Pattern-of-treatment differences among primary care physicians in alternative systems of care

In a recent study, the average treatment pattern of HMO-based primary care physicians is found to be significantly less expensive than that of indemnity-based primary care physicians. This difference is because the HMO-based physicians' style of medical practice is less hospital-intensive.     

Devolving Skills: The Case of the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers*

One rationale for devolution is that local decision makers may be well placed to adapt national policies to the local context. We test whether such adaptation helps meet programme objectives in the case of the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers. Originally a national programme, aimed at incentivising employers to take on apprentices, reforms a few years into operation gave some Local Authorities negotiated flexibilities in how the scheme operated. We consider the impact of the national scheme and then use a difference-in-differences approach to test whether flexibility led to an increase in the number of apprenticeship starts in devolved areas relative to control groups. We find that flexibility had zero effect. There is suggestive evidence that this is because flexibilities were negotiated on the wrong margins.     

How to turn marketing students into millionaires: Decision making for personal wealth management

Marketing promotes exchange, consumption, selling, and retailing in a society bent on spending and living beyond its means. In the meantime, students’ debts continue to spiral. Marketing professors should teach students how to resist salespeople, retailers, and advertising pitches, and strive to save and invest rather waste financial resources. Frugality is the cornerstone of wealth accumulation. It is not one's income that serves as the primary indicator of one's wealth; the primary indicator is how much goes into savings and investments. A paltry one-time $2,000 investment in a Roth IRA during a student's undergraduate years may balloon to $194,000 by the time the student retires from the workforce. Savings, investments, compound interest, marriage, education, and voluntary simplicity compound into a financially rewarding lifelong journey for the frugal student who resists a consumption-oriented culture.     

互联网金融可向资产端和财务管理方向发展

中国P2P市场不够成熟的三方面原因 第一,P2P业态的发展与监管无关,与市场环境有关.首先,中国对于P2P的概念发生了偏差,P2P的真正概念应属于平台机构而不是信用机构,这一点中美P2P市场存在着很大的本质差异.P2P的本质可以用婚姻介绍所来打个比方,婚介所只负责举办相亲活动来让大家参加,至于参加的人挑选什么样的人和谁结婚,结婚后是否选择离婚,婚介所都是不负责的,只是为大家提供结识的平台和场所而已.