Opt Out or Top Up? Voluntary Health Care Insurance and the Public vs. Private Substitution

We investigate whether in a mixed insurance system, people enrolled into voluntary health care insurance (VHI) substitute public consumption with private (opt out) or just enlarge their private consumption without reducing reliance upon public provisions (top up). We specify a joint model for public and private specialist visits counts, allowing for different degrees of endogenous supplementary insurance coverage. We find evidence of opting out: richer and wealthier individuals consume more private services and concomitantly reduce those services publicly provided through selection into for‐profit VHI. Accounting for VHI endogeneity in the joint model of the two counts is crucial to this conclusion.     

Capital controls and distribution of income: Empirical evidence for Great Britain Japan and Australia

Zusammenfassung Kapitalverkehrskontrollen und Einkommensverteilung. Empirische Befunde für Gro?britannien, Japan und Australien. - Der Verfasser geht davon aus, da? die Einführung von Kapitalverkehrskontrollen die nationale Einkommensverteilung beeinflu?t; insbesondere zeigt er, da? Ma?nahmen zur Verhinderung von Kapitalabflüssen die Einkommensverteilung zugunsten der Lohnempf?nger verschiebt. Nachdem er die Wirksamkeit von Kontrollen mit Hilfe der Unterschiede zwischen in- und ausl?ndischen Zinss?tzen gemessen und die Erfahrungen dreier L?nder (Gro?britannien, Japan und Australien) berücksichtigt hat, pr?sentiert er einige Korrelationsindizes und Kausalit?tstests, um zu untersuchen, ob m?glicherweise Beziehungen zur Verteilung des Volkseinkommens bestehen. Danach entwickelt und sch?tzt er ein Strukturmodell. Der Autor zeigt, da? das Ausma? der finanziellen Protektion die (optimale) Wahl von Besch?ftigung und Lohn durch heimische Firmen und Gewerkschaften tendenziell beeinflu?t hat.

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Résumé Les contr?les de capitaux et la distribution du revenu: La preuve empirique pour La Grande Bretagne, le Japon et l’Australie. - Dans cette étude l’auteur soutient l’opinion que l’adoption des contr?les de capitaux se répercutent sur la distribution du revenue national; et plus spécifiquement elle montre qu’en empêchant l’exportation des capitaux, la distribution du revenu change en faveur des salariés. Après avoir mesuré l’efficacité des contr?les à l’aide de l’écart entre les taux d'intérêt nationaux et les taux off-shore et après avoir reconsidéré les expériences de trois pays (Grande Bretagne, Japon, Australie) on présente quelques indices de corrélation et des tests de causalité pour étudier s’il y a des rapports avec la distribution du revenu national. Puis on propose un modèle structurel. Les estimations montrent que le degré de protection financière pourrait avoir influencé la sélection optimale de l’emploi et du salaire par les entreprises nationales et les syndicats.

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Resumen Controles de capital y distributión del ingreso: evidencia empírica para el Reino Unido, el Japón y Australia. - En este trabajo se argumenta que la adoptión des controles de capital afecta a la distributión del ingreso national. Más específicamente, se demuestra que al impedirse las exportaciones de capital se modifica la distributión del ingreso en favor de los asalariados. Después de medir la efectividad de los controles con el diferencial entre las tasas nacionales y las tasas offshore, y de pasar revista a la experiencia de tres países (el Reino Unido, el Japón y Australia), se presentan algunos índices de correlatión y tests de causalidad, con el fin de investigar la existencia de una relatión potential con la distributión del ingreso national. Finalmente, se propone y estima un modelo estructural que muestra que el grado de proteción financiera podría haber afectado la decisión sobre el empleo y el salario (óptimos) por parte de empresas y sindicatos nationales.

     

Self-selection and variations in the laboratory measurement of other-regarding preferences across subject pools: evidence from one college student and two adult samples

We measure the other-regarding behavior in samples from three related populations in the upper Midwest of the United States: college students, non-student adults from the community surrounding the college, and adult trainee truckers in a residential training program. The use of typical experimental economics recruitment procedures made the first two groups substantially self-selected. Because the context reduced the opportunity cost of participating dramatically, 91 % of the adult trainees solicited participated, leaving little scope for self-selection in this sample. We find no differences in the elicited other-regarding preferences between the self-selected adults and the adult trainees, suggesting that selection is unlikely to bias inferences about the prevalence of other-regarding preferences among non-student adult subjects. Our data also reject the more specific hypothesis that approval-seeking subjects are the ones most likely to select into experiments. Finally, we observe a large difference between self-selected college students and self-selected adults: the students appear considerably less pro-social.     

Can Linear Predictability Models Time Bull and Bear Real Estate Markets? Out-of-Sample Evidence from REIT Portfolios

A recent literature has shown that REIT returns contain strong evidence of bull and bear dynamic regimes that may be best captured using nonlinear econometric models of the Markov switching type. In fact, REIT returns would display regime shifts that are more abrupt and persistent than in the case of other asset classes. In this paper we ask whether and how simple linear predictability models of the vector autoregressive (VAR) type may be extended to capture the bull and bear patterns typical of many asset classes, including REITs. We find that nonlinearities are so deep that it is impossibile for a large family of VAR models to either produce similar portfolio weights or to yield realized, ex-post out-of-sample long-horizon portfolio performances that may compete with those typical of bull and bear models. A typical investor with intermediate risk aversion and a 5-year horizon ought to be ready to pay an annual fee of up to 5.7 % to have access to forecasts of REIT returns that take their bull and bear dynamics into account instead of simpler, linear forecast.     

„Problemsucher,Problemfinder und Problemlöser in einem sind gefragt“

Ohne Zusammenfassung Dr. Matthias Salge (43) leitet seit 2004 das operative und strategische Controlling der Volksfürsorge. Davor war er in der Corporate-Finance Beratung der Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft PricewaterhouseCoopers sowie bei der Frankfurter Allianz als Vorstandsassistent und im Vertrieb t?tig. Er hat an den Universit?ten G?ttingen, Kiel und Barcelona Volkswirtschaftslehre studiert und über ein kapitalmarkttheoretisches Thema an der Universit?t Kiel promoviert. Daniele Baldino (32) leitet seit 2005 im Controlling der Volksfürsorge die Abteilung Strategisches Controlling. Die berufliche Laufbahn in der AMB Generali Gruppe begann er 2002 als Vorstandsassistent, zun?chst in der Volksfürsorge, anschlie?end in der Konzernzentrale. Davor war er in der KPMG Unternehmensberatung sowie im Private-Equity-Umfeld t?tig. Baldino hat European Business Studies (EBS) in Regensburg studiert mit Aufenthalten in Frankreich und Gro?britannien.     

‘Marxism Gone Mad’: Tugan-Baranovsky on crises,their possibility and their periodicity

Abstract

Tugan-Baranovsky's theory of crises has two components: a theory of markets, defining the condition under which expanded reproduction can take place, and a theory of crises proper, explaining how any rupture of equilibrium is amplified and extended to the whole system and gives rise to periodical fluctuations. The former, based on the Marxian schemes of reproduction, is logically preliminary to the latter, which relies on the accumulation and depletion of loanable funds. In spite of Tugan's insistence on this nexus, academic commentators have ignored Tugan's theory of markets, while Marxist critics have focused exclusively on this aspect and charged Tugan with upholding Say's Law. While this reading is not entirely justified, there is indeed a deep difference between Tugan's and Marx's interpretation of crises. While Marx considers crises as the necessary corrective to the systematic and necessary breaches of equilibrium, Tugan sees equilibrium as the norm and crises a deviation from it, albeit recurring and periodical.