SIRE
Not a member yet
655 research outputs found
Sort by
The Effect of Activity-Based Payment on Dentists’ Activity: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in the UK National Health Service
Get PDFThe extent to which remuneration systems affect the behaviour of health care professionals is of considerable importance in the administration of publicly funded heath care systems.
Using data across two jurisdictions in the United Kingdom, in only one of which
remuneration was changed, we compare the extent of measured dental activity at the dentist level in order to ascertain the impact of moving to activity-based remuneration. We find that there are large and statistically significant increases in activity as dentists moved to the
activity-based system and that a dentist’s previous form of contract is an important
determinant of the magnitude of the effect. We also explore the extent to which dentists’
professional attitudes can explain differences in their activity and find that some aspects of self-reported attitudes are associated with observable differences in activity
The Prospects for Activity in the UKCS to 2035: the 2008 Perspective
Get PDFNORTH SEA STUDY OCCASIONAL PAPER
No. 10
Expectations, Learning and Monetary Policy: An Overview of Recent Research
Get PDFExpectations about the future are central for determination of current
macroeconomic outcomes and the formulation of monetary policy. Recent
literature has explored ways for supplementing the benchmark of rational
expectations with explicit models of expectations formation that rely on
econometric learning. Some apparently natural policy rules turn out to imply
expectational instability of private agents’ learning. We use the standard New
Keynesian model to illustrate this problem and survey the key results about
interest-rate rules that deliver both uniqueness and stability of equilibrium
under econometric learning. We then consider some practical concerns such as
measurement errors in private expectations, observability of variables and
learning of structural parameters required for policy. We also discuss some
recent applications including policy design under perpetual learning, estimated
models with learning, recurrent hyperinflations, and macroeconomic policy to
combat liquidity traps and deflation
Flying High and Laying Low in the Public and Private Sectors: A Comparison of Pay Differentials for Full-Time Male Employees in Britain
Get PDFUsing new linked employee-employer data for Britain in 2004, this paper shows that, on average, full-time male public sector employees earn 11.7 log wage points more than their private sector counterparts. Decomposition analysis reveals that the majority of this pay premium is associated
with public sector employees having individual characteristics associated with higher pay and to their working in higher paid occupations. Further focussing analysis on the highly skilled and unskilled occupations in both sectors, reveals evidence of workplace segregation positively
impacting on earnings in the private sector for the highly skilled, and in the public sector for the unskilled. Substantial earnings gaps between the highly skilled and unskilled are found, and the unexplained components in these gaps are very similar regardless of sector
Chebyshev polynomial approximation to approximate partial differential equations
Get PDFThis paper suggests a simple method based on Chebyshev approximation at Chebyshev
nodes to approximate partial differential equations. The methodology simply consists in
determining the value function by using a set of nodes and basis functions. We provide
two examples. Pricing an European option and determining the best policy for chatting
down a machinery. The suggested method is flexible, easy to program and efficient. It is also applicable in other fields, providing efficient solutions to complex systems of partial differential equations
Public Governance, Health and Foreign Direct Investment in Sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFIn this paper we diverge from the existing empirical literature on FDI determinants
in two ways. First, we decompose the sources of the foreign direct investment (FDI) gap
between Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and other developing regions. Once market size has
been accounted for, we nd that SSA's FDI de cit is mostly explained by insufficient
provision of public goods: low human capital accumulation, especially health, in SSA
explains 100-140% of the inter-regional FDI gaps. Second, we estimate the indirect effect
of infectious diseases on FDI through their direct impact on health. We find that a 1%
point rise in HIV prevalence in the adult population is associated with a decrease in net FDI inflows of 3.5%, while a country in which 100% of the population is at risk of contracting deadly malaria receives about 16% less FDI than a similar country located in a malaria-free region
Demographic Transitions: analyzing the effects of mortality on fertility
Get PDFThe effect of mortality reductions on fertility is one of the main mechanisms stressed by the recent growth literature in order to explain demographic transitions. We analyze the empirical relevance of this mechanism based on the experience of all countries since 1960. We distinguish between the effects on gross and net fertility, take into account the dynamic nature of the relationship and control for alternative explanatory factors and for endogeneity. Our results show that mortality plays a large role in fertility reductions, that the change in fertility behavior comes with a
lag of about 10 years and that both net and gross fertility are affected.
We find comparatively little support for explanations of the demographic
transition based on economic development or technological change
Inequality, Happiness and Relative Concerns: What Actually is their Relationship?
Get PDFThis paper briefly and informally surveys different theoretical models of relative
concerns and their relation to inequality. Models of inequity aversion in
common use in experimental economics imply a negative relation between inequality
and happiness. In contrast, empirical studies on happiness typically employ
models of relative concerns that assume that increases in others’ income always
have a negative effect on own happiness. However, in these latter models, the
relation between inequality and happiness can be positive. One possible solution
is a rivalry model where a distinction is made between endowment and reward
inequality which have respectively a negative and positive effect on happiness.
These different models and their contrasting results may clarify why the empirical
relationship between inequality and happiness has been difficult to establish
Tax Structure, Growth and Welfare in the UK
Get PDFThis paper studies the quantitative implications of changes in the
composition of taxes for long-run growth and expected lifetime utility
in the UK economy over 1970-2005. Our setup is a dynamic stochastic
general equilibrium model incorporating a detailed scal policy struc-
ture, and where the engine of endogenous growth is human capital
accumulation. The government s spending instruments include pub-
lic consumption, investment and education spending. On the revenue
side, labour, capital and consumption taxes are employed. Our results
suggest that if the goal of tax policy is to promote long-run growth
by altering relative tax rates, then it should reduce labour taxes while
simultaneously increasing capital or consumption taxes to make up for
the loss in labour tax revenue. In contrast, a welfare promoting policy
would be to cut capital taxes, while concurrently increasing labour or
consumption taxes to make up for the loss in capital tax revenue
Seigniorage-maximizing inflation
Get PDFWhat is the seigniorage-maximizing level of inflation? Four models formulae
for the seigniorage maximizing inflation rate (SMIR) are compared. Two
sticky-price models arrive at very different quantitative recommendations
although both predict somewhat lower SMIRs than Cagan’s formula and a
variant of a .ex-price model due to Kimbrough (2006). The models differ
markedly in how inflation distorts the labour market: The Calvo model
implies that inflation and output are negatively related and that output is
falling in price stickiness whilst the Rotemberg cost-of-price-adjustment
model implies exactly the opposite. Interestingly, if our version of the Calvo
model is to be believed, the level of inflation experienced recently in
advanced economies such as the USA and the UK may be quite close to
the SMIR