SCREENING FOR A CHRONIC DISEASE: A MULTIPLE STAGE DURATION MODEL WITH PARTIAL OBSERVABILITY

We estimate a dynamic multistage duration model to investigate how early detection of diabetes can delay the onset of lower extremity complications and death. We allow for partial observability of the disease stage, unmeasured heterogeneity, and endogenous timing of diabetes screening. Timely diagnosis appears important. We evaluate the effectiveness of two potential policies to reduce the monetary costs of frequent screening in terms of lost longevity. Compared to the status quo, the more restrictive policy yields an implicit value for an additional year of life of about $50,000, whereas the less restrictive policy implies a value of about $120,000.     

Productivity Dispersion and Measurement Error

Several reasons have been put forward to explain the high dispersion of productivity across establishments: quality of management, different input usage and market distortions, to name but a few. Although it is acknowledged that a sizable portion of productivity dispersion may also be due to measurement error, little research has been devoted to identifying how much they contribute. We outline a novel procedure for identifying the role of measurement error in explaining the empirical dispersion of productivity across establishments. The starting point of our framework is the errors-in-variable model consisting of a measurement equation and a structural equation for latent productivity. We estimate the variance of the measurement error and subsequently estimate the variance of the latent productivity variable, which is not contaminated by measurement error. Using Norwegian data on the manufacture of food products, we find that about one percent of the measured dispersion stems from measurement error.     

Healthcare burden and reimbursement of hospitalization during chemotherapy for adults with Ph-negative relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia in France: a retrospective chart review

Objective: Philadelphia chromosome negative [Ph(?)] relapsed or refractory (R/R) B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is an extremely rare condition requiring intensive treatment. This retrospective chart review aimed to quantify hospitalizations and reimbursement in this patient population in France.

Methods: Patients aged ≥18 years and with at least one hospitalization for Ph(?) R/R B-precursor ALL were included in the study. They were relapsed with first remission lasting <12 months, relapsed after first salvage therapy, relapsed any time after hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), or were refractory to initial or salvage therapy. Data were collected from the index date (first diagnosis of R/R ALL) until death or loss to follow-up. The chemotherapy period was defined as the first chemotherapy date after the index date to the earliest of death, loss to follow-up, last chemotherapy dose plus 30 days, or initiation of HSCT. The primary outcome was the percentage of time hospitalized during the chemotherapy period.

Results: Thirty-three patients were included, with a mean age of 49 years. The mean proportion of time spent in the hospital during the chemotherapy period was 46% (95% CI =34–57%). Patients had a mean of 2.2 (SD =1.5) inpatient hospitalizations and the mean length of stay per hospitalization was 16.8 (SD =14.8) days. During the chemotherapy period, the mean amount reimbursed per hospitalization was €31 067 (SD = €4850) and the total hospitalization reimbursement per patient was €68 344. From the index date to death, excluding HSCT, the total reimbursement per patient was €108 873.

Limitations: The sample size was small, although this was expected given the rarity of the patient population.

Conclusions: Adults with Ph(?) R/R B-precursor ALL had repeated and prolonged hospitalizations during salvage chemotherapy. Approximately half the follow-up period was spent in the hospital, and this time was associated with high economic burden in France.     

Estimating the Impact of WTO and Domestic Reforms on the Indian Cotton and Textile Sectors: a General-Equilibrium Approach

The agreement to abolish the quotas on textiles and clothing introduced under the Multi‐fiber Arrangement (MFA) will create a new and much more competitive world market for India's exports of textiles and clothing. India's inefficient and costly policies, such as cotton export quotas, the hank yarn obligation, and the restrictive policies on foreign investment that have held back productivity in the Indian apparel sector, will impose serious costs. The authors consider the implications of reforming these policies in an open trading environment using a multiregion, applied general‐equilibrium model. They find that the costs of these policies to India increase substantially following abolition of the MFA; the benefits to India from domestic reforms are considerably enhanced when there is global free trade in textiles and apparel.     

The causes of government expenditure growth: A survey of the U.S. evidence

The growth of government budgets can be broken down into a-institutional and institutional components. The former component — the familiar substitution, income, and population/public goods-tax sharing effects — is estimated to contribute about two-fifths of the growth of U.S. government spending. The latter component — rent-seeking political redistributions, bureaucracy and perceptual/informational impedimentia — is important, too, but an exact imputation cannot be asserted given the state of the art in empirical public choice theory. The cross-effects on spending of the growth of regulation and tax preferences or tax expenditures, though interesting, is not pursued.     

Capital Market Development,Competition, Property Rights,and the Value of Insurer Product‐Line Diversification: A Cross‐Country Analysis

In this article, we show that the effect of product diversification on performance is not homogeneous across countries. Diversified insurance companies perform significantly worse than their focused competitors in countries with well‐developed capital markets, high levels of property rights protection, and high levels of competition. In addition, we find that the diversification–performance relationship for insurance companies depends on company size. For large insurers operating in countries with less developed capital markets, diversification significantly increases performance. Our results suggest that the optimal organizational structure may be different for insurers operating in emerging economies than for insurers operating in developed countries.     

Arbitrator Decision-Making in the Transfer Market: an Empirical Analysis

This paper analyses data generated by the annual round of arbitrated settlements of disputed transfer fees for end-of-contract players in the English Football League. Using information on final-offers of the disputant clubs and data on a variety of player and club characteristics we analyse arbitrated fees and final-offers, and the relative importance of final-offers and case facts in fashioning outcomes. Our analysis suggests that a large proportion of the variation in settlements can be accounted for by certain case facts rather than a mechanical compromise of final-offers, with the latter receiving a relatively low weight. In general, our findings are consistent with the view that conventional arbitration systems generate little useful information in terms of final-offers from the disputant parties.     

Price clustering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange

We investigate price clustering of intraday trades and negotiated block trades on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) from 2003 to 2009. Prices of traded assets tend to cluster on certain final digits, such as 0 and 5. In Chinese culture, 8 is associated with good luck and 4 with death so these numbers may be attractive or avoided. We find that price clustering on the final digit of 0 is significantly higher during the morning call auction and early in the trading day. We find no evidence of price clustering for the digit 8, but there is a significant dearth of prices ending in the inauspicious number 4. Price clustering is significantly higher for negotiated block trades, for which about 28% end with 0. Multivariate analysis shows that price clustering is lower for more liquid firms, but higher for firms with higher return volatility, a higher price level, or when the market is volatile. Our evidence supports the costly negotiation hypothesis. Our results also support the attraction hypothesis in that we document significant price clustering at round numbers and even numbers even after controlling for factors that are associated with price uncertainty.     

Causal relations between inflation and inflation uncertainty—Cross sectional evidence in favour of the Friedman-Ball hypothesis

We test for causality between inflation and its associated uncertainty by means of both in-sample and out-of-sample modelling. Our findings indicate that the impact of inflation on inflation uncertainty is more pronounced than the reverse causal effect.