Economic Valuation of Health for Environmental Policy: Comparing Alternative Approaches. Introduction and Overview

Protecting human health is a primary goal of environmental policy and economic evaluation of health can help policy-makers judge the relative worth of alternative actions. Economists use two distinct approaches in normatively evaluating health. Whereas environmental economists use benefit-cost analysis supported by monetary valuation in terms of willingness-to-pay, health economists evaluate interventions based on cost-effectiveness or cost-utility analysis (CEA), using quality-adjusted life-years (QALY) or similar indexes. This paper provides background on the controversy about the relative merits of these approaches and introduces the remaining papers in the special issue. These papers (with one exception) were presented at a conference sponsored by the Department of Economics at the University of Central Florida with support from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although CEA might not lead to substantially different implications for environmental policy than benefit-cost analysis, and QALY may provide a benefit transfer tool to fill gaps in the morbidity valuation literature, the papers in this issue raise serious concerns about the suitability of QALY-based CEA for environmental regulatory analysis. QALY does not in general appropriately represent individual preferences for health and CEA is neither independent of income distribution nor adequate to assess efficiency.     

Willingness to Pay to Reduce Mortality Risks: Evidence from a Three-Country Contingent Valuation Study

Valuing a change in the risk of death is a key input into the calculation of the benefits of environmental policies that save lives. Typically such risks are monetized using the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL). Since the majority of the lives saved by environmental policies are those of older persons, there has been much recent debate about whether the VSL should be lower for the elderly to reflect their fewer remaining life years. We conducted a contingent valuation survey in the UK, Italy and France designed to answer this question. The survey was administered in these three countries following a standardized protocol. Our results suggest that the VSL is €1.022 million or €2.264 million, depending on whether we use median or mean WTP. The VSL is not significantly lower for older persons, but is higher for persons who have been admitted to a hospital or emergency room for cardiovascular and respiratory problems. Income is positively and significantly associated with WTP. The income elasticities of the WTP increase gradually with income levels and are between 0.15 and 0.5 for current income levels in EU countries. We use the responses to the WTP questions to estimate the value of an extension in remaining life expectancy. The value of a loss of one year’s life expectancy is €54,000 or €163,000.     

机场净空区超高障碍物风险性分析

针对机场净空区超高障碍物较多的现象,对飞机飞行航迹进行了测试,提出了净空安全系数的概念,结合实际测试数据,应用统计分析原理,得出了净空安全系数的概率分布规律.以安全系数的分布规律为基础,对不同超高障碍物的风险性进行了分析,并提出了按照不同安全系数划分障碍物限制高度的思路,最后给出了不同类型机场净空安全系数的建议值,对各类机场净空管理和障碍物限制面的确定具有重要参考价值.     

Estimation methods for stochastic volatility models: a survey

Abstract.  Although stochastic volatility (SV) models have an intuitive appeal, their empirical application has been limited mainly due to difficulties involved in their estimation. The main problem is that the likelihood function is hard to evaluate. However, recently, several new estimation methods have been introduced and the literature on SV models has grown substantially. In this article, we review this literature. We describe the main estimators of the parameters and the underlying volatilities focusing on their advantages and limitations both from the theoretical and empirical point of view. We complete the survey with an application of the most important procedures to the S&P 500 stock price index.     

军工企业统计信息化建设的问题及对策

文章从湖南地方军工企业实际出发,论述了统计信息化建设是军工企业发展的必然选择,分析了军工企业统计信息化建设的现状及存在的主要问题,并提出了军工企业统计信息化建设对策和建议。     

Pricing-to-market tests in instrumental regressions: Case of the transportation equipment industry

Pricing-to-market (PTM) theory suggests that exporting monopolistic firms adjust their destination-specific mark-ups in the face of exchange rate shocks. A large proportion of the existing evidence for PTM comes from Wald tests applied to OLS- and IV-estimated parameters of single-equation models. Such tests can seriously over-reject in the presence of endogeneity and weak instruments so that some of the available results supporting PTM could be spurious. In this paper we revisit the PTM evidence for Japanese and German exporting firms in the transportation equipment industry. Using the model of Marston (1990), we apply exogeneity and LR-LIML-based tests for which the error probability is controlled irrespective of the quality of the available instruments. Our results show right-hand-side endogeneity in almost all of the examined PTM equations. In addition, we find that statistical decisions often differ depending on whether they are based on the traditional Wald test or on our proposed test.The authors would like to thank Philippe Barla, Jean-Thomas Bernard, Christos Constantatos, Larry Schembri, seminar participants at the Bank of Canada, and two anonymous referees for useful comments and suggestions. Thanks also to Richard Marston for providing data. Finally, a special thanks to Marjorie Santos for excellent research assistance. All remaining errors are our own and should not be attributed to the Bank of Canada.First version received: May 2002/Final version received: December 2002     

1998年中国上市公司并购实践的效应分析

对上市公司的收购是中国股市近些年出现的新现象 ,本文以 1 998年深沪两市发生的全部 67家公司的并购为样本 ,以公司净资产收益率 (NROA)和主业利润率(CROA)为指标 ,将所有样本根据并购原因划分为 6类 ,以并购前 2年和并购后 3年的数据为基础 ,系统分析了并购的效应与得失。在此基础上 ,还讨论了国有企业与民营企业作为收购方的并购效应和并购的有偿转让与无偿划拨方式的不同结果。文章的结论是 :业绩较差的公司较愿出让控股权 ;多数并购是战略性的 ,获上市地位是主要的并购动力 ;并购后主业得到明显加强 ;市场化的战略性并购效果较好 ,有偿并购的效果也较好。     

外汇高顺差形势下外汇统计监测应对策略探讨

在当前外汇收支统计监测中，资本项目和经常项目外汇收支相互融合，离岸外汇收支混入在岸外汇收支，个人跨境外汇收支流动增势迅猛。要加强外汇统计监测，就要加快设计和构建外汇信息统计监测体系，加强统计监测，建立各类监测分析的快捷反应机制。     

统计技术在计量标准考核中的应用

阐述了计量标准考核的现状及存在问题，提出了在计量标准考核中运用数理统计技术的具体方法、步骤，即通过核查标准建立测量过程统计控制，进而实现实验室的运行控制。