指标与定量指标评价中的不一致现象。文章为准确评价公共项目利益相关者委托代理风险提供了一种有效的方法。     

Long‐Run Growth Differences and the Neoclassical Growth Model

This paper shows that allowing factor income share differences across countries in a modified Solow model can imply differences in output growth rates across countries. Using cross‐sectional data for 52 countries, an empirical illustration shows that the parameters of the modified model are intuitively plausible, jointly significant, and possess modest explanatory power (R² around 0.25). The paper emphasizes the methodological importance of simplifying assumptions on applied theory.     

Tenure Security and Long‐term Investment on Tenanted Land: Evidence from Colonial Taiwan

We use farm diary data from Taiwan in the 1920s and 1930s to estimate the impacts of a state‐wide tenancy reform on tenants’ investment in the farmland and production outcome. The reform, commencing in 1922, enhanced the tenure security for the tenants by promoting written contracts that extended tenure length from 1 year to 5–6 years, and by establishing government‐sponsored organizations for dispute settlements. Our estimations rely on a difference‐in‐difference framework, where self‐cultivated farms are used as the control group. We find that the reform encouraged tenants to make investments in the irrigation and drainage system of the farms, which is expected to have long‐lasting benefits for production. The improved irrigation/drainage system led to significant efficiency gains for the farms. In contrast, the reform did not affect tenants’ usage of fertilizer much, which benefits production for only a crop season or a year.     

Long‐run Specialization*

Constructing a dynamic Heckscher–Ohlin model, we examine long‐run specialization patterns in the presence of international technological differences. Even a slight difference in technology causes at least one country to specialize. Either the case of perfect specialization in both countries or the case of perfect specialization in one country and imperfect specialization in the other occurs, depending on the subjective discount rate, relative preference for two commodities, labor endowments, and technological conditions. A necessary and sufficient condition for each case to hold is provided. Structural differences between the Ricardian model and ours are also emphasized.     

资产重组风险防范

实证研究表明很多资产重组未能提高企业绩效 ,这与企业不注意资产重组的风险防范有关。企业在进行重组时 ,应该充分考虑进行资产重组可能发生的各种风险 ,并及时予以防范。     

经济腐败的经济学分析

经济官员拥有着特权.这种特权在市场经济条件下,可能形成“政治市场”,成为特殊商品,进而进行权钱交易.本文对经济腐败的成本收益进行了详细分析,并对经济腐败的风险成本与反经济腐败的对策进行了博弈分析.在对经济腐败决策模型和影响其风险决策的主要因素分析的基础上,提出经济腐败行为总是遵循“以最小腐败成本获取最大腐败收益”的经济学原则.因而,加大腐败者的经济腐败成本,可以减少经济腐败,从而降低经济腐败风险,并提出了加强经济腐败风险管理的对策.     

Rate‐of‐return Parity in Experimental Asset Markets*

This paper applies experimental methods to evaluate the completeness of arbitrage and rate‐of‐return parity in simultaneous asset markets in which the assets are denominated in different currencies. Two assets, which return uncertain, but known, dividends in each trading period, are traded over 20 periods, after which the asset has no value. Results indicate that risk‐neutral rate‐of‐return parity is a strong predictor of relative asset prices when assets have common expected dividends and the expected dividends have common variances. The predictive power of risk‐neutral rate‐of‐return parity is reduced as the assets become differentiated.     

It's a Sin—Contraceptive Use,Religious Beliefs,and Long‐run Economic Development

This study presents a novel theory on the interaction of social norms, fertility, education, and their joint impact on long‐run economic development. The theory takes into account that sexual intercourse is utility enhancing and that the use of modern contraceptives potentially conflicts with prevailing social norms (religious beliefs). The theory motivates the existence of two steady states. At the traditional steady state, the economy stagnates, fertility is high, education is minimal, and the population sustains a norm according to which modern contraceptives are not used. At the modern steady state, the population has abandoned traditional beliefs, modern contraceptives are used, fertility is low and education and economic growth are high. Social dynamics explain why both equilibria are separated by a saddlepoint‐equilibrium (a separatrix), i.e. why it is so hard to transit from the traditional regime to the modern regime.     

Informality and Long‐Run Growth

One of the most salient features of developing economies is the existence of a large informal sector. In this paper, we use quantitative theory to study the dynamic implications of informality on wage inequality, human capital accumulation, child labor, and long‐run growth. Our model can generate transitory informality equilibria or informality‐induced poverty traps. Its calibration reveals that the case for the poverty‐trap hypothesis arises: although informality serves to protect low‐skilled workers from extreme poverty in the short run, it prevents income convergence between developed and developing nations in the long run. Then we examine the effectiveness of different development policies to exit the poverty trap. Our numerical experiments show that using means‐tested education subsidies is the most cost‐effective single policy option. However, for longer time horizons, or as the economy gets closer to the poverty trap threshold, combining means‐tested education and wage subsidies is even more effective.