Torts, expertise, and authority: liability of physicians and managed care organizations

We examine optimal individual and entity-level liability for negligence when expected accident costs depend on both the agent's level of expertise and the principal's level of authority. We consider these issues in the context of physician and managed care organization (MCO) liability for medical malpractice. Under current law, physicians generally are considered independent contractors and hence MCOs are not liable for negligent acts by physicians. We find that the practice of reviewing the medical decisions of physicians affects their incentives to take care, which in turn implies that it is efficient for MCOs to be held liable for the torts committed by their physicians.     

Relative price variability: Evidence from supply and demand events

Previous studies of relative price variability assume that all supply changes are unanticipated or that supply elasticities are equal across markets. In this paper, we extend these models by relaxing these restrictive assumptions. Our resulting theoretical expression for relative price dispersion reveals an independent role for unanticipated and anticipated supply events. Subjecting our model to empirical testing, we find that this dichotomy of supply shocks is not rejected by the data for the period 1970–1981.     

Country risk analysis: The demand and supply of sovereign loans

Tis paper develops a general model of the demand and supply of loans made to the public sector of a third-world country. Its objective is to identify the critical variables of demand and supply and to discuss the current international financial situation within this framework. On the supply side, these loans are treated as part of an optimal portfolio decision while the demand for external loans by a lesser developed country is based on a life-cycle hypothesis of development. After conditions for market equilibrium are established, credit rationing, instability, and default probabilities are discussed.     

IP存储需求激增H3C厚积薄发

作为存储主流技术体系之一，IPSAN存储技术与传统的FCSAN存储技术相比，具有性价比高、系统开放、应用范围无限扩展、安全性与可管理性好等优势，并具有异地容灾、远程备份等功能，有效解决了传统FCSAN存储技术的信息孤岛问题。IDC统计数据表明，2006年中国IP存储取得130％的高速增长，已成为中国外部磁盘存储市场增长最为迅速的领域。从历史经验来看，这预示着全球范围内IP存储市场的爆发式增长即将到来。     

Optimal trading strategy and supply/demand dynamics

In this paper, we study how the intertemporal supply/demand of a security affects trading strategy. We develop a general framework for a limit order book market to capture the dynamics of supply/demand. We show that the optimal strategy to execute an order does not depend on the static properties of supply/demand such as bid–ask spread and market depth, it depends on their dynamic properties such as resilience: the speed at which supply/demand recovers to its steady state after a trade. In general, the optimal strategy is quite complex, mixing large and small trades, and can substantially lower execution cost. Large trades remove the existing liquidity to attract new liquidity, while small trades allow the trader to further absorb any incoming liquidity flow.     

Can India meet the increasing food demand by 2020?

India's Green Revolution has evolved at an environmental cost, which is perhaps irreversible. The economic growth has become increasingly dependant upon the use of non-renewable resources such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, oil and coal. India now follows a rapid development path, which is similar to the past growth patterns of most western nations. Whether or not such a growth blueprint would be environmentally sustainable under Indian conditions is questionable since rapid economic growth tends to positively influence environmental degradation. India is a land of villages with 700 million people living in over 600,000 villages, many in the enormous drylands. As the Tata Visiting Chair, I had the opportunity to study the rural development projects implemented by a non-profit agency (Sadguru Foundation) that harvests rainwater to improve irrigation and livelihood of rural people using check dams and lift irrigation systems in western India. This paper has examined how India's remote drylands can be transformed to achieve a ‘Sustainable Green Revolution’ to meet India's future food demands without creating serious negative consequences to natural environment. If the model highlighted in this paper is adopted all across the vast drylands of India and other parts of Asia, Africa and South America, it would certainly increase agricultural output, guarantee future food security, protect natural resources, and above all exterminate the greatest insult to human dignity—poverty!     

中国资本市场的发展战略应怎样

今年年初以来,我国资本市场很不正常。大起大落、剧烈波动现象时有发生,市场下跌幅度之大在全球证券市场史上也属罕见,股票价格的快速下跌,对我国资本市场长远发展而言无疑是非常不利的。那么,我国资本市场要取得持续发展,应该在哪些方面做出努力     

Where babies come from: supply and demand in an infant marketplace

Persistent demand from people who have been denied the blessings of parenthood has created an assisted-reproduction market that stretches around the globe and encompasses hundreds of thousands of people. In the United States alone, nearly 41,000 children were born via in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 2001. Roughly 6,000 came from donated eggs, and almost 600 were carried by surrogate mothers. U.S. legislators have been reluctant to regulate this market. As a result, there are no national policies for IVF, which requires creating--and often discarding--embryos, or for many other technologies. State laws vary widely, and many states have no legislation on these subjects whatsoever. Although fertility specialists generally seem delighted to practice in an unregulated gray area, a modicum of regulation and the establishment of agreed-upon norms could lead to substantially lower prices, wider access, and an expansion of the market to the millions who have not yet sought out assisted reproduction. Among those millions are fertile individuals seeking to ensure that they'll be able to produce offspring in the future. For example, the technology already permits young women to freeze their eggs, thus preserving their fertility (in case, for instance, they marry late in life). The fertility trade is in some ways analogous to the markets for personal computers and DVD players, which were initially considered luxury items but migrated to the mass market, earning manufacturers the revenues to finance further innovation. A widening of availability and the introduction of property rights, rules, and institutional policies would make the marketplace more sensitive to the social, medical, and ethical issues that are emerging from the science. For example: Should there be age limits on infertility treatment? Should new procedures be subject to rigorous testing? It is time for U.S. society to begin discussion of these complex questions.     

Oil convenience yields estimated under demand/supply shock

This paper extends the call option model of Milonas and Thomadakis (1997) to estimate oil convenience yields with futures prices. We define the business cycle of a seasonal commodity with demand/supply shocks and find that the convenience yield for crude oil exhibits seasonal behavior. The convenience yield for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil is the highest in the summer, while that for Brent crude oil is the highest in the winter. This implies that WTI crude oil is more sensitive to high summer demand and that Brent crude oil is more sensitive to shortages in winter supply. Convenience yields are negatively related to the inventory level of the underlying crude oil and positively related to interest rates due to the business cycle. We also show that convenience yields may explain price spread between WTI crude oil and Brent crude oil. Our computed convenience yields are consistent with Fama and French (1988) in that oil prices are more volatile than futures prices at low inventory level, verifying the Samuelson (1965) hypothesis that future prices are less variables than spot prices at lower inventory levels.

Stock returns and inflation with supply and demand disturbances

We account for the relation between stock returns and inflationwith two independent disturbances: supply shocks and demandshocks. Supply shocks reflect real output shocks and cause anegative relation between stock returns and inflation, whiledemand shocks are mainly due to monetary shocks and generatea positive relation between stock returns and inflation. Weshow, both theoretically and empirically, that the stock return-inflationrelation varies over time and across countries, depending onthe relative importance of the two types of shocks. Our empiricalevidence is based on pre- and postwar periods in the UnitedStates, as well as the postwar period in the United Kingdom,Japan, Germany.     

Disentangling demand and supply in credit developments: A survey-based analysis for Italy

This paper combines qualitative information from the Eurosystem Bank Lending Survey with micro-data on loans for the participating Italian banks to assess the role of supply and demand factors in lending to enterprises developments, with a focus on the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Both demand and supply have played a relevant role, in the whole sample period and during the crisis. A counterfactual exercise shows that the effect of supply factors on the growth of lending was strongest after the Lehman collapse. On average, over the crisis period the negative effect on the annualized quarter-on-quarter growth rate of the panel banks’ lending to enterprises can be estimated in a range of 2.3-3.1 percentage points, depending on the specification. About one fourth of the total supply effect can be attributed to costs related to the banks’ balance sheet position, the rest to their perception of credit risk.     

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.     

Simultaneous estimation of the demand and supply of differentiated audits

This study shows how the supply and demand for auditing services is analyzed in a simultaneous equations framework. An important aspect of the analysis is the assumption that an audit is a differentiated product that is valued for its productive attributes. A hedonic (multiattribute), nonlinear fee function defines the fees that clear the market for all audit packages traded. Analysis of marginal fees and quantities of audit attributes transacted requires simultaneous estimation of a supply and demand function for each attribute. Several approaches for estimating the hedonic fee function and achieving parameter identification in the underlying structural equations are suggested.     

The future of employment supply and demand in social Europe

The assessment of employment prospects during the period up to 2020 needs to take into account the effects of the 2008/2009 downturn. We propose two scenarios that capture distinctive trajectories in order to elucidate some of the potential strategic demands for future employment policy. We forecast the average level of education of the working-age population will increase significantly during this decade and therefore the mismatch between the needs and supply of skills is likely to be significantly reduced. Furthermore, the inherent mobility of the working population will increase together with higher levels of education.     

农村资金供求为何失衡

基于中国农村经济发展的区域特征及农村经济主体融资需求的特点,建立一个多层次的(不仅仅是多元化的)、分工合理、功能优势互补的农村金融体系将是消除中国农村资金供求失衡的合理选择。     

文化产业发展的需求侧和供给侧改革

在2016年凯盛年度峰会上,中宣部文改办巡视员、副主任兼中国财政部文资办副主任高书生发表演讲,他认为：未来的文化产业中应该出现三家到五家可以成为文化航母的集团公司,通过整合渠道,以资本为纽带,以上市公司为平台,打造中国文化产业在行业和区域上的融通。他说。     

加息对房地产需求热降了多少温？

国内的房地产市场需要降温，但是目前的很多现实条件导致了一些降温手段已经成为了双刃剑，所以我们是否应更多地思考如何进行利弊权衡？     

全球黄金供需结构概览与趋势回顾

文章以2000-2009年为考察区间,回顾了该期间内全球黄金供给与需求的总体情况,并按供需类别分别从黄金投资、矿产金供应、再生金供应与黄金制造业需求等方面详细介绍了各项黄金供需的走势及地域分布,以期为读者了解全球黄金供需结构全貌及其变化趋势提供参考。     

The role of money supply shocks in the short-run demand for money

Previous money-demand models are either inconsistent with contemporaneous adjustment of the price level to expected changes in the nominal money supply or imply implausible interest-rate fluctuations in response to innovations in nominal money. We propose a shock-absorber money- demand model in which money supply shocks affect the synchronization of asset transactions and so engender a temporary increase or decrease in desired money holdings. Expected changes do not engender such fluctuations in real money inventories. In simultaneous estimates for eight industrial countries, the shock-absorber model proved empirically superior.