Economies of scale in steam-electric power generation in East-North-Central U.S.

In this study the author investigates firm-level cross-sectional unit cost advantages for electricity generation for 31 regulated private steam-electric utilities in East-North-Central U.S. region during 1987. The production technology is modeled using the implied dual minimum total variable cost translog methodology. Estimates of Zellner’s Seemingly Unrelated Regressions indicate a smooth non-homothetic technology, a typical regional firm-level scale economies of about 0.263, and an implied mean cost-output elasticity of about 0.737. Significant scale economies exist for several of the smaller utilities. The findings support policies which steer energy-intensive industrial location decisions in a direction which captures unutilized unit cost economies in electricity generation.     

Charitable Giving of Alumni

A bstract . This research examines the "age-donation" profile of gift-giving alumniai a large public university , based on a pooled micro-data random sample of 4,242 alumni (1926/27-1989/90 graduates) who gave cash gifts during the 1975/76-1989/90 fiscal years. The covariance regression model results indicate lack of statistically significant difference between gift-giving women and men. However, the School of Business graduates , alumni who proceeded to obtain graduate degrees from this university, and alumni members of non-Greek social organizations gave significantly more. Moreover, alumni contributions varied systematically over the business cycle and a 1962 Federal Court Order to desegregate the university racially reduced donations but not significantly. Given the 63-year cycle studied, the growth rates of alumni donations of money are projected to decline after roughly age 52, which falls short of the typical retirement age.     

Are Factor Substitutions in HMO Industry Operations Cost Saving?

Past research on the potentials for cost-saving scale and scope economies in multiproduct HMO operations in the United States are incomplete in their economics of the underlying technology structure. This article exploits the translog cost model estimates of all past studies of HMO production to infer the extent to which pairwise factor substitutions (e.g., administrative services vs. medical care resources, e.g., hospital days, physician services) suggest potential for cost savings in groups and independent practice associations. Given the industry's nonhomothetic production over a 20-year period, the conceptually valid Morishima elasticity measure at constant output reveals limited cost-saving potentials from factor interchange and input demands. These opportunities differ for groups and IPAs across Medicare and non-Medicare products. My findings add a timely and significant dimension to understanding potential cost savings in HMO operations. Policy suggestions and cost implications are rationalized in light of the declining Medicare HMO enrollment and recent changes in factor input prices.     

Sensitivity of generalized translog model estimates to alternative Pythagorean means: Evidence from US healthcare

The generalized translog cost (GTLC) methodology is widely used in applied econometric modeling of production. Usually without rationale, the mean expansion point is overwhelmingly the arithmetic. However, the arithmetic mean could yield biased estimates and inferences. Consequently, our core innovation is testing operational inferences from fitting a dual GTLC model to multiple expansion points of data concerning US physical therapy, an increasingly vital industry. Our panel data includes 4,500 bi‐weekly observations across 27 US states. The study clearly demonstrates how the economic contents (e.g., economies of scale and elasticities) of the underlying production technology differ markedly across the three Pythagorean means.     

Cost-Output Relation,Technological Progress,and Clinical Activity Mix of US Hospital Pharmacies

The fairly recent discovery and growing use of costly, revolutionary biotechnology drugs (e.g., GM-CSFs) in hospitals represent a major technical innovation in clinical pharmacy intervention. This paper models the translog production cost impacts of ten distinct clinical pharmacy tasks including pharmacokinetics, consultations with MDs, monitoring drug interactions,..., and presents results on decomposed technical change, economies of scope, scale economies, total factor productivity, and the alternatively defined pairwise factor substitution possibilities. The model was fitted to 1981–1990 time-series/cross-sectional data of US hospital pharmacies (source: Eli-Lilly Co.®). Zellner's ISURE (Iterative Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations) system estimates reveal a non-homothetic underlying technology with biased and pure technical change effects dominating scale-augmentation. Certain clinical tasks increase costs but are cost-saving if jointly produced with selective others. One of the largest and statistically significant economies of scope estimates is between monitoring drug interactions and consultations with MDs. Cost implications of findings are given in light of the recent trends in hospital pharmacy clinical activities, related professional health manpower, and piecemeal health policy reforms.     

Graduate School Alumni Donations to Academic Funds: Micro-data Evidence

A bstract . The giving profile of graduate degree alumni of a Carnegie-classified, U.S. "Doctoral Universities I" institution is investigated in this paper. For fundraising purposes, the likely gift-giving alumni are males holding old vintage Doctoral, MBA or MS degrees; however, they neither received their second graduate degree nor earned their baccalaureate degrees at this institution. Graduate degree alumni have decreasing giving profiles for many years following completion of their first graduate degree but this decrease bottoms out later in life. It continues seven more years for alumni who earned a second graduate degree at the university. The "wealth-accumulation" effect of giving tends to dominate the "earnings-effect." Doctoral degree alumni have the highest giving profile among graduate school alumni. Racial desegregation of the university is positively and strongly related to alumni giving. Inferences of the giving profile of undergraduate degree alumni reported in past work do not extend to graduate school alumni.     

Production cost structure of us hospital pharmacies: Time-series,cross-sectional bed size evidence

There are current concerns about potential factor substitutions and their implications for factor employments and cost containment in US hospital pharmacies. A translog production cost model is estimated for these pharmacies, using 1981–9 times-series data consisting of seven cross-sectional bed size classes per year. Zellner's joint GLS estimation of three-factor cost share equations and the parent translog cost function reveals that pairwise factor substitutions are severely limited; production is non-homothetic, occurring in the range of scale diseconomies; biased and pure technical change effects dominate the scale-augmenting component. Implications of findings are rationalized in the context of the emerging biopharmaceutical technologies.     

Overweight Adolescents and On-time High School Graduation: Racial and Gender Disparities

Obesity among U.S. adolescents ages 12–19 rose from 4.6% in 1963–1965 to 17.4% in 2003–2004. This paper contributes to the literature on the impact of unhealthy body mass index (BMI) on health (e.g., obesity) and human capital (e.g., schooling) investments of adolescents. We use the propensity score method to study 8,388 individuals who responded to survey Waves I through III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), for students in grades 7–12. We estimate an economic model that captures longer-term effects of BMI categories (obesity and overweight separately) on on-time (dichotomous) high school graduation. We control for characteristics at the individual, household, and community levels. Baseline probit regression estimates were improved upon by using matching estimators (propensity scores yield consistent estimate of the average treatment on the treated) based on the nearest neighbor and the more robust kernel density weighting schemes. Results from both full and reduced models suggest no adverse impact of overweight or obesity on timely high school completion for males, but a significant average negative effect on females. Investigating disparities in effects across both gender and race, we isolate the adverse effects primarily to white and Asian females. No significant effects were found for African-Americans. One of the novel contributions of our research is that the significant effects of gender- and race- specific adolescent obesity and overweight conditions reach beyond high school GPA standing to also impact on-time high school graduation status.     

Determinants of female administrative support personnel compensation at a large public university

Compared with research on faculty salaries and executive compensations, very little is known about the earnings of administrative office support personnel. This paper constructed and estimated the total compensation variant of a modified human capital earnings model, using a 1989–90 fiscal year microdata sample consisting of about 300 all-female office workers (administrative secretaries, regular secretaries and clerks) at a large public university. The total compensation (consisting of wages plus actual dollar costs of five employer-paid health/life/accident,longevity, sick leave, vacation and pension benefit plans) specification fitted the data reasonably well. The pattern of estimated differential returns to specific human capital attributes within administrative support occupations tends to be significant, and is consistent with the ‘skill atrophy’ prediction of the human capital theory. Implications of the findings for secretarial productivity, career choice decisions and opportunities for advancement are discussed.