A two-stage translog marginal cost pricing approach for Floridian hospital outputs

Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, issues still remain regarding the mandated purchase of insurance to ensure more universal coverage. One such issue is the pricing of these insurance packages and whether or not the reimbursements will cover necessary services. Therefore, policy concerns exist that increasing the number of insured individuals may not curtail costs. Conversely, providers may not wish to treat patients covered by excessively frugal plans such as Medicaid; hence the trade-offs between access and cost control. In this article, we present findings from a cost function and a productivity approach to determine the marginal cost of providing inpatient hospital care for hospitals operating in Florida during 2005. Using these methodological approaches, we are able to use the marginal rate of transformation to determine the relative marginal costs while controlling for hospital technical and allocative inefficiency. Our work differs from earlier articles as we avoid the Greene problem for cross-sectional models through a two-step approach. By including both reimbursement rates under conditions of hospital efficiency, we can ascertain payment schemes that should, at least in theory, cover necessary costs for patient care without leading to excessive input usage.     

Mitigating shortage and distribution costs in damaged water networks

Recent events have sparked renewed interest in disaster mitigation for public infrastructures. Presidential Decision Directive 63 identifies water distribution as being among the most vital and vulnerable of our large-scale infrastructures. Water distribution networks are vulnerable to threats such as chemical and biological contamination, cyber attacks on computer-based management systems, and physical destruction from acts of nature and intentional attack. This research develops methods for configuring the undamaged portion of the water network to mitigate the consequences of physical destruction. The approach is to find a hydraulically feasible residual network that can be pressurized to meet the demand of a subset of demand sectors. Demand sectors not pressurized then receive water through truck distribution from pressurized sectors. The objective is to minimize weighted water shortage and water truck distribution costs by identifying sectors to pressurize along with an assignment of unpressurized sectors to pressurized sectors for water delivery by truck. The paper develops an optimization model, describes a solution method, and presents computational results for three example networks.     

The financial and prudential performance of Chinese banks and Fintech lenders in the era of digitalization

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - The years 2013 to 2019 marked an explosion in Fintech in China. We analyze the financial and prudential performance of 40...     

Practical methods for measuring and managing operational risk in the financial sector: A clinical study

This paper analyzes the implications of the advanced measurement approach (AMA) for the assessment of operational risk. Through a clinical case study on a matrix of two selected business lines and two event types of a large financial institution, we develop a procedure that addresses the major issues faced by banks in the implementation of the AMA. For each cell, we calibrate two truncated distributions functions, one for “normal” losses and the other for the “extreme” losses. In addition, we propose a method to include external data in the framework. We then estimate the impact of operational risk management on bank profitability, through an adapted measure of RAROC. The results suggest that substantial savings can be achieved through active management techniques.     

Regional integration and dynamic adjustments: Evidence from gross national product functions for Canada and the United States

We estimate a translog Gross National Product function and test for endogenously determined structural change allowing for anticipated and lagged responses to regional trade agreements. We found that Canada embarked on a long transition path prior to the implementation of the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement, a result reminiscent of Magee's (2008) results concerning RTAs’ trade creation effects. In contrast, the United States experienced an abrupt structural change a year after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. This reflects that smaller economies benefitting from larger changes in terms of trade are confronted to more complex adjustment processes than larger economies.     

Dynamic monopoly pricing with network externalities

In this paper, we study the optimal dynamic monopoly pricing for a good which exhibits positive network externalities. When network externalities are of sufficient magnitude, we show that, contrary to the Coase theorem, (1) there is no time inconsistency problem; (2) subgame perfect equilibrium prices increase as time passes. From this point of view, positive network externalities allow the monopoly to commit itself credibly to increasing future prices.Ce papier étudie la tarification optimale intertemporelle d'un monopole qui vend un bien exhibant des externalités positives de réseau. Lorsque ces externalités sont suffisamment importantes, nous montrons que, contrairement au théorème de Coase, (1) il n'y a pas de problème d'incohérence temporelle, (2) les prix d'équilibre parfait croissent avec le temps. De ce point de vue, les externalités positives de réseau permettent au monopole de s'engager crédiblement sur une politique de prix futurs à la hausse.