Fine‐Tuning of Health Insurance Regulation – Unhealthy Consequences for an Individual Insurer

This paper sheds light on some unexpected consequences of health insurance regulation that may pose a big challenge to insurers' risk management. Because mandated uniform contributions to health insurance trigger risk‐selection efforts, risk adjustment (RA) schemes become necessary. A good deal of research into the optimal RA formula has been performed. A recent proposal in Switzerland has been to add ‘Hospitalization exceeding three days during the previous year’ as an indicator of high risk. Applying the new formula to an individual Swiss health insurer, its payments into the RA scheme are predicted to increase substantially, reaching up to 13% of premium income. Its mistake had been to implement Managed Care successfully, resulting in low rates of hospitalization. The expected risk management response is to extend hospital stays beyond three days, contrary to stated policy objectives.     

保险投资风险理论研究

在当今许多发达国家,投资已成为保险业正常运行的支点,是保险业必不可少的利润增长点.国外学者们在该领域进行了很多相关研究,而相对而言,国内对保险投资风险的研究则非常匮乏.鉴于保险投资在理论上和实践上的重要性,本文将对国外关于保险投资风险的文献进行系统性的整理与评介,以期推动我国保险业投资风险问题的研究.     

我国寿险公司规模效率与内含价值的实证分析

本文运用数据包络分析方法(DEA)研究各寿险公司的规模效率,使用截取回归模型(Tobit)分析影响效率的因素.研究发现,我国寿险业在快速发展的同时,没有明显表现出规模经济性;影响保险公司规模效率的主要因素是经营费用和保费收入,经营费用的负向影响作用大于保费收入的正向作用.寿险公司在扩大规模的同时,更应该注重提高效率和内含价值.     

我国高新技术产业知识产权与技术创新能力关系研究——基于专利的视角

探讨了知识产权与技术创新之间的关系,并以专利申请量作为创新产出,建立了我国高技术产业创新能力评价模型,比较和分析了不同高技术产业创新能力的差异.     

Industry Heterogeneity of Technology Innovation of Export Firm in China： Empirical Evidence from Listed Firms

技术创新是出口企业提高国际竞争力的重要战略,而技术创新的关键在于对其特性和形成原因的科学把握。本文利用高技术制造业、非高技术制造业、采掘业和建筑业出口上市企业数据,在出口企业技术创新理论分析的基础上,运用多元统计和面板数据模型,研究了中国出口企业技术创新差异性。研究发现,中国出口企业技术创新具有明显的行业差异性;研发资本投入、研发人力投入、企业冗余资源、技术装备程度、国有股权比例、股权集中度和企业出口额对出口企业技术创新产出的作用也具有行业差异性。本文的研究结果可为中国出口企业针对本行业特性科学地做出技术创新决策提供参考。     

准入规制与技术创新:基于自然垄断行业的经验分析

准入规制对自然垄断产业技术创新的影响依据其类型而不同.与竞争性市场相比,进入规制对成本节约的Ⅰ型技术创新不产生特别影响,但对创造产品需求的Ⅱ型技术创新产生抑制作用.另一方面,Ⅰ型技术创新对既有的准入规制有一定的强化作用,而Ⅱ型技术创新通过刺激需求,改变原垄断行业的自然垄断特征,会导致放松规制.对移动通讯业与治污行业的实证研究支持了上述论断.     

险资入市促进了公司创新吗

随着国家政策的放开,保险公司持股上市企业的现象剧增,保险机构投资者逐渐成为中国资本市场中的重要角色,对企业经营决策发挥了重大作用。在此背景下,本文考察了险资入市对企业创新活动的影响。研究发现:一方面,保险机构投资者持股公司的研发投入和专利产出更少;另一方面,保险机构投资者持股公司的CEO强制变更概率更高,经营业绩更差。本文还讨论了保险公司影响企业创新背后的理论机理。本文研究表明,险资持股带来了过度监督效应,抑制了企业创新。本文有助于市场加深对保险机构的认识,丰富企业创新的相关研究,为改善公司治理提供建议。保险机构投资者是中国资本市场改革的重要力量,政府监管部门需合理引导保险机构投资者,使其发挥积极的外部治理作用。     

A nationwide evidence-based study of factors associated with hospitalisations due to unintentional poisoning and poisoning mortality in Taiwan

The aim of this study was to explore the epidemiologic characteristics of unintentional poisoning cases and the factors associated with inpatient mortality. Data were retrieved from the National Health Insurance database from 2005 to 2007. Patients with diagnosis classifications of ICD-9-CM E850–E869 (unintentional poisoning) were selected. SPSS 18.0 software was used for the analysis. In Taiwan between 2005 and 2007, a total of 11,523 patients were hospitalised due to unintentional poisoning, with a hospitalisation rate of 16.83 per 100,000, of which 60.1% and 39.9% were attributable to drug poisoning and solid, liquid and gas substance poisoning, respectively. The hospitalisation rate in men was higher than that of women. The age group of 45–64 had the highest hospitalisation rate of 52.85 per 100,000. The inpatient mortality rate increased with the presence of the following factors: age of 65 or older, surgery or procedure, a higher Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), short length of hospital stays, acute respiratory failure, alcohol poisoning, pesticide poisoning and a higher-level hospital visited. Methanol, herbicides and organophosphorus pesticide intoxications are associated with higher mortality rates. Therefore, when caring for patients poisoned by the above agents, healthcare professionals should look out for their clinical development to ensure quality of care and to reduce mortality.     

Total Factor Productivity in the Turkish Insurance Industry

This paper employs the Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index to examine the total factor productivity change in the life and non‐life branches of the Turkish insurance sector for the period 2000–2005. The Malmquist productivity index is decomposed into two components: the efficiency change component and the technical change component. The results indicate a decrease of 19.4 % in total factor productivity in the life insurance sector and an increase of 6.1% in the non‐life insurance sector during the sample period. Significant TFP growth in the non‐life insurance sector has occurred during 2003–2005. This growth is seen to be mainly due to the change in production technology. The firms are then split into two groups, domestic and foreign firms, according to their ownership composition. The results indicate a decline in total factor productivity for both groups in the life insurance sector whereas in the non‐life insurance sector, an increase in the total factor productivity of domestic firms is observed.     

上海先进制造业发展现状、问题与对策

本文通过对上海制造业的数据比较,以及研发投入和专利情况的比较,发现上海在先进制造业方面存在创新体系不完善、高端人才短缺、先进制造业产业结构不合理等问题,并针对这些问题提出建议。     

Review of Guillaume Plantin and Jean‐Charles Rochet,When Insurers Go Bust: An Economic Analysis of the Role and Design of Prudential Regulation

When Insurers Go Bust applies agency theory and the theories of adverse selection and moral hazard as the motivation for prudential regulation of insurance. The resulting scheme has strong flavors of verifiability, simplicity, consistency, and transparency. In consequence, ruin theory does not have an operational role. Theory is applied in familiar ways that are at best convenient shorthand for correct ideas and at worst acceptably suggestive. As in other sources, there is inappropriate emphasis on the general theory of excessive risk‐taking, which tends to deflect attention from the specific nature of insurance firms, but the theoretical excess is adequately counterbalanced by thoughtful case studies. This book is useful for the insurance scholar and feasible as a segment of an advanced undergraduate course.     

Commercial Insurance of Financial Disclosure: Auditors’ Independence, and Investors’ Protection

In this paper the authors propose, for preliminary consideration and discussion, a system of commercial insurance of financial disclosures (CIFD), under which users of financial information (owners and potential owners of business enterprises) and providers of financial information (managers of business enterprises) would be able to purchase insurance policies from private insurers (commercial insurance companies). These insurance policies would be designed to protect users of financial statements from specific, well-defined losses directly attributable to their use of financial disclosures that failed to conform to contractually defined standards. To reduce their own risks insurance companies will likely purchase from assurance experts (certified public accountants, financial analysts, and management consultants) services assuring adherence to standards. The paper discusses the dynamics of the decisions and negotiations within and among groups of investors, managers, insurers, assurors, and government regulators. The advantages of CIFD over current US regulation of financial disclosure are analyzed. Those advantages, which include increases in the independence of external auditors, improvements in the quality of their audits, and better protection for investors, are assessed. It is argued that CIFD may be capable of evolving into a very flexible system that would accommodate alternative regulatory structures.     

Financial safety nets: reconstructing and modelling a policymaking metaphor

This paper explains that financial safety nets exist because of difficulties in enforcing contracts and shows that elements of deposit-insurance schemes differ substantially across countries. It shows that differences in the design of financial safety nets correlate significantly with differences in the informational and contracting environments of individual countries and that a country's GDP per capita is correlated with proxies for a country's level of: (1) informational transparency, (2) contract enforcement and deterrent rights, and (3) accountability for safety net officials. The analysis portrays deposit insurance as a part of a country's larger safety net and contracting environment. This means that there is no universal method for preventing and resolving banking problems and that the structure of a country's safety net should evolve over time with changes in private and government regulators' capacity for valuing financial institutions, disciplining risk taking and resolving insolvency promptly, and for being held accountable for how well they perform these tasks.     

Internalization theory: An unfinished agenda

Internalization theory is usually applied at the firm level to analyse FDI, licensing and subcontracting. This paper extends it to the industry level. It synthesises internalization theory and oligopoly theory. It analyses a global industry where firms innovate competitively, and freely enter and exit the industry. It presents a formal model which highlights the inter-dependencies between rival firms. Each firm responds to its rivals by jointly optimising production and innovation through inter-dependent ownership and location decisions. The competitive outcome determines which firms serve which markets, which firms enter or exit the industry, and the internalization strategy of each firm.     

The effects of industry cluster knowledge management on innovation performance

Research on industrial clusters mostly focuses on the effects of the competitive advantage they generate. This study takes a different approach, conducting empirical research on three types of Taiwanese parks (export processing zones, industrial zones, and science parks), in which economic development is particularly prominent, and which have industry cluster characteristics. The study explores the effects of special resources and relationships among cluster firms on innovation performance, and focuses on knowledge management as the mediator for investigation. A survey, regression analysis, and correlation analysis probe into the effects of the special resources and relationships among industrial clusters on corporate knowledge management and innovation performance. Knowledge management emerges as the mediator of industry clusters in terms of corporate innovation performance, thus providing support for the research hypotheses. The findings of this study are valuable for further research and strategic thinking on the sustainability of corporate operations.     

A retrospective population-based data analyses of unintentional fall mortality and hospitalisation in Taiwan during 2005–2007

The objective of this study is to describe the epidemiology of unintentional fall mortality and hospitalisation and to find the risk factors associated with inpatient mortality. We analysed mortality data from official publications which record the vital statistics and hospitalisation data from National Health Insurance (NHI) Research Database from 2005 to 2007 and fall injuries were classified in accordance with ICD-9-CM E-Codes, including ‘falls on the same level (E885–E886)’, ‘falls on a different level (E880–E884)’ and ‘unspecified falls (E887–E888)’. We used SPSS 18.0 software. During 2005–2007 in Taiwan, there were 3555 deaths and 180,175 inpatients due to unintentional falls and the mortality rate was 5.19 per 100,000 and the hospitalisation rate was 236.14 per 100,000. With regards to deaths, different-level falls were the primary cause, and those aged 25 or more were high-risk groups; with regards to hospitalisation, same-level falls were the primary cause, and those aged 65 or more were the high-risk group. Associated factors for inpatient mortality can be classified by patient characteristics (older age, catastrophic illness, higher Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) and head trauma) and hospital-related factors (geographic area, type of hospital, level of hospital and department of care). The high-risk groups were different between ‘same-level’ and ‘different-level’ falls and the findings of this study will be beneficial for concerned authorities to draft up appropriate prevention plans in the future. Moreover, future researchers can further explore different risk factors for injuries using questionnaire surveys or hospital emergency room data.     

环境规制对绿色技术创新的影响——“波特效应”的中国证据

在我国环境规制实现区域污染治理的过程中,会遭遇污染产业转移、投资领域变迁等规避问题。为检验有关规制措施的有效性,本文基于省际面板数据考察了环境规制与绿色技术创新的关系,研究发现,与环境行政处罚和颁布地方性法规相比,收缴排污费和增加环境保护财政支出更加有效,这说明依靠环境规制推动绿色技术创新的关键在于规制工具的选择。总体而言,财、税、费等市场调控类环境规制工具更适合我国国情。中介效应检验发现,收缴排污费和环境保护财政支出倒逼企业提高研发强度,进而推动绿色技术创新,且二者对绿色技术创新的促进作用均呈现由弱变强、由不显著到显著的门槛效应。值得注意的是,严厉的行政处罚阻碍绿色技术创新,且不管规制强度如何,地方性法规对绿色技术创新并无显著影响。因此,为加强环境治理,促进绿色技术创新,需要构建市场化环境规制体系、注重环境规制顶层设计的落地,并适当提高环境规制强度。