Secondary cancer and relapse rates following radical prostatectomy for prostate-confined cancer

In the SEER database, it is relatively easy to identify secondary cancers that follow an initial diagnosis of cancer. However, the SEER public-use data does not explicitly capture relapse of the initial cancer. One can assume that organ-confined prostate cancer treated by radical prostatectomy will show no evidence of disease after treatment. Death due to prostate cancer in such cases can be assumed to follow a relapse of previously occult metastatic disease. We devised an estimate of the timing of these relapses and tabulated rates for both new primaries and relapses following radical prostatectomy for organ-confined prostate cancer.     

Genetic developments in breast cancer

In this paper I have reviewed the current literature on the genetic mutations found in association with breast cancer. More emphasis has been given to BRCA1 because of the excitement generated with the cloning of this breast cancer susceptibility gene. A number of somatic mutations have been described (loss of heterozygosity, overexpression, and other mutations) in breast cancers. While strides have been made in unraveling the genetic basis of hereditary breast cancer (10 to 15 percent of all breast cancers), the genetic causes of most sporadic breast cancer (which comprise 85 to 90 percent) have yet to be discovered but they are likely the result of a step wise progression of cumulative genetic events, similar to those seen in colon cancer.     

Sentinel lymph node biopsy for breast cancer

The regional lymph node status is the most powerful predictor of survival in women with invasive breast cancer.     

Issues in breast cancer with minimal nodal involvement

An overview of the literature pertaining to the mortality risks posed by breast cancers with micrometastases or isolated tumor cells found in the lymph nodes is presented. Also addressed is the current debate about the appropriateness of omitting a completion axillary node dissection when minimal disease has been detected via sentinel node immunohistochemistry. A companion article will present an analysis of survival data generated by one particular study of women with microscopic nodal involvement vs those with macroscopic involvement and those with no nodal disease.     

Insider rates versus outsider rates in lending

When information asymmetries exist between lenders, an uninformed outside bank that competes with an informed inside bank faces a winner’s curse. This paper examines a benchmark model’s prediction for interest rates. Although the outside bank wins more bad firms, the inside bank extracts rents from good firms and the outside bank underbids for bad firms. An analytical solution reveals the surprising result that the average interest rate paid to the inside bank following bidding outcomes can be higher than the average interest rate paid to the outside bank.     

Economic news,exchange rates and interest rates

The paper examines the post-October 1979 response of exchange rates and interest rates to the new information contained in the first announcement of fifteen US macroeconomic series. Markets respond primarily to monetary news, but also to news about the trade deficit, domestic inflation, and variables that reflect the state of the business cycle. For all fifteen macroeconomic variables, an increase (decrease) in interest rates is accompanied by an appreciation (depreciation) of the dollar, which is consistent with models that stress price rigidity and absence of purchasing power parity.     

Unintended consequences of expense ratio guidelines: The Avon breast cancer walks

This case study examines how donor and rating agency focus on percentage-based expense ratios exacerbated pressures on the Avon Product Foundation’s breast cancer walks. Beginning in 2002, Avon changed its business and accounting practices in ways that eventually helped it report better compliance with charity monitor guidelines. However, the number of walkers and amounts of funds raised dropped; the new accounting practices are less transparent and of questionable conformity with GAAP.     

Spot rates,forward rates and exchange market efficiency

This paper examines the relationship between forward exchange rates and subsequently observed spot rates. No evidence is found for a liquidity premium on forward exchange, indicating that the forward rate can be used as a proxy of the market's expectations and that open exchange positions involve little systematic risk. It is also shown that forward exhange is priced as if the exchange rate could be characterized by a diffusion process with a trend, although there is some evidence such a process does not adequately characterize the exchange rate in all cases.     

Interest rates and exchange rates: Some new empirical results

This paper presents indirect evidence on the behavior on the real interest rate by studying the correlations between changes in nominal interest rates and in exchange rates. These correlations are examined both before and after October 6, 1979. The empirical evidence supports the views that monetary shocks affect the real rate and that the change in Fed monetary policy on October 6 led to greater variation in the real rate.     

The genetics of breast and ovarian cancer V: application to income protection insurance

In Part IV we presented a comprehensive model of a life history of a woman at risk of breast cancer (BC), in which relevant events such as diagnosis, treatment, recovery and recurrence were represented explicitly, and corresponding transition intensities were estimated. In this part, we study some applications to income protection insurance (IPI) business. We calculate premiums based either on genetic test results or more practically on a family history of BC. We then extend the model into an IPI market model by incorporating rates of insurance-buying behaviour, in order to estimate the possible costs of adverse selection, in terms of increased premiums, under various moratoria on the use of genetic information.     

Negative real interest rates

Standard textbook general equilibrium term structure models such as that developed by Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross [1985b. “A Theory of the Term Structure of Interest Rates.” Econometrica 53 (2): 385–407], do not accommodate negative real interest rates. Given this, the Cox, Ingersoll, and Ross [1985b. “A Theory of the Term Structure of Interest Rates.” Econometrica 53 (2): 385–407] ‘technological uncertainty variable’ is formulated in terms of the Pearson Type IV probability density. The Pearson Type IV encompasses mean-reverting sample paths, time-varying volatility and also allows for negative real interest rates. The Fokker–Planck (i.e. the Chapman–Kolmogorov) equation is then used to determine the conditional moments of the instantaneous real rate of interest. These enable one to determine the mean and variance of the accumulated (i.e. integrated) real rate of interest on a bank (or loan) account when interest accumulates at the instantaneous real rate of interest defined by the Pearson Type IV probability density. A pricing formula for pure discount bonds is also developed. Our empirical analysis of short-dated Treasury bills shows that real interest rates in the UK and the USA are strongly compatible with a general equilibrium term structure model based on the Pearson Type IV probability density.     

The high-frequency response of exchange rates and interest rates to macroeconomic announcements

The joint movements of exchange rates and U.S. and foreign term structures over short-time windows around macro announcements are studied using a 14-year span of high-frequency data. In order to evaluate whether the joint effects can be reconciled with conventional theory, the implications of these joint movements for changes in expected future exchange rates and changes in foreign exchange risk premia are deduced. For several real macro announcements, a stronger than expected release appreciates the dollar today, and must either (i) lower the risk premium for holding foreign currency rather than dollars, or (ii) imply net expected dollar depreciation over the ensuing decade.     

二次财权之乱——突击花钱成因之三

在媒体上关于突击花钱的报道几乎统一指向地方财政"办事不力"的时候,在我们的采访中,地方财政却表示了一种极客观的看法:我们在这个问题上的确还有做的不到位的地方,但有些东西,并不是我们可以解决的。     

Some alternative tests of forward exchange rates as predictors of future spot rates

The paper provides empirical analysis on the issue of forward premiums as predictors of future exchange depreciations. The need to specify an alternative to the null hypothesis, other than its complement is emphasized. Two such alternatives are considered: the random walk model and the possibility of excessive or insufficient exchange rate volatility to accord with the efficiency of exchange markets.     

The impact of jump risks on nominal interest rates and foreign exchange rates

This article investigates the relationship between the nominal interest rate and inflation and also the forward exchange rate under a general specification of the underlying processes govering the foreign exchange rate. There are three distinct risks that affect the relation between the real rate of interest and the nominal rate namely, consumption risk, diffusion risk, and the existence of jump risks of inflation. Jump risks lower the nominal interest rate because of jump hedging of a nominal bond. The forward exchange rate depends on the expected depreciation of the domestic currency as well as these three risks. As the domestic jump risks increase, the domestic nominal interest rate decreases and the forward exchange rate decreases.     

Firm-specific forward-looking effective tax rates

This paper computes effective (marginal and average) tax rates that account for bilateral aspects of taxation and, therefore, vary across country-pairs and years. These tax rates serve to estimate the impact of corporate taxation on outbound stocks of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) among OECD countries between 1991 and 2002. The findings indicate that outbound FDI is positively related to the parent and host country tax burden and negatively associated with bilateral effective tax rates. Relying only on unilateral (country and time variant) rather than on both unilateral and bilateral (country-pair and time variant) effective tax rates leads to biased estimates of the impact of corporate taxation on FDI.     

Regime-switching models for exchange rates

This study provides evidence of periodically collapsing bubbles in the British pound to US dollar exchange rate in the post-1973 period. We develop two- and three-state regime-switching (RS) models that relate the expected exchange rate return to the bubble size and to an additional explanatory variable. Specifically, we consider six alternative explanatory variables that have been proposed in the literature as early warning indicators of a currency crisis. Our findings suggest that the RS models are, in general, more accurate than the Random Walk model in terms of both statistical and especially economic evaluation criteria for exchange rate forecasts. Our three-state RS model outperforms the two-state models and among the variables considered in our analysis, the short-term interest rate is the optimal variable, closely followed by imports. Results are more promising for one-month predictions and are qualitatively robust over sample spans. However, various robustness checks based on other exchange rates show that the optimal bubble measures and optimal predictors critically depend on the exchange rate.