The medical tourism index: Scale development and validation

Medical tourism is an estimated $100 billion dollar industry. Despite the increasing number of people, companies and countries involved in medical tourism, we know very little about the key drivers and how countries are perceived as medical tourism destinations. The purpose of this paper is to present the Medical Tourism Index, a new type of country-based performance measure to assess the attractiveness of a country as a medical tourist destination. We followed a rigorous multi-steps scale development procedure by using four empirical studies based on 4995 respondents. The MTI is a multidimensional construct with 4 dimensions (country, tourism, medical costs, medical facility and services) with 34 underlying items. Our results show the MTI allows to measure meaningful differences between countries, not only on an aggregated level but also on each sub-indexes. It provides a useful tool for the various stakeholders to measure and manage their medical tourism destination brand.     

Labor Unemployment Concern and Corporate Discretionary Disclosure

We investigate how firms strategically vary their disclosure policies in response to labor unemployment concern. Using changes in state unemployment insurance laws as exogenous variations of labor unemployment concern, we show that firms provide more bad news forecasts when unemployment concern is low. This relation is stronger when firms are financially constrained, when CEOs and CFOs have higher equity incentives, and when workers are likely to be affected more by unemployment. Our findings are not driven by earnings management reversal or underlying performance changes, and are robust to a battery of identification tests. Finally, we find a similar effect of unemployment concern on disclosure using the tone of 10‐K and 10‐Q filings as an alternative proxy for corporate disclosure. Overall, our findings suggest that labor unemployment concern is an important consideration for corporate discretionary disclosure.     

Risk-based capital for credit insurers with business cycles and dynamic leverage

This paper develops a risk-based capital pricing model for credit insurance portfolios held by a vulnerable insurer. The model accounts for business cycles using a two-state Markov switching model, and allows for dynamic leverage adjustment by the insured firms. The new proposed model, which incorporates risk-based capital practice, is better for both the insurer and the insured firms. Based on the risk-adjusted performance metric, we found that the insurer is better off insuring short- and medium-term loans in expansion and steady states, while it is better off backing both short- and long-term loans in recessions. Our results also emphasize that macroeconomic uncertainty significantly impairs the creditworthiness of the insurer and insured firms.     

汽车保险精算定价模型研究综述

汽车保险定价模型在非寿险精算领域内占有重要地位,本文对车险定价模型一百多年来的研究进展作了综述性的回顾。首先,本文介绍了车险定价模型的先验估费方法;其次着重介绍了时齐的后验估费方法,以及时变的先验后验相结合的精算模型;最后提出了车险定价模型的未来发展方向。     

Strengthening the Global Financial Safety Net: Challenges and Prospects

The paper shares the idea on the current global financial circumstance; whereas rapid financial globalization was a basic source of the systemic risks of the global financial crisis, the world economy is even more integrated in the aftermath of the global crisis. It emphasizes the importance of the global community to strengthening the GFSN to respond to a crisis. Kim argues that the GFSN should be a multi-layered structure, and only a single layer alone would not be sufficient to handle the global crisis due to its impact of economic damage. More specifically, the paper suggests a multi-layered structure of the GFSN as follows: self-insurance with foreign exchange reserves, bilateral currency swaps by central banks, RFAs already influencing regional financial recourse and stability in several regions, and global arrangements, such as the IMF facilities.     

中国商业保险滞后原因分析

文章简要回顾了中国商业保险的发展历程,并从商业保险的需求和供给两个方面探究了滞后的原因,最后给出了政策性建议。     

关于菏泽市失业保险促进就业和稳定就业的调查与思考

为充分发挥失业保险在新形势下促进就业和稳定就业的作用,文章从实践的角度对菏泽市近两年失业保险促进就业和稳定就业的作用进行了调查研究分析,找出了目前存在的问题,并提出相应的意见和建议。     

保险赔偿金作为遗产继承的实务研究——关于投保人指定“法定”受益人的探讨

投保人专业知识的匮乏以及保险代理人执业的不规范和保险公司审核保单的疏漏,使得近年来投保人指定受益人为＂法定＂的情形在人身保险中时有出现。对于保单上受益人一栏为＂法定＂的情形,宜将其作未指定受益人来理解。保险赔偿金也将作为被保险人的遗产,由在事故发生时被保险人的法定继承人按《中华人民共和国继承法》予以继承。     

基本公共服务均等化如何促进了个人创业--来自医保改革的证据

在高质量发展目标下,推行基本公共服务均等化、促进大众创业是中国经济新常态下的工作重点。基于中国城镇职工基本医疗保险在创业者和非创业者之间可得性的外生差异,本文使用中国健康与营养调查(CHNS)的微观数据,研究社会保险这一基本公共服务在创业者和非创业者之间的相对可得性如何影响个人的创业决策。我们发现,如果城镇职工基本医疗保险对于非创业者更可得,将成为“创业枷锁”,降低个人选择创业的可能性;如果城镇职工基本医疗保险对于创业者更可得,将成为“创业催化剂”,提高个人选择创业的可能性。此外,我们发现,城镇职工基本医疗保险的“创业催化剂”作用对于来自中等收入家庭和小家庭的个人更为显著,而“创业枷锁”效应则更多地影响城镇职工基本医疗保险在薪酬体系中重要性更高的个体。本文认为中国的社会保险对于大众创业具有积极正面的影响。这对于我国社会保险制度的设计和促进经济高质量发展具有重要意义。