Recent real income and wage trends in the United States

Some analysts have argued that broad measures of income growth for the 1980s misrepresented how well the typical worker or household fared during this period. This article examines trends in labor force participation and compensation to explain why real wages have not kept up with aggregate measures of real income.Income ; Wages ; Income distribution

Tracking inflation in the service sector

In the last forty years, inflation in the service sector has consistently exceeded inflation in the rest of the economy. This article investigates whether the observed difference in inflation rates reflects upward bias in the measurement of service prices.Inflation (Finance) ; Service industries ; Consumer price indexes

Member risk adjustment for ambulatory episodes of care

The purpose of this study was to model health-plan member risk based on member characteristics in order to separate member risk from other utilization determinants for the use of health care services across sites of care. The approach was to build episodes of care (EOCs) by sorting one year of encounter/claims data into Common Treatment Categories (CTCs). These data came from a variety of health plans, both capitated and non-capitated, covering over 2 million lives. The EOCs were characterized by an array of event and intensity measures. Episode-level risk for each of these measures was modeled by regressions based on member demographic and clinical characteristics. The results of this study show that member characteristics explain a substantial amount of event and intensity variation within episodes and that no single performance measure can summarize the care of health plan members. This method for evaluating member risk can be used both to stratify members according to their future risk and potentially to assess provider or health plan performance or to adjust reimbursement for performance or risk selection. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1999

Schooling as Human Capital or a Signal: Some Evidence

A new way is proposed to distinguish between the human capital and the signaling theories of the value of education. If education is a signal, then the essence of the signal should be distilled in the position of an individual in the distribution of education for his cohort. Estimating earnings equations that include both absolute (years) and relative (percentile) measures of education provides a test of the two competing theories. Analyzing two separate panel data sources under a range of alternative specifications, we find that the years measure of schooling has a consistently significant positive effect on earnings, but that the rank measure rarely does. This evidence supports the conclusion that human capital rather than signaling is the predominant explanation of schooling's value.

Measuring Progress Toward Accountable Care

Little information exists about the capabilities required to achieve the ultimate aims of accountable care -- better, less costly care that improves the health of populations -- or about how to measure the "readines" of providers to implement this new model. This paper reports on 59 hospital-based organizations that were members of a collaborative created to support the transition to accountable care. Assessment of 42 capabilities, divided further into 154 specific operating activities, found that the overall state of readiness was modest. Several characteristics appear to be associated with greater readiness to form an accountable care organization (ACO), including a strong patient-centered focus, full or partial ownership of a health plan, and positive relationships with providers in the market, among others. Variation in the patterns of readiness suggests that organizations are pursuing different paths toward accountable care. Additional study of organizations farther along the journey to accountable care is needed