Consumer-driven health care: the future is now

Given that managed care seems to have run its course, employers are forced to deal with escalating health care costs by reducing benefits and lowering pay--or are they? Why not bring the power of the responsible, informed consumer to health care? Consumer-driven health care offers a new, economically rational direction that can simultaneously address the needs of both employers and employees. This article reviews the factors leading to the need for consumer-driven health care and describes the characteristics and benefits of its current and next generations of development.     

New technologies and productivity growth in the euro area

This paper provides an overview of the available evidence on the importance of information and communication technologies (ICT) for developments in average labour productivity (ALP) growth in the euro area. The contribution of ICT to ALP growth is found to have increased both in terms of production and investment over the 1990s (up to 2001). However, there is no evidence of significant positive spillover effects from the use of ICT on ALP growth. This implies that there is no reason to believe that potential output growth in the euro area has increased significantly in recent years on account of new technologies. Comparing developments in the euro area and the United States, it appears, however, that ICT capital cannot account for much of the difference in ALP developments over the 1990s. This suggests that cyclical developments and, in particular, the structure of the economy are more important for explaining the difference in performance.First version received: March 2002/Final version received: May 2003We thank Bart van Ark, Neale Kennedy, Gerard Korteweg, Ad van Riet, Marcel Timmer, two anonymous referees and participants at the 17th Congress of the European Economic Association, Venice August 2002 for their comments. All errors and omissions remain ours, of course. We thank Erikos Velissaratos for his help in acquiring data on investment in ICT and Colin Webb for providing us with the OECD STAN database. This paper represents the views of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Central Bank, the European Commission or their staff.     

Does corporate governance transparency affect the accuracy of analyst forecasts?

Using country‐level proxies for corporate governance transparency, this paper investigates how differences in transparency across 21 countries affect the average forecast accuracy of analysts for the country's firms. The association between financial transparency and analyst forecast accuracy has been well documented in previous published literature; however, the association between governance transparency and analyst forecast accuracy remains unexplored. Using the two distinct country‐level factors isolated by Bushman et al. (2004 ), governance transparency and financial transparency, we investigate whether corporate governance information impacts on the accuracy of earnings forecasts over and above financial information. We document that governance transparency is positively associated with analyst forecast accuracy after controlling for financial transparency and other variables. Furthermore, our results suggest that governance‐related disclosure plays a bigger role in improving the information environment when financial disclosures are less transparent. Our empirical evidence also suggests that the significance of governance transparency on analyst forecast accuracy is higher when legal enforcement is weak.     

从日本的历史经验看：为什么人民币应该钉住美元

在汇率问题上,中国应避免重蹈日本的覆辙;人民币过多的升值并不能消除巨额经常项目顺差,相反可能导致经济在升值预期下陷入零利率陷阱。人民币汇率应保持缓慢爬升,升值幅度应盯住中美通胀率之差。一旦美国通货膨胀结束,美元资产利率下降,中国人民银行就应当宣布升值结束。     

Interest rate interactions in the classical gold standard, 1880-1914: was there any monetary independence?

This paper examines an hypothesis of Svensson (1994) (Journal of Monetary Economics 33, 157-199) that a credible target zone can confer on a country a degree of independence in the operation of its monetary policy, even when exchange rates are fixed. We test this hypothesis for the Classical gold standard using a newly created monthly data base for the period 1880-1913. Building on the recently noted finding that the Classical gold standard represented a credible, well-behaved, target zone system we propose a number of ways of testing the Svensson’ model. Our main finding is that the Classical gold standard did indeed confer some independence in the operation of monetary policy for participating countries. This would seem to have an important bearing on the kind of institutional framework required for a modern day target zone to function effectively and, in particular, to weather speculative attacks.     

The effects of capital structure change on security prices: A study of exchange offers

This study considers the impact of capital structure change announcements on security prices. Statistically significant price adjustments in firms' common stock, preferred stock and debt related to these announcements are documented and alternative causes for these price changes are examined. The evidence is consistent with both corporate tax and wealth redistribution effects. There is also evidence that firms make decisions which do not maximize stockholder wealth. In addition, a new approach to testing the significance of public announcements on security returns is presented.