Incentive regulation in the United Kingdom and the United States: Some lessons

Summary and Conclusions This paper has reviewed the approach to incentive regulation in the United Kingdom and the United States. The United Kingdom approach has typically relied on pure PCR, incorporating much sharper incentives for efficiency and lower transactions costs, but it makes the company more of a hostage to the regulator. The United States approach, which is grounded or even mired in the legal system, gives up efficiency incentives in an attempt to avoid making the companies the hostages of regulatory reneging.²⁷ The papers in this Issue illustrate the broad scope of incentive regulation, from the purer forms of PCR to a number of variations and mixtures of PCR with other forms of regulation. The interesting theoretic results and the importance of achieving practical solutions in incentive regulation underscore the importance of the problems and approaches raised in this Issue.     

Humanistic and economic impacts of hepatitis C infection in the United States

Abstract

Objective:

Prior research examining the effect of hepatitis C virus (HCV) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and healthcare costs is flawed because non-patient controls were not adequately comparable to HCV patients. The current study uses a propensity score matching methodology to address the following research question: is the presence of diagnosed hepatitis C (HCV) associated with poorer health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and greater healthcare resource use?

Methods:

Using data from the 2009 US National Health and Wellness Survey, patients who reported a HCV diagnosis (n?=?695) were compared to propensity-matched controls (n?=?695) on measures of HRQoL and healthcare resource use. All analyses applied sampling weights to project to the US population.

Results:

HCV patients reported significantly lower levels of HRQoL relative to the matched-control group, including the physical component score (39.6 vs. 42.7, p?<?0.0001) and health utilities (0.63 vs. 0.66, p?<?0.0001). The number of emergency room visits (0.59 vs. 0.44, p?<?0.05) and physician visits (7.7 vs. 5.9, p?<?0.05) in the past 6 months were significantly higher for the HCV group relative to matched controls.

Conclusion:

The results of this study suggest that HCV represents a substantial burden on patients by having a significant and clinically-relevant impact on key dimensions of HRQoL as well as on utilization of healthcare resources, the latter of which would result in increased direct medical costs.

Limitations:

Due to limitations of the internet survey approach (e.g., inability to confirm HCV diagnosis), future research is needed to confirm these findings.     

Academia-industry collaboration,government funding and innovation efficiency in Chinese industrial enterprises

This article uses a stochastic frontier model to elaborate how academia-industry research and development collaboration and government funding influence the innovation efficiency of industrial enterprises through a panel dataset from 2009 to 2015, including 30 provinces in China. We find that the research institute-industry collaboration promotes innovation efficiency of enterprises, while university-industry collaboration is adversely associated with innovation efficiency. Government funding plays a positive role on innovation efficiency across the board. Next, we divide the sample into three clusters according to enterprises’ innovation ability. In the first cluster, which has the least innovation ability, research institute-industry collaboration, university-industry collaboration and government funding have no significant effect on enterprise innovation efficiency. In the second and third clusters, university-industry collaboration exerts a negative impact on innovation efficiency but government funding improves innovation efficiency. At the same time, we investigate the interaction effects of enterprise R&D personnel and academia-industry collaboration and government funding on innovation efficiency. We find some heterogeneity in the full sample and the three sub-samples.     

The industrial relationships in time-varying beta coefficients between Korea and United States

This article examines financial linkage of systematic risks for 20 industry portfolio returns between Korean and US stock markets. Time-varying beta coefficients of Capital Asset Pricing Model are estimated and Granger-causality tests are carried out for identifying the significance of the industrial relations between the two stock markets. The empirical findings show that the strength and the causality of international financial linkage vary depending on the types of industry and the shocks in the systematic risk. Some Korean industries, including financing industries, iron and metal industries, service, and textile and wearing industries are relatively vulnerable to systematic risk associate with US industries.     

The growth of government in the United States: An economic historian's perspective

This paper first outlines the salient features of the growth of government in American history. Secondly, it offers a neoclassical explanation of that history in which increasing specialization and division of labor brought on by the scientific/technological revolution of the nineteenth century drastically altered the demand for and supply of government. Finally, it argues that institutions matter and describes the way the particular structure of governments was important in the timing and pace of its growth.     

Burden of illness: direct and indirect costs among persons with hemophilia A in the United States

Abstract

Objective:

To examine the direct and indirect costs of hemophilia care among persons with hemophilia A in the US.     

经济学科在美国

本文将介绍经济学科在美国的情况.由于美国代表了目前全世界现代经济学教学和研究的前沿,了解经济学科在美国的情况,对于如何参与国际经济学界的学术活动是很有必要的.我介绍以下四个方面的情况:第一,美国大学中经济学科的设置;第二,美国大学的经济学教育;第三,美国的经济学博士教育模式在欧洲;第四,中国学生申请留学美国攻读经济学学位时应注意的事项.     

对发展中美经贸关系的几点看法

中美经贸关系在国际上长期受到关注.本文从不同角度阐述了发展中的中美经贸关系的复杂性和重要性,并集中论述了美方对中美经贸关系的非积极态度及由此而产生的负面影响,同时提出我们的立场、原则和对策.     

Re-thinging the relationship between enviromental regulation and industrial innovation: The social negotiation of technical change

This paper draws attention to the current political and acdemic dislocation between regulation and innovation as activities and aims to emphasize the significance of the interrelationship both in terms of academic analysis and of policy approaches. The notion that innovation and regulation are both facets of the same overall process of technical change is explored, and accordingly, it becomes important to analyse them together as well as seperately. A conceptual approach is advocated which draws upon the notion of 'social and institution negotiations' in coming to terms with the nature of innovatory and regulatory processes.     

Farm Labor in the United States

The mainstream blames the global savings glut for causing the 2008 global financial crisis and proposes currency realignment to restore balance. However, this view fails to provide solid theoretical and empirical support to the claim that net inflows of foreign savings reduced U.S. long-term real interest rates and inflated asset prices. It also ignores the role of the global financial system in shaping the development strategy and macroeconomic imbalances in emerging Asian economies. Furthermore, forcing currency revaluation in China and other surplus countries may risk reducing global demand instead of shifting demand from the United States to surplus countries. The paper argues that an overhaul of the defunct global financial system lies at the root of global rebalancing; whereas in the short run, the United States should actively pursue demand-enhancing policies to strengthen global economic recovery.     

基于产业链的自主创新的政策支撑体系研究

科技和创新是经济发展的关键,建设创新型国家是提升国家竞争力的重大战略决策.本文以产业经济学、创新管理理论为指导,在梳理各项自主创新政策在产业链上的作用机理后进行了实证,得出政府应在构建产业创新系统的基础上选择重点产业、根据上下游关系制定相关政策、加大对产业链上关键技术和核心技术政策支持力度、以重大产品开发为龙头带动整体自主创新的政策建议.     

基于生态文明的政府创新路径探讨

生态文明社会的创建必然涉及到人类社会生产方式、生活方式和价值观念的全新变革,生态文明社会的最终实现依赖于社会系统的良善调整与自主创新。作为公共利益的集中代表者和公共权力的天然垄断者,推动生态文明社会建设已经成为我国政府的重要政治任务和职责所在,适应生态文明建设进程推进政府创新成为必然。努力实现政府管理的观念创新、体制创新、职能创新、管理方式及政策体系创新,是基于生态文明社会的政府创新的现实路径。     

对美国金融危机的若干反思

美国金融经济危机表面上源于次级贷款和其衍生产品的泛滥,其深刻的原因则是1980年代兴起的新自由主义思潮和体制.危机让我们看到:衍生金融工具可以转移和分散个别金融机构的风险,但不能消灭风险,还可能将风险在整个金融体系内复制和层层放大;金融脱离实体经济的过度膨胀,会推动资产泡沫的形成,最终伤害实体经济;市场不是万能的,政府的公共产品提供职责不能推给市场,否则得不偿失;我国要着力调整财政支出结构,提升社会保障水平,增加低收入群体的收入,以此扩大内需、改善我国经济结构的长期策略.     

Politics, economics, and nursing shortages: a critical look at United States government policies

The economic concept that the independent actions of buyers and sellers tend to move the market toward equilibrium where there is no shortage or surplus is basic in the classic and current literature of economics. The problem with subsidies is that nurses who receive subsidized educations are able to provide nursing services for less compensation because they paid less or nothing for their educations. Subsidies may be politically appealing, but they override market forces of supply and demand. The demand for nurses and nursing instructors can be met and maintained for generations to come with policies that expand roles and reimbursement for APNs and encourage the nurse and nursing instructor labor markets to correct themselves by providing fair compensation under Magnet status working conditions. Politics and policies meant to correct the nursing shortage should focus less on how to reduce the cost of producing nurses, and more on how to afford to compensate nurses with wages and benefits that achieve market equilibrium.     

On the causes of the changes in income shares: Some reflections in the light the United States experience

The last 30 years have witnessed a dramatic change in the distribution of income, with the wage share falling in all major industrialized countries. Main-stream analyses, including New Keynesian ones, which retain the notion of factor substitution leading to a “factor intensity” inversely related to its rate of return, have encountered some difficulties in the interpretation of this change. Nonmainstream approaches present an advantage in the explanation of the phenomenon, consisting in the fact that they entail no a priori connections between the changes in distribution and the changes factor proportions. Hence if a change in institutions or in the bargaining strength of the parties affects distribution, income shares may vary significantly (i.e., changes in wages need not be accompanied by changes in labor to output ratio in the opposite direction as in mainstream analyses). Yet empirical observation may question also some of the analyses that have been advanced outside the mainstream. The article will explore the ways in which nonmainstream approaches have interpreted the described changes in distribution, and assess them from an analytical viewpoint and with reference to U.S. data. The purpose is that of pointing at some open questions and problems.     

Graduate Economics Programs in the United States

Sterrett and Barr comment on the results of a survey of graduate programs in economics in the United States and on the marked increase in the number of masters degrees granted by the responding institutions.