Pharmaceutical cost‐sharing systems and savings for healthcare systems from parallel trade

This paper studies the consequences of parallel trade in a two‐country model. It compares a coinsurance scheme (consumers pay a percentage of the drug price) and an indemnity insurance scheme (reimbursement is independent of the drug price) with respect to changes in copayments and public health expenditure. In the destination country, copayments for patients decrease to a larger extent under indemnity insurance, whereas reductions in public health expenditure occur only under coinsurance. In the source country, copayments increase less under coinsurance, whereas health expenditure is reduced more under indemnity insurance. In both countries, total expenditure under parallel trade is lower.     

Estimating yield curves of the U.S. Treasury securities: An interpolation approach

Following the approach of interpolation, this paper proposes the multiple exponential decay model to fit yield curves for both the U.S. TIPS market and the conventional Treasury security market. Several estimation methods, including the unconstrained/constrained nonlinear minimization, quadratic programming, and the iterative linear least squares, are applied to estimate the unknown parameters according to different curve‐fitting purposes. Comparisons between the proposed model and the alternatives show that the multiple exponential decay successfully (1) adapts to a variety of shapes associated with yield curves, (2) (partially) keeps in line with the economic interpretations of Nelson–Siegel summarized by Diebold and Li ( 2006 ), and (3) dominates the competing models in curve‐fitting performance measured by mean fitted‐price errors over the sample period. In addition, the exact specification of a nonparametric interpolation model is pinned down by applying three statistical tools, which enable us to jointly take into account validity, optimality, and parsimoniousness of the proposed model.     

The approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents,translog, and generalized Leontief forms

This paper compares the approximation capabilities of the minflex-Laurents translog and minflex generalized Leontief cost functions with their translog and generalized Leontief counterparts in Monte Carlo experiments. The minflex Laurent specifications generally provided closer approximations to underlying technical and economic parameters. Imposition of nonlinear restrictions on some of the parameters of the minflex Laurent models yielded measurable improvement in estimated elasticities of substitutions, returns to scale, and rates of technical change.The refereeing process of this paper was handled through E. Appelbaum.     

What Determines Real Exchange Rates? The Nordic Countries

The model derived in this paper yields testable implications concerning the long‐run co‐movements of real exchange rates, relative labor productivity, the trade balance and terms of trade. Countries with relatively higher output growth, trade deficits or improved terms of trade are found to have more appreciated real exchange rates, with the main channel of transmission working through the relative price of nontraded goods. Exogenous terms‐of‐trade shocks are found to be the most important determinant of long‐run movements in the real exchange rate for Denmark and Norway, while demand shocks account for most of the long‐run variance in the real exchange rate for Finland and Sweden.     

Why Money Growth Determines Inflation in the Long Run: Answering the Woodford Critique

Woodford argues that it is not appropriate to regard inflation in the steady state of New Keynesian models as determined by steady‐state money growth. Woodford instead argues that the intercept term in the monetary authority's interest rate policy rule determines steady‐state inflation. In this paper, I offer an alternative interpretation of steady‐state behavior, according to which it is appropriate to regard steady‐state inflation as determined by steady‐state money growth. The argument relies on traditional interpretations of the central bank's power in the long run and appeals to model properties that are common to textbook and New Keynesian analysis. According to this argument, the only way the central bank can control interest rates in the long run is via affecting inflation, and its only means available for determining inflation is by determining the money growth rate.     

论有效金融监管与我国金融现代化

有效金融监管是指金融监管当局为实现维护金融体系稳定和鼓励市场创新目标而进行的效率和效果并重的金融监管。基于对国际经验教训和我国金融现代化基本特征的现实考虑，我国应通过对金融监管体制的审慎调整与变革，通过树立风险为本的监管理念、构建和混业经营相适应的金融监管组织体系、加速培育有效金融监管的外部条件等措施，不断加强有效金融监管，稳步推进金融现代化，并以此促进我国经济发展的现代化。     

Relative Guarantees

Many real-world financial contracts have some sort of minimum rate of return guarantee included. One class of these guarantees is so-called relative guarantees, i.e., guarantees where the minimum guaranteed rate of return is given as a function of the stochastic return on a reference portfolio. These guarantees are the topic of this paper. We analyse a wide range of different functional specifications for the minimum guaranteed rate of return, hereunder both so-called maturity and multi-period guarantees. Several closed form solutions are presented.     

新形势下我国耕地保护的长效机制研究

耕地是人类赖以生存的物质基础，是国民经济和社会发展的宝贵资源，耕地数量的多少和质量优劣直接关系到国家粮食安全和社会稳定。因此，在新形势下，如何保护好有限的耕地资源，促进经济社会科学、合理地发展，已成为当今世界的重大课题。本文根据我国耕地减少的现实危机及原因，提出一套科学、合理的耕地保护长效机制，力求为进一步有效地保护耕地资源提供理论基础和现实途径。     

Optimal failure rates and penalty-bonus policies in the offshore petroleum sector

We characterize optimal time profiles of risk-reducing expenditures and wreck probabilities for petroleum platforms. The input to our analysis is the development of wreck cost, direct and imputed. Particular attention is paid to the question of how private companies deviating from socially optimal standards may be induced to comply with such standards by means of a) a time-variant penalty, b) a no-wreck bonus and c) a time-invariant penalty.     

塑窗组装与安装的管理

塑窗组装与安装的管理是塑窗厂的一项重要工作，章对塑窗组装与安装的管理环节，应采取哪些控制和协调进行了分析，提出了加强这些管理的措施。