The Term Structure of Interest Rates in a Pure Exchange Economy with Heterogeneous Investors

This paper presents an equilibrium model of the term structure of interest rates when investors have heterogeneous preferences. The basic model considers a pure exchange economy of two classes of investors with different (but constant) relative risk-aversion and gives closed-form solutions to bond prices. We use the model to examine the effect of preference heterogeneity on the behavior of bond yields. Extensions to cases of more than two investors are also considered.

The Effects of Unemployment Insurance Taxes and Benefits on Layoffs Using Firm and Individual Data

We examine the effects of unemployment insurance (UI) experience rating on layoffs using high quality firm and individual data. Our preferred estimates imply that incomplete experience rating is responsible for over twenty percent of temporary layoffs. The results are more mixed regarding the predictions of the alternative models of UI as a firm adjustment cost or a component of the worker compensation package. While the evidence favors the adjustment cost model, some of the predictions of each of these models are rejected by at least one of our specifications. Using our new data, we also confirm the correlation between experience rating proxies and layoffs found in past studies. However, the differences between these proxies and state average firm tax costs and the anomalous instrumental variables estimates that we find suggest that it may be inappropriate to causally interpret this correlation.

Health Insurance Eligibility, Utilization of Medical care, and Child Health

The poor health status of children in the U.S. relative to other industrialized nations has motivated recent efforts to extend insurance coverage to underprivileged children. There is little past evidence that extending eligibility for public insurance to previously ineligible groups will increase health status or even utilization of medical resources. Using data from the Current Population Survey, the National Health Interview Survey, and state-level data on child mortality, we examine the utilization and health effects of eligibility for public insurance. Our models are identified by the recent expansions of the Medicaid program to low income children. We find that these expansions roughly doubled the fraction of children eligible for Medicaid between 1984 and 1992; by 1992, almost 1/3 of all children were eligible. But takeup of these expansions was much less than full even among otherwise uninsured children. Despite this takeup problem, we find that eligibility for Medicaid significantly increased the utilization of medical care along a number of dimensions. Medicaid eligibility was associated with large increases in care delivered in physician's offices, although there was some increase in care in hospital settings as well. While there was no effect of eligibility on parentally-assessed subjective health measures, we do find notable reductions in child mortality. Finally, we find that rising Medicaid eligibility is associated with reductions in racial disparities in the number of visits and in child disparities in the site at which care is delivered.

International Trade Theory: The Evidence

This paper provides a critical look at recent empirical work in international trade theory. The paper addresses the issue of why empirical work in international trade has perhaps not been as influential as it could have been. The paper also provides several suggestions on directions for future empirical research in international trade.

Alcohol Policies and Highway Vehicle Fatalities

This study investigates the impact of beer taxes and a variety of alcohol-control policies on motor vehicle fatality rates, using fixed- effect models with data for the 48 contiguous states over the 1982 through 1988 time period. The econometric findings highlight the fragility of the parameter estimates to reasonable changes in model specifications. Special attention is paid to omitted variables biases resulting from failing to adequately control for grassroots efforts to reduce drunk driving, the enactment of other laws which simultaneously operate to reduce highway fatalities, and the economic conditions existing at the time of the legislation. In the preferred specifications, most of the regulations have little or no impact on traffic mortality. By contrast, higher beer taxes are associated with reductions in crash deaths and this result is relatively robust across specifications. These findings suggest the limited ability of further regulatory action to reduce drunk-driving but point to a potentially significant role for higher alcohol taxes.

Architecture for managing AAS-based business processes

Industries frequently encounter the need to orchestrate services provided by devices as business processes. These industrial business process models need to meet Industry 4.0 (I4.0) specifications to handle unpredictable scenarios in the manufacturing process. Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is considered the cornerstone of interoperability between machines and applications that compose manufacturing systems. AAS facilitates the digitization of physical things (assets) for virtual representation, turning an object into an I4.0 component. This paper investigates the usage of AAS in the context of business process orchestration and a proposal is presented based on those drawbacks. The contributions of this paper are 1) Present an architecture for the management of AAS-based business processes. 2) Introduce an AAS Submodel template that enables the description and registration of the RestServices of an asset. 3) Present a plugin for Camunda Modeler that enables the Service-Discovery mechanism from a chosen AAS repository and maps assets services into BPMN Service-Tasks. And, 4) Outline opportunities for future work between AAS and business process management systems with a primary focus on context-aware capabilities for enhancing the dynamicity of workflows

Association between APOC3 polymorphisms and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease risk: a meta-analysis

Background and Aim: The apolipoprotein C3 (APOC3) polymorphism has been reported to predispose to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the results remain inconclusive. This meta-analysis aimed to provide insights into the association between APOC3 polymorphisms and NAFLD risk. Methods: Studies with terms \u201cNALFD\u201d and \u201cAPOC3\u201d were retrieved from PubMed, Web of Science, CNKI and Wanfang databases up to August 1, 2019. Pooled odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for the association of APOC3 polymorphisms and NAFLD risk were calculated using fixed and random-effects models. Results: A total of twelve studies from eleven articles were included. Of them, eight studies (1750 cases and 2181 controls) reported the strong association of variant rs2854116 with NAFLD and six studies (1523 cases and 1568 controls) found the association of rs2854117 polymorphism with NAFLD. Overall, a statistically significant association between rs2854116 polymorphism of APOC3 gene and NAFLD risk was found only under dominant model. However, association of rs2854117 polymorphism with NAFLD risk was not detected under all four genetic models. In sub-group analysis of NAFLD subjects based on country, no association among them in China was detected. Besides, four studies analyze the association between the two polymorphisms and clinical characteristics in all subjects or NAFLD patients, and we also failed detect any association between the wild carriers and variant carriers. Conclusion: The meta-analyses suggests that the rs2854116 polymorphism but not rs2854117 polymorphism in APOC3 gene might be a risk factor for NAFLD among Asians. That is, individuals with CT+CC genotype have higher risk of developing NAFLD. However, studies with sufficient sample size are needed for the further validation

Do Wages Rise with Job Seniority? A Reassessment

We provide new estimates of the return to job seniority using data similar to that used by Abraham and Farber (1987), Altonji and Shakotko (1987) and Topel (1991) as well as a new PSID sample. Topel's use of a wage and a tenure that refer to different years, his use of the Current Population Survey to detrend the PSID, and differences between Altonji and Shakotko's estimator and Topel's estimator explain the fact that Topel obtains much larger estimates. The evidence from the data used by AS and Topel points to an effect of ten years of tenure on the log wage equal to .11, which is above AS's preferred estimate of .066 but far below Topel's estimate. However, this estimate is probably biased upward by the wage measure used in all three studies. We also obtain a modest estimate of the return to seniority using data for 1983-1991.

Does Measured School Quality Really Matter? An Examination of the Earnings-Quality Relationship

This paper examines the economic and empirical foundations of the aggregate evidence on the effect of schooling quality on earnings. A common framework is presented which nests all previous studies as special cases. We discuss two crucial identifying assumptions and test them. The first assumption is the absence of region of birth - region of resident interactions in the return to schooling. This rules out patterns of migration on the basis of realized earnings in the destination state. Both parametric and nonparametric versions of this hypothesis are tested. Using 1970, 1980 and 1990 Census data, it is decisively rejected. A second assumption is that log earnings equations are linear - or nearly linear in schooling. This assumption is false. We find that estimated earnings-quality relationships are sensitive to specification of the earnings function. When false linearity assumptions are relaxed, the only effect of measured schooling quality is on the returns for college graduates. The evidence for an aggregate earnings-quality relationship is weak once false empirical restrictions are relaxed.