Cost of hospital care for elderly at risk of falling

The variables that relate to cost of hospital care for a large sample of elderly patients at risk for falling are examined. The chief predictors of cost of hospitalization were medical, pharmacy, and nursing interventions. Use of nursing interventions, on average, raised the median hospital cost less than use of medical or pharmacy interventions. Using a standardized nursing language with the hospital's information system can provide nurses with information that demonstrates the cost effectiveness of their interventions.     

How does managed care do it?

Integrating the health services and insurance industries, as health maintenance organizations (HMOs) do, could lower expenditure by reducing either the quantity of services or unit price or both. We compare the treatment of heart disease in HMOs and traditional insurance plans using two datasets from Massachusetts. The nature of these health problems should minimize selection. HMOs have 30% to 40% lower expenditures than traditional plans. Both actual treatments and health outcomes differ little; virtually all the difference in spending comes from lower unit prices. Managed care may yield substantial increases in measured productivity relative to traditional insurance.     

羊群行为理论:一个研究综述

从羊群行为的概念、分类及形成机理出发，回顾了国内外金融市场中羊群行为的研究成果。深入地探讨了羊群行为的形成理论及其相应的实证检验结果。研究发现：羊群行为是一个和市场效率紧密相连的概念，羊群行为究竟是不是有效，取决于市场吸收和消化新信息的速度。     

Why people follow the leader: the power of transference

We all admire leaders. In trying to understand how leadership works, however, we often lose sight of the fact that followers are a crucial part of the equation. Regrettably, they get short shrift in the management literature, where they are described as merely responding to their leaders' charisma or caring attitudes. What most analyses seem to ignore is that followers have their own motivations and are as powerfully driven to follow as leaders are to lead. In this article, psychoanalyst, anthropologist, and management consultant Michael Maccoby delves into the unconscious recesses of followers' minds. He looks closely at the often irrational tendency to relate to a leader as some important person from the past--a parent, a sibling, a close friend, or even a nanny. Sigmund Freud discovered this dynamic when working with his patients and called it"transference." But as important as it is, the concept remains little understood outside the realm of clinical psychoanalysis. This is unfortunate, because a solid understanding of transference can yield great insight into organizational behavior and endow you with the wisdom and compassion to be a tremendous leader. The author explains the most common types of transference--paternal, maternal, and sibling--and shows how they play out in the workplace. He notes that they have evolved as our family structures have changed. Whether followers perceive a leader as an all-knowing father figure, as an authoritative yet unconditionally loving mother figure, or as a brother or sister who isn't necessarily a model of good behavior, the leader can manage transferential ties by bringing unconscious projections to light. Then debilitating resentment and animosity can give way to mutual understanding and productivity--and a limping organization can start to thrive.     

中国的改革步伐不能放慢

中央财经大学经济学美籍客座教授唐·金鲍尔先生,在亚洲金融风暴冲击和影响各国经济之际,就中国是否放慢改革步伐提出了自己的看法。他说:“市场永远不会有让我们感到可以停止改革的那一天。”“去年亚洲金融风暴给我们的一个教训是,只有让市场充分发挥支配和调节的作用,才是通向成功的唯一之路。” 本刊发表他的文章,可供参考。     

Annuities and lifetime income: the Anglo-Saxon experience

A number of western industrialized nations have found themselves in a similar position to the United States today: an aging population leading to increasing, and perhaps unsustainable, expenditures on a traditional social security system. This article examines the risks that individuals face in retirement, describes the role of annuities in addressing those risks and examines why annuitization rates are so low. It then reviews the pension structures in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand--countries with similar governmental and economic structures to those of the United States--and describes how these have impacted those countries' annuitization rates.     

商业银行的操作风险、声誉效应与市场反应

我们通过比较银行市场价值损失与发生操作风险造成的损失的差异来分离出纯声誉效应,并实证分析了该声誉效应对不同银行及损失事件不同阶段的市场收益率的影响的差异。研究发现,操作风险事件在不同时期会产生迥异的市场反应。在披露期,银行遭受损失时会出现显著为负的异常收益率,在结算期却出现显著为正的异常收益率,而在承认期,该效应却并没有表现出一定的规律性;且上述声誉效应造成市场收益率的动态变化在不同类型的银行差异明显。这也启示我们,声誉效应的存在使银行有必要对操作风险造成的损失进行有效控制以及适时回应事件中的不确定信息。这将有助于减少银行的损失及保持市场的稳定。