Econometric Evaluation of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve*

We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPCM) as an empirical model of European inflation. The favourable evidence for NPCMs on euro‐area data reported in earlier studies is shown to depend on specific choices made about estimation methodology. The NPCM can be re‐interpreted as a highly restricted equilibrium correction model. We also report the outcome of tests based on variable addition and encompassing of existing models. The results show that economists should not accept the NPCM too readily.     

Loss of economic rents in the global fishery

Most of the world’s ocean fisheries are severely lacking in private property rights in the underlying natural resources or their close complements (e.g. harvesting volume). Therefore, according to standard property rights theory, these fisheries should be highly wasteful of potential economic rents from these resources. The question is whether this economic loss can be empirically verified and, if so, how large it is. This paper explains the concept and develops the analytical theory of economic and natural rents. Building on this and utilizing global fisheries data, the paper proceeds to estimate a global fisheries model, obtain numerical estimates of the rent loss in the world’s ocean capture fisheries and provide reasonable confidence bounds for this loss. It is found that the global fisheries rent loss constitutes almost certainly a large fraction of the landed value of the global landings. The mean estimate of this loss is well over 50% of the value of landings.     

The burden of preserved ejection fraction heart failure in a real-world Swedish patient population

Objectives:

To evaluate resource use and associated costs in patients with a diagnosis of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HF-PEF) in Sweden.

Methods:

This retrospective study identified real-world patients with an ICD-10 diagnosis code for heart failure (I50) for the period between July 1, 2005 and December 31, 2006 from electronic medical records of primary care centers in Uppsala County Council, and in the Swedish patient registry data. Patients were categorized as having HF-PEF (left ventricle ejection fraction [LVEF] > 50%) during the index period. The study assessed medication utilization, outpatient visits, hospitalizations, and associated healthcare costs, as well as the incidence rates and time to all-cause and heart failure mortality following the index period.

Results:

The study included 137 HF-PEF patients with a mean age of 77.1 (SD?=?9.1) years. Over 50% of HF-PEF patients were female and hypertensive. Nearly all patients received ≥1 medication post-index. Patients had an average of 1.5 heart failure related hospitalizations per follow-up year. The average annual per patient cost for the management of a HF-PEF patient was found in Sweden to be Swedish Krona (SEK) 108,246 (EURO [EUR] 11,344). Hospitalizations contributed to more than 80% of the total cost. All-cause mortality over the 18-month study period was 25.5%, and more than 50% of these deaths occurred within 1 year of index.

Limitations:

Due to the limitations of registry data, it is not possible to confirm the HF diagnosis, and therefore the accuracy of registry records must be assumed. Other factors such as short follow-up time, the study-mandated LVEF assessment, and a lack of drug duration data may also have an impact on the study results.

Conclusions:

All-cause mortality was high in the HF-PEF population, with more than half of patients dying within 1 year of study follow-up. Study results also indicate that 60% of HF-PEF patients have ≥1 hospitalization during follow-up. Hospitalizations, especially heart failure related admissions, represent a substantial proportion of the total healthcare burden of patients with HF-PEF in Sweden.     

Production risk in multi-output industries: estimates from Norwegian dairy farms

Farmers who produce multiple outputs are portfolio managers in the sense that they use inputs to balance expected economic return and variance of return. This article estimates the structure of the stochastic multioutput production technology in Norwegian dairy farming, allowing for a more flexible specification of the technology than previous studies. We find that an increase in input levels leads primarily to higher output variability, and that inputs also influence the covariance of shocks between outputs. Risk reducing effects of inputs on outputs are primarily present in the covariance functions. Technical change leads to shifts in the profit distribution over the data period, but no welfare improvement for risk averse farmers.     

Medicines transparency at the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the new information age: the perspectives of patients

The concept of transparency has gained widespread appeal in the European pharmaceutical domain, not least at the European Medicines Agency (EMA). Agency policies have two main objectives: (1) to enable the reuse of data (e.g. clinical study reports) and (2) to empower patients to directly and indirectly make more informed decisions on medicines. Past research has almost exclusively focused on the perspectives of external researchers intending to reanalyse data made publically available. Few studies, however, have explored what can be learnt from the perspectives of other actors (e.g. health care professionals, patients, the regulators themselves, industry and others). This empirical study explores the EMA’s transparency policies from the perspectives of patients. After presenting the results of a survey (N = 1010) with a sample of individuals diagnosed with five specific medical conditions (HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) from four EU countries (Germany, Spain, France and the UK), the authors argue that EMA’s transparency policies do not adequately address the real-world complexities of communicating with patients. In turn, the paper concludes that the perspective of patients provides an essential contribution to understanding the full net effects (positive, negative and/or limited) of EMA’s transparency policies.     

Equilibrium Unemployment Dynamics in a Panel of OECD Countries

We focus on the equilibrium unemployment rate as a parameter implied by a dynamic aggregate model of wage and price setting. The equilibrium unemployment rate depends on institutional labour market institutions through mark‐up coefficients. Compared with existing studies, the resulting final equation for unemployment has a richer dynamic structure. The empirical investigation is conducted in a panel data framework and uses OECD data up to 2012. We propose to extend the standard estimation method with time dummies to control and capture the effects of common and national shocks by using impulse indicator saturation (WG‐IIS), which has not been previously used on panel data. WG‐IIS robustifies the estimators of the regression coefficients in the dynamic model, and it affects the estimated equilibrium unemployment rates. We find that wage co‐ordination stands out as the most important institutional variable in our data set, but there is also evidence pointing to the tax wedge and the degree of compensation in the unemployment insurance system as drivers of equilibrium unemployment.