THE ASCENT OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AS AN ACTOR IN THE MONETARY INTEGRATION PROCESS IN THE 1960s

This paper discusses macroeconomic and monetary policy making at the European Commission in the 1960s. The Commission, in its analysis, focused strongly on economic imbalances in the Community, as they could threaten the common market project. In order to strengthen the system of economic governance of the Community, the Commission advocated an improved monetary cooperation, in line with the internal logic of the integration process. This contrasted with the view of the central bankers, who took the international monetary system as the framework for their analysis. This paper shows the ascent of the Commission as an actor in the monetary area, notwithstanding the relatively limited provisions of the European Economic Community Treaty.     

Portfolio Performance Manipulation and Manipulation-proof Performance Measures

Numerous measures have been proposed to gauge the performanceof active management. Unfortunately, these measures can be gamed.Our article shows that gaming can have a substantial impacton popular measures even in the presence of high transactionscosts. Our article shows there are conditions under which amanipulation-proof measure exists and fully characterizes it.This measure looks like the average of a power utility function,calculated over the return history. The case for using our alternativeranking metric is particularly compelling for hedge funds whoseuse of derivatives is unconstrained and whose managers' compensationitself induces a nonlinear payoff.     

A Review of IPO Activity, Pricing, and Allocations

We review the theory and evidence on IPO activity: why firms go public, why they reward first–day investors with considerable underpricing, and how IPOs perform in the long run. Our perspective is threefold: First, we believe that many IPO phenomena are not stationary. Second, we believe research into share allocation issues is the most promising area of research in IPOs at the moment. Third, we argue that asymmetric information is not the primary driver of many IPO phenomena. Instead, we believe future progress in the literature will come from nonrational and agency conflict explanations. We describe some promising such alternatives.     

Farmers’ Preferences For Bluetongue Vaccination Scheme Attributes: An Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Approach

Re‐emergence of the bluetongue disease in Europe poses a continuous threat to European livestock production. Large‐scale vaccination is the most effective intervention to control virus spread. Compared to command‐and‐control approaches, voluntary vaccination approaches can be effective at lower costs, provided that farmers are willing to participate. We use a discrete choice experiment to estimate the preferences for vaccination scheme attributes, accounting for preference heterogeneity via an integrated choice and latent variable approach. In designing livestock disease control schemes, it is often argued that governments should use financial, incentive‐based policy instruments to compensate farmers for externalities, assuming they act in rational self‐interest. Our results suggest that in addition to economic motives, farmers can have intrinsic or social motives to invest in livestock disease control. Implications for the effectiveness of providing subsidy or information to motivate voluntary participation are discussed.     

Treasury Bond Volatility and Uncertainty about Monetary Policy

We show that dispersion‐based uncertainty about the future course of monetary policy is the single most important determinant of Treasury bond volatility across all maturities. The link between Treasury bond volatility and uncertainty about macroeconomic variables is much stronger than for the more traditional time series measures of macroeconomic volatility and adds beyond the information contained in lagged bond market volatility. Uncertainty about monetary policy subsumes the uncertainty about future inflation (consumer price index and the deflator) and economic activity (unemployment, real and nominal gross domestic product and industrial production). In addition, causality clearly runs one way: from monetary policy uncertainty to Treasury bond volatility.     

An item response model with single peaked item characteristic curves: The PARELLA model

In this paper an item response model (the PARELLA model) designed specifically for the measurement of attitudes and preferences will be introduced. In contrast with the item response models currently used (e.g. the Rasch model and, the two and three parameter logistic model) the item characteristic curve is single peaked instead of monotonically increasing. The model and its properties will be introduced. After this the consequences of these properties for the item writing stage, the evaluation of the concordance of data and model, and the applicability of the model will be discussed. The paper is finished with an example concerning the measurement of change in the attitude in the car-environment issue.     

A Regional Analysis of German Money Demand Around Reunification with Implications for EMU

This paper employs regional data to analyze German money demand before and after reunification. The data show that a cointegrating relationship between real per capita deposits, real per capita income and the short-term interest rate can be found in the Western states, suggesting that reunification has not destabilized monetary relationships within West-Germany. In the Eastern states, the large monetary shock following reunification precludes finding a co-integrating relationship, although in the second half of the 1990s East-German velocity growth seems to have converged to the West-German pattern. The behavior of regional monetary aggregates inside Germany also offers a preview of how in the future monetary aggregates may behave inside Europe's monetary union.     

Cost-effectiveness model of abiraterone plus prednisone,cabazitaxel plus prednisone and enzalutamide for visceral metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer therapy after docetaxel therapy resistance

Abstract

Aims: Among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer, 10–20% will develop castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) within 5?years; for 70%, CRPC will metastasize, mostly to the lungs and/or liver. We performed a cost-effectiveness model comparing abiraterone plus prednisone (ABI?+?PRD), cabazitaxel plus prednisone (CAB?+?PRD) and enzalutamide (ENZ) for visceral metastatic CRPC post-docetaxel therapy resistance.

Methods: A three-state (Progression-Free, Progression, Death) lifetime Markov model was constructed to compare ABI?+?PRD, CAB?+?PRD, and ENZ from a United States healthcare payer perspective (2019?US$; discount rate 3%/yr.). Effectiveness was measured in life-years (LYs) and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs). Inputs included treatment costs, grade III/IV adverse events with incidence ≥5%, physician follow-up, lab and imaging tests. Phase III trial Kaplan-Meier curves were extrapolated to estimate overall survival and Progression-Free transition probabilities. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) and utility ratios (ICURs), probabilistic sensitivity analyses (PSAs) and cost-effectiveness acceptability curves at willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds were estimated.

Results: Models estimated 3-year overall survival rates of 1.3% for patients treated with ABI?+?PRD, 16.2% for CAB?+?PRD, and 13.2% for ENZ. Estimated Progression-Free rates at 1.5?years were 0.51% for ABI?+?PRD, 0.27% for CAB?+?PRD, and 14.47% for ENZ. LYs and QALYs were 1.20 and 0.58 respectively for ABI?+?PRD, 1.48 and 0.56 for CAB?+?PRD, and 1.58 and 0.79 for ENZ. Total treatment costs were: $115,433 for ABI?+?PRD, $85,337 for CAB?+?PRD and $109,213 for ENZ. CAB?+?PRD and ENZ dominated ABI?+?PRD due to higher LYs gained. Incremental QALYs for ENZ vs. CAB?+?PRD were larger than incremental LYs. The ICUR for ENZ was $103,674/QALY compared to CAB?+?PRD.

Conclusions: This analysis found ENZ provided greater LYs and QALYs than both ABI?+?PRD and CAB?+?PRD, at a lower cost than ABI?+?PRD, but at a higher cost compared to CAB?+?PRD. For patients with visceral mCRPC after docetaxel therapy resistance, ENZ was cost-effective 92% of the time with a WTP threshold of $100,000/QALY.     

Menu positions influence soft drink selection at touchscreen kiosks

The current study investigates whether companies can influence which soft drink consumers select on touchscreen kiosks. Soft drink options presented on touchscreen kiosks are multi‐dimensional stimuli represented by icons and locations. Over time the pairing of icon and location forms an expectation that certain icons will be in certain locations. As a result of these location expectations, changing the order of soft drinks may help consumers consider more healthful items. In the current study, the Coca‐Cola icon was moved from the first to last location and the Coke Zero icon from the third to first. The intervention decreased the number of times Coca‐Cola was sold and increased the number of times Coke Zero was sold. The discussion explores the rationale for the intervention and the importance of fitting interventions into existing choice environments to modify real‐world behavior.     

An Interest Stabilisation Mechanism to Unburden the ECB

Intereconomics - Following the twin crises of sovereign debt and COVID-19, the ECB risks being stuck in a situation of fiscal dominance, in which monetary policy is subordinated to the needs of...