A New Method for Identifying the Effects of Foreign Exchange Interventions

The monetary authorities react even to intraday changes in the exchange rate; however, in most cases, intervention data is available only at a daily frequency. This temporal aggregation makes it difficult to identify the effects of interventions on the exchange rate. We propose a new method based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulations to cope with this endogeneity problem: We use "data augmentation" to obtain intraday intervention amounts and then estimate the efficacy of interventions using the augmented data. Applying this method to Japanese data, we find that an intervention of one trillion yen moves the yen/dollar rate by 1.7 percent, which is more than twice as large as the magnitude reported in previous studies applying OLS to daily observations. This shows the quantitative importance of the endogeneity problem due to temporal aggregation.Foreign exchange intervention, Intraday data, Markov-chain Monte Carlo method, Endogeneity problem, Temporal aggregation

Structural Break or Asymmetry? An Empirical Study of the Stock Wealth Effect on Consumption

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the stock wealth effect of consumption exhibits structural change(s) or behaves asymmetrically over business cycles. We first perform a general test of linearity for the behavior of aggregate consumption in response to changes in stock wealth based on Hamilton's (2001) approach. When a nonlinear relation is discovered, we move on to investigate the source(s) of this nonlinearity. We consider two types of nonlinearity: structural break and asymmetry. It is of interest to policy makers whether the sensitivity of consumption to changes in households' financial wealth shows a significant shift over time due to institutional and policy changes, and whether consumption is likely to decline more due to stock wealth shrinkage when the economy is in a downturn, as has been found in investmeconsumption, stock wealth, asymmetric effect, structural change

Do post-migration perceptions of social mobility matter for Latino immigrant health?

Latino immigrants exhibit health declines with increasing duration in the United States, which some attribute to a loss in social status after migration or downward social mobility. Yet, research into the distribution of perceived social mobility and patterned associations to Latino health is sparse, despite extensive research to show that economic and social advancement is a key driver of voluntary migration. We investigated Latino immigrant sub-ethnic group variation in the distribution of perceived social mobility, defined as the difference between respondents' perceived social status of origin had they remained in their country of origin and their current social status in the U.S. We also examined the association between perceived social mobility and past-year major depressive episode (MDE) and self-rated fair/poor physical health, and whether Latino sub-ethnicity moderated these associations. We computed weighted logistic regression analyses using the Latino immigrant subsample (N = 1561) of the National Latino and Asian American Study. Puerto Rican migrants were more likely to perceive downward social mobility relative to Mexican and Cuban immigrants who were more likely to perceive upward social mobility. Perceived downward social mobility was associated with increased odds of fair/poor physical health and MDE. Latino sub-ethnicity was a statistically significant moderator, such that perceived downward social mobility was associated with higher odds of MDE only among Puerto Rican and Other Latino immigrants. In contrast, perceived upward social mobility was not associated with self-rated fair/poor physical health. Our findings suggest that perceived downward social mobility might be an independent correlate of health among Latino immigrants, and might help explain Latino sub-ethnic group differences in mental health status. Future studies on Latino immigrant health should use prospective designs to examine the physiological and psychological costs associated with perceived changes in social status with integration into the U.S. mainland

Transnational ties and past-year major depressive episodes among Latino immigrants

Latino immigrants live in an increasingly global world in which maintaining contact with kin in the home country is easier than ever. We examined (a) the annual distribution of remittances burden (percentage of remittances/household income) and visits to the home country, (b) the association of these transnational ties with a past-year major depressive episode (MDE), and (c) moderation by Latino subethnicity or gender. We conducted weighted logistic regression analyses with the Latino immigrant subsample (N = 1,614) of the National Latino and Asian American Study. Mexican and Other Latino immigrants had greater remittances burden than Puerto Rican migrants. Cuban immigrants made the fewest visits back home. After adjustment for sociodemographics and premigration psychiatric history, remittances burden decreased odds of MDE (odds ratio [OR] = 0.80, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.67, .0.98]), whereas visits back home increased odds of MDE (OR = 1.04, 95% CI [1.01, 1.06]). Latino subethnicity was not a significant moderator. Visits back home were more strongly linked to depression among women than men. The distribution of transnational ties differs by Latino subgroup, although its association with depression is similar across groups. Monetary giving through remittances might promote a greater sense of self-efficacy, and caregiving for relatives back home that positively affect mental health. Visits back home, especially for women, might signal social stress from strained relationships with kin, spouses, or children left behind, or increased caregiving demands that negatively affect mental health. Clinical practice with immigrants should routinely assess the social resources and strains that fall outside national borders

Bronchioloalveolar carcinoma

AbstractBronchioloalveolar carcinoma is a subtype of adenocarcinoma of the lung with a relatively better prognosis. We reviewed the cases of 50 consecutive patients with bronchioloalveolar carcinoma treated during a 10-year period and attempted to analyze factors related to prognosis. During the 10-year study period, the prevalence of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma relative to adenocarcinoma of the lung remained steady. The subjects included 32 male and 18 female patients with mean ages of 64.7 years and 55.1 years, respectively (p = 0.0030). The preoperative radiographic findings included 40 cases of localized and 10 cases of diffuse bronchioloalveolar carcinoma. The clinicopathologic TNM staging included 20 patients with stage I cancer, 4 with stage II cancer, 11 with stage IIIa cancer, 3 with stage IIIb cancer, and 12 with stage IV cancer. Forty patients with clinical stage I, II, or III disease underwent operation (operability 80%). The resectability rate was 90% (36 of 40). Thirty-four procedures were considered as curative. The overall cumulative survival at 5 years was 22.2% (46.4% for stage I). Different TNM stages showed significant differences in survival time (p = 0.0001). The median survival times were 64.6 months for stage I, 48.0 months for stage II, 24.7 months for stage IIIa, 9.0 months for stage IIIb, and 4.5 months for stage IV disease. The median survival time for localized bronchioloalveolar carcinoma was 27.5 months, and the median survival time for diffuse bronchioloalveolar carcinoma was 4.3 months (p = 0.0002). The median survival time for the curative resection group was 30.6 months, and the median survival time for the noncurative resection or nonresection group was 5.8 months (p = 0.0001). On the basis of this study we conclude that (1) the prevalence of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma is quite steady, (2) bronchioloalveolar carcinoma presents at an earlier age in women, (3) bronchioloalveolar carcinoma frequently presents with lymphatic spread or systemic metastasis at diagnosis, (4) most localized bronchioloalveolar carcinomas are resectable and the prognosis with this type is better than that of the diffuse type, and (5) long-term survival correlates closely with initial roentgenographic appearance, TNM stage, and completeness of surgical resection. (J THORAC CARDIOVASC SURG 1995;110:374-81

Statistics Can Lie but Can also Correct for Lies: Reducing Response Bias in NLAAS via Bayesian Imputation

The National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS) is a large scale survey of psychiatric epidemiology, the most comprehensive survey of this kind. A unique feature of NLAAS is its embedded experiment for estimating the effect of alternative orderings of interview questions. The findings from the experiment are not completely unexpected, but nevertheless alarming. Compared to the survey results from the widely used traditional ordering, the self-reported psychiatric service-use rates are often doubled or even tripled under a more sensible ordering introduced by NLAAS. These findings explain certain perplexing empirical findings in literature, but at the same time impose some grand challenges. For example, how can one assess racial disparities when different races were surveyed with different survey instruments that are now known to induce substantial differences? The project documented in this paper is part of an effort to address these questions. It creates models for imputing the original responses had the respondents under the traditional survey not taken advantage of the skip patterns to reduce interview time, which resulted in increased rates of incorrect negative responses over the course of the interview. The imputation modeling task is particularly challenging because of the complexity of the questionnaire, the small sample sizes for subgroups of interests, and the need for providing sensible imputation to whatever sub-population that a future user might be interested in studying. As a case study, we report both our findings and frustrations in our quest for dealing with these common real-life complications.Statistic