The quality effect: Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of capital?

We document evidence of a “quality effect” of financial liberalization on allocative efficiency, as measured by dispersion in Tobin's Q across firms. We predict that financial liberalization, by equalizing access to credit, is associated with reduced variation in expected marginal returns. We test this prediction using a new financial liberalization index and firm-level data for five emerging markets: India, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. We find robust evidence that financial liberalization, rather than financial deepening, is associated with improved allocative efficiency.     

The quality effect: Does financial liberalization improve the allocation of capital?

We document evidence of a “quality effect” of financial liberalization on allocative efficiency, as measured by dispersion in Tobin's Q across firms. We predict that financial liberalization, by equalizing access to credit, is associated with reduced variation in expected marginal returns. We test this prediction using a new financial liberalization index and firm-level data for five emerging markets: India, Jordan, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. We find robust evidence that financial liberalization, rather than financial deepening, is associated with improved allocative efficiency.     

A two-stage translog marginal cost pricing approach for Floridian hospital outputs

Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, issues still remain regarding the mandated purchase of insurance to ensure more universal coverage. One such issue is the pricing of these insurance packages and whether or not the reimbursements will cover necessary services. Therefore, policy concerns exist that increasing the number of insured individuals may not curtail costs. Conversely, providers may not wish to treat patients covered by excessively frugal plans such as Medicaid; hence the trade-offs between access and cost control. In this article, we present findings from a cost function and a productivity approach to determine the marginal cost of providing inpatient hospital care for hospitals operating in Florida during 2005. Using these methodological approaches, we are able to use the marginal rate of transformation to determine the relative marginal costs while controlling for hospital technical and allocative inefficiency. Our work differs from earlier articles as we avoid the Greene problem for cross-sectional models through a two-step approach. By including both reimbursement rates under conditions of hospital efficiency, we can ascertain payment schemes that should, at least in theory, cover necessary costs for patient care without leading to excessive input usage.     

Banking deregulation and allocative efficiency in Pakistan

This article examines the impact of deregulation policies on allocative efficiency of banks in Pakistan. It investigates whether deregulation has impacted the pattern of allocative efficiency of banks and explores which bank ownership segment has been more responsive. It uses data from 1991 to 2005 and explicitly models allocative inefficiency by using the translog shadow cost-share system. Empirical results show that overregulation and imperfect market structure hampers the ability of banks to make competitive decisions. We find evidence of allocative inefficiency leading to over-utilization of labour and deposits vis-à-vis operating cost. Empirical results for time-varying allocative efficiency show declining levels of allocative inefficiency for state-owned and private banks in post-reform period. Deregulation policies induce state-owned banks to decrease over-utilization of labour relative to deposits and operating cost while private banks succeed in using operating cost closer to optimal levels. Hence, policymakers have latitude to introduce more reforms without jeopardizing allocative efficiency.     

科技型中小微企业融资效率视角的地方政府行为评估

从资金可得性、资金成本与时间成本3个方面衡量科技型中小微企业融资效率,以黑龙江省科技型中小微企业为调研对象,在探索性因子分析的基础上构建了地方政府行为对科技型中小微企业融资效率支持作用的概念模型,基于结构方程模型实证分析了不同类型政府行为对企业融资效率的作用差异。研究发现：培育市场资金供给主体类政府行为的作用效果最好,其次是降低投融资信息不对称程度与分散（降低）企业创新风险类政府行为,而财政直接支持类政府行为对科技型中小微企业融资效率的作用效果不显著,由此提出基于科技型中小微企业融资效率的黑龙江省政府行为优化建议。     

The economics of standardized patient education materials with veteran patients

With an increasing number of veterans seeking care, it becomes imperative that the resources within the system are used efficiently and effectively and in a manner that maintains access, safety, and quality of care. Veterans who are able to manage their own care may utilize provider services less frequently, thereby increasing access for others who require more care. The objective of this quality improvement study was to determine the effectiveness of providing a standardized self-management textbook of health information with the intent that it would decrease demand on primary care providers' time for minor health care issues. This initial quality improvement study clearly demonstrated the potential of the return on investment and the subsequent potential for increased access for veteran patients, appropriate use of limited resources, and improved patient outcomes. It also clearly demonstrated the value of interaction with the veterans to educate them about their care and the increased satisfaction individualized attention to their needs creates. That finding alone has a greater value than just economics.     

Cost metafrontier approach for measuring the Malmquist productivity index: An example of bank groups formed after the financial reform in Taiwan

This study attempts to provide a framework under the variable returns to scale hypothesis to account for the effect of the cost scale efficiency change in the decomposition of the cost metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (CMMPI). In addition, the meta‐cost efficiency and cost frontier gap between subordinate banks of financial holding companies (FHC) and independent banks are also examined. A total of 34 banks in Taiwan are empirically analysed from 1999 to 2012. The results indicate that the meta‐cost efficiency, meta‐technical efficiency and meta‐allocative efficiency scores of subordinate banks of FHC are better than those of independent banks. The banking industry in Taiwan is found to have an improvement in cost metafrontier Malmquist productivity. The subordinate banks of FHC are also found to exhibit positive CMMPI and decomposition components, but do not achieve a significant improvement except in the case of the technical gap ratio change. The empirical results recommend that Taiwanese banks place more policy focus on the issue of scale adjustment, which should be beneficial. Based on the CMMPI decomposed results, we can gain further understanding of the growth path to enhance operational performance.     

Toward ‘privatization’ of public sector output: decentralized contracting for public and private goods

Public sector goods and services can be produced in the private sector. The challenge is to provide incentives for allocative and technological efficiency. Either of two mechanisms is proposed to accomplish this. To ensure allocative efficiency, the proposed mechanisms require knowledge of the complete schedule of benefits. Alternatively, they can use information available on benefits in an efficient manner. Costs need not be known to authorities. Profit maximization leads to efficient private sector responses to cost changes over time. Either mechanism can be combined with the demand revealing process to circumvent the need for ex ante information on benefits.     

Incomplete Markets, Allocative Efficiency, and the Information Revealed by Prices

We compare rational expectations equilibria with different degrees of information revelation through prices. These equilibria arise in a two-period exchange economy with finitely many states and signals, multiple commodities and incomplete financial markets for nominal assets. We show that there are always equilibria where information is redundant in the sense of being of no value to the uninformed traders. We give conditions under which for a generic set of economies, parametrized by endowments and utilities, there exist open sets of equilibria for which allocative and informational efficiency are independent, with implications for monetary policy. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D52, D60, D82, E52.     

Analysis of environmental efficiency variations: A nutrient balance approach

Recent literature has argued that environmental efficiency (EE), which is built on the materials balance (MB) principle, is more suitable than other EE measures in situations where the law of mass conversation regulates production processes. In addition, the MB-based EE method is particularly useful in analysing possible trade-offs between cost and environmental performance. Identifying determinants of MB-based EE can provide useful information to decision makers but there are very few empirical investigations into this issue. This article proposes the use of data envelopment analysis and stochastic frontier analysis techniques to analyse variation in MB-based EE. Specifically, the article develops a stochastic nutrient frontier and nutrient inefficiency model to analyse determinants of MB-based EE. The empirical study applies both techniques to investigate MB-based EE of 96 rice farms in South Korea. The size of land, fertiliser consumption intensity, cost allocative efficiency, and the share of owned land out of total land are found to be correlated with MB-based EE. The results confirm the presence of a trade-off between MB-based EE and cost allocative efficiency and this finding, favouring policy interventions to help farms simultaneously achieve cost efficiency and MP-based EE.     

Strategic planning of optimal resource allocation in response to global financial crisis – a study of international tourist hotels

This study is principally designed to examine the changes in the efficiency, effective resource allocation and future operation strategies of Taiwan's international tourist hotel in global economic downturn. At first, we set up critical input and output factors and construct an assessment model using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for analysis of relative efficiency. Further, we apply an allocative efficiency model for additional considerations of each input cost and analyse proper and effective resource allocation. Finally, there are significant changes in overall efficiency of international tourist hotels under global financial crisis. We can also reach an effective allocation of the overall resources. In such cases, lowering cost has become a key issue for sustainable operation of international tourist hotel. Finally, the greatest contribution of this study is to further classify the competitiveness and optimal cost allocation of Taiwan's international tourist hotels into seven categories based on the study results and propose strategic planning of future operations for hotel administrators’ reference in making improvements in the future.     

The effect of patient's asymmetric information problem on elderly use of medical care

It has been proposed that the patient's relative ignorance about medicine, ‘asymmetry of information between doctor and patient’, should place a patient in a disadvantaged position when purchasing medical care. Even if rapidly developing information technologies can enhance the patient's access to health information, a patient doesn’t have enough ability to understand, interpret and evaluate it. So, the doctor's effort at sincerely helping patient understand and utilize health information by effective communication with patient might improve the patient's asymmetric information problem and affect the patient's use of medical care by way of its being a source of patient's solid trust on doctor. This research seeks to determine whether a doctor's effort, mentioned earlier can affect the elderly use of medical care. This study used data from a survey sample of people aged more than 65 living in Seoul and Chuncheon, Korea. The results suggest the doctor's effort level has a statistically significant positive effect on the elderly use of medical care, which suggest a doctor's effort of effectively communicating with patient would ameliorate patient's information problem and it could be a source of patient's trust on doctor, so this trust would lead a patient to consume more medical care.     

卖空压力影响公司融资约束吗——基于中国A股上市公司的实证证据*

代理成本和信息不对称是导致公司出现融资约束的重要原因。本文以2010年3月正式推出的融资融券制度为外生冲击,以2005—2015年间沪深两市A股非金融类上市公司为研究样本,利用双重差分（difference in difference)模型实证检验了卖空压力对公司融资约束的影响。本文研究发现：（1）卖空压力能够提高公司银行贷款规模,降低贷款成本;（2）卖空压力能够降低公司的现金持有水平;（3）卖空压力能够降低公司的现金—现金流敏感性。综合来看,卖空压力能够缓解公司融资约束。进一步的,卖空压力对公司融资约束的缓解作用在民营企业中更加显著,并且卖空压力可能是通过降低公司代理成本和信息不对称程度进而缓解融资约束的。在各种稳健性检验后,本文研究结论保持不变。     

金融发展与中国的经济增长——从储蓄动员型向市场配置的消费型经济转变

隐形税收机制瓦解后,储蓄动员型的金融发展模式取代了财政投资的主导地位,通过金融支持政策为公有经济部门融资,支撑了经济的高速增长。然而,随着市场约束机制的变化,金融支持政策的收益逐渐下降,成本却在递增。本文认为储蓄动员型的金融支持政策在一定阶段促进了经济的发展,但是也伴随着一系列经济发展的成本,比如降低了资本配置效率,过度投资产生的宏观经济成本和经济持续增长的外部风险加大等。因此,中国金融体制应深化改革,提高金融体系的资本配置效率,促进技术进步和生产效率的改进。同时,通过发展消费信贷和商业保险,减少信贷约束和不确定性,推动消费型经济的增长。     

Efficiency in the factoring industry

The efficiency and productivity in the Italian factoring industry between 1993 and 1997 is investigated using DEA. The factoring industry is an important part of many financial systems and it has established itself as a major source of finance and credit management for a growing number of companies. However, as far as the authors are aware no studies have applied frontier methodologies to examine the efficiency and productivity of this industry. This paper focuses on the Italian market, the second largest in the world after the UK. The results suggest that there are substantial cost savings to be had in the Italian factoring industry: the mean cost inefficiency in the Italian factoring industry over the period 1993–1997 ranged between 14% and 22%. These inefficiencies are mainly generated by allocative rather than technical inefficiencies. Scale and technical inefficiencies seem to be similar in magnitude and the supposed importance of the latter typically found in the banking efficiency literature, are not observed in Italian factoring. Firm size does not appear to be related to technical, allocative and economic efficiency and the hypothesis that ownership structure influences factoring firm efficiency could not be rejected. In order to analyse efficiency change over time the Malmquist index is used. Total factor productivity was decomposed into technical change and efficiency change and the latter was further divided into pure efficiency and scale efficiency change. Productivity changes were slight over the period 1993–1996, while a substantial increase in productivity occurred between 1996 and 1997: the latter appears to be the result of a large improvement in the technology and a positive scale efficiency change, however, this was slowed down by a negative pure efficiency change.     

中国劳动力市场就业信息机制的完善

劳动力市场是要素市场的重要组成部分,其发展程度直接影响着经济的发展和社会的稳定。由于信息不对称,导致劳动力市场运行效率低下,社会运行成本加大,为此,需要从政府、劳动力市场、企业、求职者四个方面优化劳动力市场就业信息传播机制。     

流动性补偿、信息不对称与市场预期:央票发行对央票交易成本的影响分析

基于对经济正常波动时期与金融危机时期央票发行对央票交易成本的影响分析,结论表明央票交易成本中流动性成本显著高于信息不对称成本。在经济正常波动时期,央票发行顺应市场预期,央票发行并未引起流动性成本和信息不对称成本的显著变化;在金融危机时期,央票发行出乎市场预期,央票发行引起信息不对称成本显著增加,指令流自相关系数显著降低。而央票市场的信息不对称成本,主要来源于机构投资者对公开信息的解读不同。     

An analysis of government loan guarantees and direct investment through public-private partnerships

This paper compares two forms of government support: loan guarantee and direct investment through public-private partnerships (PPPs). With loan guarantee, government provides financial guarantees to enhance project creditworthiness. With direct investment, government invests capital directly in the project. In both forms of support, the government receives shares proportional to its financial commitment. We find that loan guarantees are more effective in reducing project borrowing costs. In a perfect information environment, loan guarantee support will yield more wealth to the government than a cost equivalent direct investment. But, in an informationally asymmetric environment where the government knows less about project quality than do private partners, in other words the so-called plum problem rather than the familiar lemon problem, this implication is mitigated. We show how the portion of shares given to the government can be a bargaining tool and can mitigate information asymmetry when structuring PPPs.     

Financial Matching, Asymmetric Information and Entrepreneurial Risk Taking

We study financial matching in credit markets when entrepreneurs have private information about their success potential. Entrepreneurs can search for financing for either a “risky” or a “safe” investment and only the risky project is sensitive to entrepreneurs' intrinsic “types”. There is excess risk taking in the sense that entrepreneurs with inefficiently low success probabilities choose the risky investment. However, steady states featuring greater market liquidity are associated with higher efficiency. As market liquidity also reflects the intensity of competition among financiers, earlier results which indicate a negative relationship between competition and allocative efficiency do not hold in our setup.     

Reining in the HMOs

As managed health care proliferates, states are enacting laws to ensure patients' access to specialists and treatment information, among other protections. Congress is following suit. Managed care plans have gone along with the changes to an extent but fear over-regulation.