General health conditions and medical insurance issues concerning black women

In the last 30 years the health status of black women has improved. However, the likelihood of health problems from complications of pregnancy and childbirth or prolonged illness from combined effects of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity remains. The need for continuity of care for these conditions and the low economic status of black women suggest that current policy shifts away from emphasis on increased access to medical care will adversely affect the health status of black women. Policies to contain health-care costs should therefore be designed to assure appropriate access to needed care for black women and other low-income groups.     

中国保险市场与投资市场的互动研究:定价方法与实证

从新的观点出发,把保险公司的赔付情况与投资收益结合,对保险建立在一类条件较弱的投资背景下的线性正倒向随机微分方程的改进模型。根据一类特殊线性倒向随机微分方程的显式解,加入时间序列预测方法,给出了基于投资的保险定价公式,为保险公司厘定保险的保费提供新的可行性方法。     

Measuring price inflation in the physician sector of the health care market

Summary The purpose of this study was to indicate the need for the development of an adequate measure of the inflation in prices of medical care services. Although the CPI provides a medical care component, the index has a number of serious shortcomings. These shortcomings hinder its usefulness for policy purposes. The main thrust of this analysis was to suggest an alternative measure of prices of medical care services. This suggested hedonic approach will produce a more realistic measure of medical care prices for policy purposes.     

建国初期中国国内保险市场探析

从 1 94 9年到 1 958年 ,新中国重建国内保险市场组织体系 ,试办了多种国内保险业务 ,取得了令人瞩目的成绩。本文通过分析国内保险市场组织结构的演变过程 ,考察保险市场保险种类开办的情况 ,探讨保险业务的经营得失。     

Cyclically oscillating product quality: A simple model of the product life cycle

This paper presents a dynamic model of the firm, where the firm can exert influence on demand by setting the price and by controlling the quality index. Assuming profit maximization, it is shown by means of the Hopf Bifurcation theorem that persistent oscillations of the variables may occur if there is positive growth at the steady state together with a high discount rate. Oscillations may also occur if the influence of an additional unit of the quality index on demand and price is sufficiently large, thus yielding a special version of the product life cycle. A numerical example is used in order to illustrate the results derived in the general framework. Valuable comments from an anonymous referee are gratefully acknowledged.     

制约保险产品创新的因素及其对策

一、制约保险产品创新的因素 1．保险产品自身的特殊性制约保险产品的创新 保险产品创新容易产生新的市场风险。保险产品是一种不能预见，不能用五官直接接触到的特殊消费。客户只能依靠对保险公司信誉以及保险人对产品的介绍程度和直接宣传力度，依赖它的服务信息能否有效的为大众所知来最终确定是否购买。而所购买保险产品的实际品质和使用价值究竟如何，只有在出险索赔或经过相关的售后服务，才能真正体会到。     

Features and competition in the market for mortgage insurance in the Russian Federation

The provision of mortgage insurance is considered in the article based on market research and of programs for comprehensive mortgage insurance, for mortgage insurance, and for mortgage insurance without involving insurance mechanisms. As follows from the analysis based on the characteristics of the Russian market of mortgage insurance, we can predict its development taking into account factors of intermarket competition.     

On the consumption insurance effects of long-term care insurance in Japan: Evidence from micro-level household data

Using micro-level household data in the 2001 Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions of the People on Health and Welfare compiled by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, this paper examines how having a household member in need of long-term nursing care can result in welfare losses measured in terms of consumption. In so doing, this study evaluates the role of the public long-term care insurance scheme implemented in Japan in April 2000. The results indicate that when households include a disabled family member, household consumption net of long-term care costs do not decrease as much as before the introduction of long-term care insurance. Further, when compared with the surveys conducted in 1998, the adverse effects on consumption net of long-term care costs have become much weaker. These findings suggest that the introduction of social insurance in 2000 helped Japanese households to reduce the welfare losses associated with a disabled family member.     

A Simulation model of the Taiwan security market

Since continuous trading and call systems are implemented by many stock exchanges, we conduct a simulation to evaluate stock market performance under different auction mechanisms. Our simulation ignoring confounding factors demonstrates that: (1) a continuous market incurs higher execution cost but with shorter liquidity time and better price discovery than a call market; and (2) as the stock market becomes thinner, execution cost rises and price discovery slows. (JELG15, CIS)     

China's health care reform: A tentative assessment

China has recently unveiled an ambitious new health-care reform plan, entailing a doubling of government health spending as well as a number of concrete reforms. While the details of the plan have not yet been completely announced, we offer a preliminary assessment of how well the reform is likely to achieve its stated goal of assuring every citizen equal access to affordable basic health care. The reform is based on three fundamental tenets: strong role of government in health, commitment to equity, and willingness to experiment with regulated market approaches. Within this framework, the reform offers a number of laudable changes to the health system, including an increase in public health financing, an expansion of primary health facilities and an increase in subsidies to achieve universal insurance coverage. However, it fails to address the root causes of the wastes and inefficiencies plaguing China's health care system, such as a fragmented delivery system and provider incentives to over-provide expensive tests and services. We conclude that China should consider changing the provider payment method from fee-for-service to a prospective payment method such as DRG or capitation with pay-for-performance, and to develop purchasing agencies that represent the interests of the population so as to enhance competition.     

A model of trade,task offshoring and social insurance

The purpose of this paper is to study the role of social insurance design in a comparative-advantage model of offshoring and trade. To do so, we incorporate social insurance into a modified version of the Grossman and Rossi-Hansberg (Am Econ Rev 98(5):1978–1997, 2008) model by formalizing its administrative, compensation, cost, labor-supply and productivity effects. The compensation and productivity effects, which are novel, give rise to important offshoring and trade implications that can contribute to explain how social insurance provision can be sustained under globalization pressure and why similar globalization pressure can lead to different skill premia developments in Western economies.     

A welfare-theoretic argument for regional subsidization of industry in the presence of inferior technology

This paper develops a welfare-theoretic argument for regional policy makers to subsidize an industry that has access to superior production technology in another region. The analytical framework is based on a standard general equilibrium model where two regions operating within a federal system are connected by goods trade and capital mobility. Optimal regional policy is designed to improve the capital terms of trade and depends on regional production patterns. Only when the technologically deficient region is diversified in production will optimal policy involve subsidization of an industry that has access to superior technology in another region.     

A model of the Dutch labour market (AMO-K)

Summary So far, the labour market has not received any special attention from macro-econometric model builders. In this article an attempt has been made to describe the labour market in detail, paying attention to such important phenomena as the friction between labour supply and demand, the heterogeneity of labour, the dependence of labour supply on the labour-market situation, the Phillips mechanism and the impact of real wages on labour demand. To make it suitable for policy simulations, the model has been extended to a complete macro-econometric model, taking account of the fact that both labour and capital limit the production possibilities.This paper summarises an extensive Dutch report on the construction of a model for the Netherlands labour market. The title of the original report is AMO-K: Een arbeidsmarktmodel met twee categorieën arbeid; (AMO-K, A labour-market model with two categories of labour) ; it was published by the Netherlands Economic Institute (NEI) in Rotterdam in the so-called Olive Series, 1982-2, pp. 403ff. Some details of the model presented in that report were changed after its publication; see G. den Broeder, AMO-K 81-12, Tussenrapport betreffende de verdere ontwikkeling van het arbeidsmarktmodel (Interim report on the further development of the labourmarket model), Rotterdam, September 1983. Since then, only minor changes have been carried through. The model reproduced in this paper is the modified version. The model was developed within the National Programme of Labour-Market Research (NPAO) (now defunct), the NPAO organisation having granted a commission to the NEI in Rotterdam.     

A labor force competition model of racial discrimination in the labor market

Conclusion This paper has developed a model of discrimination based on the standard maximization hypotheses. This model assumes an imperfectly competitive labor market. In particular, net differences in the benefits of jobs are not competed away, and labor market coalitions of workers exist. As we have indicated, the model is able to explain the major phenomena associated with labor market discrimination.     

Health care system collapse in the united states: Capitalist market failure!

Summary When compared with other industrialized free-market economies, the United States has the highest per capita health expenditure, yet, Americans are the least satisfied with their health care system. This industry has been confronted with serious problems resulting in a departure from the Pareto efficient conditions. There are many circumstances under which this departure may occur, one such cause is market failure. Sources of market failure in the health care industry are identified as: 1) lack of competition; 2) insufficient information; 3) inadequate access to health care services; 4) presence of externalities; and 5) a persistent disequilibrium in the hospital, physicians, and nurses markets. The pricing of physician's services has often been described as that of a discriminating monopolist. Through market segmentation and patient demand manipulation the physician is able to charge different prices for virtually identical services. One form of market segmentation is that of physician specialization and sub-specializations thus contributing to the explosion in medical costs. This paper concludes that America's health care industry has reached a crossroad. A national health insurance is needed including the implementation of uniform pricing and the discouragement of sub-specializations with its price discriminatory practices. But National Health Insurance comes with a price of its own, the possible development of a medical-industrial complex.We are grateful to the anonymous referee(s) for valuable comments that enhanced the writing of this paper and we would like to extend our appreciation to Mr Qi Zhou, Graduate Assistant at Bryant College, for his contributions to this research project.     

A theoretical model of the relationship between value added elements and end product

This paper focuses on the development of a theoretical scheme describing the transformation of primary incomes into end consumption and savings in the Russian economy. This scheme is basically a system of interrelated tables reflecting the distribution of primary incomes across the institutional sectors and their further reallocation and use. The scheme makes allowances for the specific features of the Russian economy and existing statistics. In terms of methodology, it is coordinated with the interindustry balance in current buyer prices and, from the theoretical standpoint, describes the connection between Quadrant II and Quadrant III of the balance. Therefore, the proposed system of tables is treated in the paper as Quadrant IV of the interindustry balance. The theoretical scheme is used by the authors as a necessary basis for constructing an empirical model of the relationship between value added and end product, which will be published in the next issue of this journal.     

On the observability of ownership retention by entrepreneurs with private information in the market for new issues*

Abstract. The analysis in this paper considers the effects of relaxing regulations that ensure that the proportions of ownership retained by entrepreneurs in new issues are observable to investors. Entrepreneurs, endowed with full ownership of their firms and private information concerning future prospects, seek to share risks with investors able to diversify those risks away. There is a trade-off for entrepreneurs receiving good news between shedding risk and having their shares undervalued by uninformed investors. In equilibrium, an entrepreneur with good news either retains full ownership or sells a portion of his shares at the same price offered by an entrepreneur with bad news. The price in the latter case reflects rational expectations by investors as to the proportion of ownership retained by the entrepreneur conditional on his news. Only in certain cases are Pareto orderings possible across regimes in which ownership retention is either observable or unobservable. Implications for securities regulation are discussed. Résumé. Les auteurs s'intéressent dans leur analyse aux conséquences de l'assouplissement de la réglementation voulant que la proportion de titres retenue par les entrepreneurs dans les nouvelles émissions soit observable pour les investisseurs. Les entrepreneurs qui ont la propriété exclusive de leur entreprise et qui disposent d'une information privilégiée au sujet des ses perspectives d'avenir cherchent à partager leurs risques avec des investisseurs capables de diversifier ces risques de manière à les minimiser. Lorsque l'information est positive, l'entrepreneur fait face à un compromis entre le partage du risque et la sous-évaluation de ses titres par les investisseurs non informés. En situation d'équilibre, l'entrepreneur qui détient une information positive conserve la totalité des titres ou en vend une fraction au prix qu'offrirait un entrepreneur détenant de l'information négative. Le prix, dans ce dernier cas, reflète les attentes rationnelles des investisseurs quant à la proportion des titres conservée par l'entrepreneur, en fonction de l'information dont il dispose. L'application des classements de Pareto n'est possible que dans certains cas seulement dans des situations où la proportion de titres conservée est soit observable soit non observable. Les auteurs traitent des conséquences des résultats de leurs recherches sur la réglementation relative aux valeurs mobilières.