Can Empirical Demand Models Assist in CON Comparative Reviews? A Case Study in Florida

Certificate‐of‐Need (CON) programs for new hospital construction are intended to foster the best selection among competing hospital applications, given demands for hospital care in the community. Yet, the merits of CON depend in part on the quality of the comparative review process. This article examines a case study in Florida to illustrate the utility of empirical evaluations using patient choice models. I estimate such models to show how patients would respond to a change in hospital choices. By simulating the welfare effects of the proposed hospitals, I can further predict how prices of hospital care differ by applicant. Results suggest that empirical analysis using data on patient choice of hospitals may better inform the review process. At the same time, however, it may not give a unique ranking without additional analysis of the fixed costs of proposed services in the context of existing marketwide capacity.     

Public policies,pressure groups,and dead weight costs

This paper presents a model of competition among special interest groups for political influence. Each active group exerts pressure to affect its taxes and subsidies, where activities of different groups are related by the equality between total tax collections and total tax subsidies. The dead weight costs and benefits of taxes and subsidies play a major role in our model. An increase in the dead weight cost of taxation encourages pressure by taxpayers, while an increase in the dead weight costs of subsidies discourages pressure by recipients. Various applications of the analysis are discussed.     

“五星酒店如雨后春笋 有压力更有动力”——访重庆洲际酒店总经理范纳伦先生

重庆洲际酒店总经理:Franck Naulleau,法国人,中文名:范纳伦。出生于1966年。他拥有超过20年的酒店管理经验,足迹遍及亚洲、非洲、欧洲、美洲和中东,丰富的阅历让他在工作中拥有独到的见解和创造力。2008年9月,范纳伦先生来到中国重庆,任重庆洲际酒店总经理。他有广泛的爱好,特别在运动方面。在闲暇时间,他喜欢参加网球、高尔夫、足球等运动,并都是高手。此外,他还喜欢研究国际文学和电影。范纳伦先生更是热心慈善的爱心人士。在他去过的诸多国家,都留下了他乐善好施的义举。范纳伦先生相信,爱心没有国界,每个人的一点慈善之举,都终能汇成强大的力量,将幸福和快乐带给需要帮助的人。     

Relative Effects of IFRS Adoption and IFRS Convergence on Financial Statement Comparability

One of the primary objectives of both adoption of IFRS and convergence between IFRS and U.S. GAAP is to increase financial statement comparability. Using a unique setting in Germany, we compare the effectiveness of these two approaches in achieving this desired outcome. Our empirical tests show that both adoption and convergence lead to an increase in comparability after the new enforcement regulation in 2005. However, difference‐in‐differences tests show that adoption does not lead to a significant incremental increase in comparability beyond convergence. The findings of this study should be of interest to regulators and standard setters as they assess alternative methods of aligning domestic standards with IFRS.     

The effect of robust growth on poverty: a nonlinear analysis

Previous research has shown that economic growth should help to reduce the rate of poverty. However, a number of recent studies have found that the economic expansion of the 1980s had no statistically significant effect on aggregate poverty. It is shown that both a Threshold regression and a Fourier approximation provide a better empirical model of poverty than the standard linear model. It is noteworthy that the nonlinear specifications show a large and significant effect on poverty of the 1980s expansion.     

PRIOR ELICITATION IN MULTIPLE CHANGE‐POINT MODELS*

This article discusses Bayesian inference in change‐point models. The main existing approaches treat all change‐points equally, a priori, using either a Uniform prior or an informative hierarchical prior. Both approaches assume a known number of change‐points. Some undesirable properties of these approaches are discussed. We develop a new Uniform prior that allows some of the change‐points to occur out of sample. This prior has desirable properties, can be interpreted as “noninformative,” and treats the number of change‐points as unknown. Artificial and real data exercises show how these different priors can have a substantial impact on estimation and prediction.     

Financial Globalization,Social Exclusion and Financial Crisis

This paper suggests one set of mechanisms that ties financial globalization processes to local dynamics of financial inclusion or exclusion. Specifically, this paper explores the worldwide reconsideration of financial firms’ strategies that has accompanied financial globalization. It is shown that the neoliberal and asymmetric‐information approaches to credit markets and financial crises in developing economies overlook these dimensions of financial globalization because of their tendency to focus on representative credit markets. Banks’ strategic shift has led to the global homogenization and stratification of financial practices—and this in turn has been a key driver of processes of financial exclusion. Financial exclusion then involves bifurcation within financial markets, so that different markets serve different portions of the household and business population. This analysis suggests a reconstruction of Minsky’s microfoundational model of the origins of financial fragility and crisis, which shifts from Minsky’s emphasis on a representative borrower–lender relationship to a situation of borrower–lender relationships in bifurcated markets.     

Making study abroad a reality for all students

One of the most widely discussed and highly agreed upon curricular issues for business and economic programs is the need to integrate international topics into the curriculum. Evidence indicates that little progress has been made in achieving this objective. To ignite the process of internationalizing the curriculum, a departmental study abroad program, based on the experience of Niagara University and Schiller International University, is proposed. Unlike most study abroad models, this approach systematically links the curricula of the host and domestic institutions. Faculty, who on most campuses are largely bystanders in the study abroad process, now assume a central role. This approach makes study abroad a major campus focus and a source of faculty development in international topics.     

INEQUALITY AND PANEL INCOME CHANGES: CONDITIONS FOR POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES

Income changes in an economy are usually assessed through the changes over time in cross-sectional variables such as economy-wide inequality. An alternative is to use panel data to gauge income changes among identified income recipients. In this article, we analyze these two approaches taken together, each measured in multiple ways. We establish that under specific conditions, it is impossible to have falling inequality together with divergent panel income changes. We also provide conditions explaining when rising inequality can arise together with convergent panel changes. We provide the intuition behind these results and show when such results fail to hold.