The economic burden of depression among adults with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States

Aims: Depression is the most frequent comorbidity reported among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Comorbid depression negatively impacts RA patients’ health-related quality-of-life, physical function, mental function, mortality, and experience of pain and symptom severity. The objective of this study was to assess healthcare utilization, expenditures, and work productivity among patients with RA with or without depression.

Materials and methods: Data from adult patients who had at least two visits each related to RA and depression over a 1-year period were extracted from the Truven Health MarketScan research databases. Outcomes comprised healthcare resource utilization, work productivity loss, and direct healthcare costs comparing patients with RA with depression (n?=?3,478) vs patients with RA without depression (n?=?43,222).

Results: Patients with RA and depression had a significantly greater relative risk of hospitalization and number of all-cause and RA-related hospitalizations, utilization of emergency services, days spent in the hospital, physician visits, and RA-related surgeries compared with RA patients without depression. Patients with RA and depression had a higher risk of and experienced more events and days of short-term disability compared with patients without depression. The incremental adjusted annual all-cause and RA-related direct costs were $8,488 (95% CI = $6,793–$10,223) and $578 (95% CI = –$98–$1,243), respectively, when comparing patients with RA and depression vs RA only.

Limitations: The current analysis is subject to the known limitations of retrospective studies based on administrative claims data.

Conclusions: This study suggested increased healthcare utilization, work productivity loss, and economic burden among RA patients due to comorbid depression. These findings emphasize the importance of managing depression and including depression as a factor when devising treatment algorithms for patients with RA.     

Managing organizational entry in China: the roles of newcomer–supervisor exchange,incumbent support,and perceived insider status

The socialization literature has long recognized the important role of perceived insider status in facilitating newcomer adjustment, but knowledge on how to cultivate this desirable psychological state is limited. This study examines newcomer–supervisor exchange as an antecedent of perceived insider status of newcomers, which in turn facilitates their social adjustment and task mastery during organizational entry. We also explore incumbent support as a boundary condition for these effects. We conducted a survey study on 320 new employees and 92 supervisors in China. This study revealed that newcomer–supervisor exchange was related positively to newcomers’ perceived insider status, and perceived insider status mediated the positive relationships of newcomer–supervisor exchange with social adjustment and task mastery. In addition, incumbent support moderated the positive relationship between newcomer–supervisor exchange and perceived insider status, as well as the positive mediated relationships of newcomer–supervisor exchange with social adjustment and task mastery through perceived insider status. Specifically, these relationships were weaker when incumbent support was higher. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.     

Influential factors on Chinese airlines’ profitability and forecasting methods

We establish profit models to predict the performance of airlines in the short term using the quarterly profit data collected on the three largest airlines in China together with additional recent historical data on external influencing factors. In particular, we propose the application of the LASSO estimation method to this problem and we compare its performance with a suite of other more modern state-of-the-art approaches including ridge regression, support vector regression, tree regression and neural networks. It is shown that LASSO generally outperforms the other approaches in this study. We concluded a number of findings on the oil price and other influential factors on Chinese airline profitability.     

Debt Issue Costs and Issue Characteristics in the Market for U.S. Dollar Denominated International Bonds

This paper analyzes the issue costs and initial pricing of bonds in the international market. In particular, we investigate the determinants of three components of issue costs: underwriter fee, underwriter spread (the difference between the offering price and the guaranteed price to the issuer), and underpricing (the difference between the market price and the offering price). Total underwriter compensation increases with the bonds' credit risk and maturity, but it is insignificantly related to issue size. Interestingly, underwriters appear to price some issue characteristics directly (by adjusting the fee) and other characteristics indirectly (by setting the guaranteed price). The two compensation components (fee and spread) are negatively related to each other. We provide evidence that this trade-off is consistent with income tax considerations, as well as with two-tier pricing by underwriters. We find no evidence of underpricing.     

美国调节区域经济差异的财政措施及启示

美国的地理位置和历史文化决定了美国区域经济的发展严重不平衡.本文分析了美国政府对落后地区经济的财政调节措施,这对我国在市场经济条件下调节区域经济,推进西部大开发,一定具有深刻的启示.     

我国外汇储备：安全性、成本风险及对策

我国外汇储备狭义上的安全性，即外汇储备资产本身的安全令人担忧。我国已经为高额的外汇储备付出巨大成本和承担了很高的风险，同时，高额外汇储备也对我国经济发展产生了一系列负面影响和风险。从这个意义上来看，我国外汇储备的现状已成为威胁金融安全的一个重要隐患。因此，我国外汇储备政策的调整已经刻不容缓。     

Uncertainty Associated with Future Environmental Costs and the Market's Differential Response to Earnings Information

This study examines whether the uncertainty arising from a firm's exposure to future environmental costs (environmental uncertainty) affects the market's price sensitivity to reported earnings. Specifically, when environmental uncertainty is significantly high, are investors more responsive to reported earnings released by 'high-polluting' firms than reported earnings announced by 'low-polluting' firms within the same industry? The initial impact of Title IV (the acid rain provisions) of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (1990 CAAA) on the US electric utility industry provides the research setting required to isolate the effects of environmental uncertainty while addressing this question. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that the earnings response coefficients (ERCs) of high-polluting electric utilities are significantly greater than those of their low-polluting counterparts during a predicted period of elevated environmental uncertainty. In adjoining sample years associated with lower environmental uncertainty, we observe no statistical difference in the magnitude of the ERCs between these two groups. In addition, the study's findings suggest that the magnitude of the ERC is increasing in the firm's exposure to future environmental costs, after controlling for other factors that potentially affect ERCs.     

Debtor-in-possession financing

Several recent papers have documented the benefits of debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing in the restructuring of firms in Chapter 11. However, the view on benefits is not unanimous and some legal scholars have raised doubts about DIP financing's effects on debt-holders and the possibility of expropriative wealth transfers. In this paper we address this issue by analyzing both stock and bond price data for a comprehensive sample of DIP loans and find significant positive abnormal stock and bond returns at the announcement of DIP loans. Also, we do not find evidence of wealth transfers from junior to senior debt-holders. Further, we examine the DIP loan process in detail and we document important institutional features of DIP loans such as maturity, covenants, fees and interest charges. We find evidence of intense monitoring using covenants. We also find higher fees and charges associated with DIP loans. We argue that overall the results are consistent with the information processing role of financial intermediaries.