Employment-Based Health Insurance: 2010

[Excerpt] This report uses data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine the characteristics of people with employer-provided health insurance coverage as well as characteristics of employers that offer health insurance. This documentation of the current distribution of employment-based health insurance coverage across socioeconomic characteristics is needed to establish the changes associated with recent health care legislation. The report is composed of two sections. The first section provides a brief overview of historical trends in employer-provided coverage rates by source of coverage as well as the reasons for nonparticipation in health insurance from 1997 to 2010. The second section focuses on data collected in 2010 and describes health insurance offer and take-up rates by employee and employer characteristics. In addition, the report describes the insurance status of workers not participating in an employer’s plan and the reasons for nonparticipation

Approximation of stochastic differential equations driven by alpha-stable Levy motion

In this paper we present a result on convergence of approximate solutions of stochastic differential equations involving integrals with respect to alpha-stable Levy motion. We prove an appropriate weak limit theorem, which does not follow from known results on stability properties of stochastic differential equations driven by semimartingales. It assures convergence in law in the Skorokhod topology of sequences of approximate solutions and justifies discrete time schemes applied in computer simulations. An example is included in order to demonstrate that stochastic differential equations with jumps are of interest in constructions of models for various problems arising in science and engineering, often providing better description of real life phenomena than their Gaussian counterparts. In order to demonstrate the usefulness of our approach, we present computer simulations of a continuous time alpha-stable model of cumulative gain in the Duffie–Harrison option pricing framework.Stable distribution, Simulation, Stochastic differential equation (SDE), Option pricing

Credit exclusion in quantitative models of bankruptcy: does it matter?

Bankruptcy ; Credit

Changes in the size distribution of U.S. banks: 1960-2005

Banks and banking

Transport in a Levy ratchet: Group velocity and distribution spread

We consider the motion of an overdamped particle in a periodic potential lacking spatial symmetry under the influence of symmetric L\'evy noise, being a minimal setup for a ``L\'evy ratchet.'' Due to the non-thermal character of the L\'evy noise, the particle exhibits a motion with a preferred direction even in the absence of whatever additional time-dependent forces. The examination of the L\'evy ratchet has to be based on the characteristics of directionality which are different from typically used measures like mean current and the dispersion of particles' positions, since these get inappropriate when the moments of the noise diverge. To overcome this problem, we discuss robust measures of directionality of transport like the position of the median of the particles displacements' distribution characterizing the group velocity, and the interquantile distance giving the measure of the distributions' width. Moreover, we analyze the behavior of splitting probabilities for leaving an interval of a given length unveiling qualitative differences between the noises with L\'evy indices below and above unity. Finally, we inspect the problem of the first escape from an interval of given length revealing independence of exit times on the structure of the potential.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figure

Testing Mundell’s Intuition of Endogenous OCA Theory

This paper presents an empirical assessment of the endogenous optimum currency area theory. Frankel and Rose (1998) study the endogeneity of a currency union through the lens of international trade flows. Our study extends Frankel and Rose's model by using FDI flows to test the original theory developed by Mundell in 1973. A gravity model is used to empirically assess the effectiveness of the convergence criteria by examining location specific advantages that guide multinational investment within the European Union. A fixed effects model based on a panel data of foreign direct investment (FDI) flows within the EU-15 shows that horizontal investment promotes the diffusion of the production process across the national border. Specifically, our results suggest that economic convergence ensured by belonging to the common currency area helps double FDI flows.economic integration, gravity model, endogenous optimum currency area

Stationary states in Langevin dynamics under asymmetric L\'evy noises

Properties of systems driven by white non-Gaussian noises can be very different from these systems driven by the white Gaussian noise. We investigate stationary probability densities for systems driven by $\alpha$-stable L\'evy type noises, which provide natural extension to the Gaussian noise having however a new property mainly a possibility of being asymmetric. Stationary probability densities are examined for a particle moving in parabolic, quartic and in generic double well potential models subjected to the action of $\alpha$-stable noises. Relevant solutions are constructed by methods of stochastic dynamics. In situations where analytical results are known they are compared with numerical results. Furthermore, the problem of estimation of the parameters of stationary densities is investigated.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, 3 table