The Emergence of Captive Finance Companies and Risk Segmentation of the Consumer Loan Market:Theory and Evidence

A parental seller with market power to some degree in its product market can earn rents. In this context, there is a gain to granting credit for the purchase of the product and thus the establishment of captive finance company for expanding the sales by offering loans to consumers who need financing for purchase of durable good. This paper examines the optimal behavior of such a durable good seller and its captive finance company when the consumer loan market is segmented into captive and independent lending institutions under symmetric and imperfect information on borrower’s creditworthiness. The model presents that one critical difference for captive finance company will be its credit standard. Specifically, the model indicates that captive finance company will follow a more lenient credit standard, leading to the prediction that the likelihood of repayment of a captive loan is lower than that of a bank loan, other things equal. This prediction is tested using unique data sets drawn from a major credit bureau in the U.S. The analysis of credit bureau data shows that a captive automobile loan is less likely to be repaid than a bank automobile loan, which supports the theoretical prediction.Monopolistic Competition, Consumer Loan Market, Captive Finance Company, Differential Loan Performances

Endogenous asymmetric information and international equity home bias: The effects of portfolio size and information costs

Equity home bias is one of the major puzzles in international finance. This paper investigates the impact of asymmetric information on equity home bias in a rational expectation model where portfolio managers differ in their levels of initial portfolio size and information acquisition is endogenous. The model characterizes the information acquisition and investment decisions made by each portfolio manager, and the resulting equilibrium. We find that portfolio managers with larger portfolio size acquire information about the foreign asset; this is consistent with new evidence linking the degree of home bias across portfolio managers to portfolio size

Credit Cards on Campus: Academic Inquiry, Objective Empiricism, or Advocacy Research? A Response

The authors react to the critique by Robert Manning and Ray Kirshak (in this issue) about the paper Usage of Credit Cards Received through College Student- Marketing Programs, which originally appeared in Journal of Student Financial Aid, 2004

Usage of Credit Cards Received Through College Student-Marketing Programs

This article provides benchmark measures of college student credit card usage by utilizing a pooled sample of over 300,000 recently opened credit card accounts. The analysis compares behavior over 12 months of account history for three groups of accounts: those opened by young adults through college student marketing programs; those opened through conventional marketing channels by young adults ages 18-24; and those opened through conventional channels by older adults. Results indicate that student marketed accounts have smaller balances, lower credit limits, and lower utilization rates than accounts opened by the other groups. Student accounts are more likely to be delinquent and have a higher likelihood of charge-off, but both the delinquency and charge-off rates for student accounts and non-student-marketed accounts of young adults converged within 24 months. These findings are consistent with card issuers’ statements that they establish student accounts with relatively low credit limits expecting that the large majority of new, young cardholders will learn how to manage a credit card, establish a credit history, and become longer-term customers

Adoption of Electronic and Personal Health Records: An Ecconomic Analysis

We investigate strategic issues surrounding the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) and personal health records (PHR) using an economic framework. Through our analysis, we find evidence that health care providers do not have an incentive to implement interoperable EHR systems even though the implementation of EHR systems (interoperable or otherwise) will increase consumer surplus. In this context, we conjecture that PHR platforms can fundamentally alter the incentives of health care providers, potentially leading to increased EHR adoption under some conditions. In a pluralistic health care system like that which exists in the United States, where health care providers have varying incentives to implement interoperable electronic health records, an online PHR platform can provide an alternative means for consumers to freely exchange their health records among different providers

On-the-Job Training

Firms in the U.S. invest billions of dollars annually in workforce training. Growing evidence of the effects of this training on worker productivity, wages, hiring and turnover has led researchers to gradually incorporate the role of training into their analyses. Barron, Berger and Black advance this line of research by offering new evidence on the amount of training provided to workers during the first three months on the job, and the characteristics of those workers who received that training.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1070/thumbnail.jp

17β-Estradiol Potentiates the Reinstatement of Cocaine Seeking in Female Rats: Role of the Prelimbic Prefrontal Cortex and Cannabinoid Type-1 Receptors

Clinical observations imply that female cocaine addicts experience enhanced relapse vulnerability compared with males, an effect tied to elevated estrogen phases of the ovarian hormone cycle. Although estrogens can enhance drug-seeking behavior, they do not directly induce reinstatement on their own. To model this phenomenon, we tested whether an estrogen could augment drug-seeking behavior in response to an ordinarily subthreshold reinstatement trigger. Following cocaine self-administration and extinction, female rats were ovariectomized to isolate estrogen effects on reinstatement. Although neither peak proestrus levels of the primary estrogen 17β-estradiol (E2; 10 μg/kg, i.p., 1-h pretreatment) nor a subthreshold cocaine dose (1.25 mg/kg, i.p.) alone were sufficient to reinstate drug-seeking behavior, pretreatment with E2 potentiated reinstatement to the ordinarily subthreshold cocaine dose. Furthermore, E2 microinfusions revealed that E2 (5 μg/0.3 μl, 15-min pretreatment) acts directly within the prelimbic prefrontal cortex (PrL-PFC) to potentiate reinstatement. As E2 has been implicated in endocannabinoid mobilization, which can disinhibit PrL-PFC projection neurons, we investigated whether cannabinoid type-1 receptor (CB1R) activation is necessary for E2 to potentiate reinstatement. The CB1R antagonist AM251 (1 or 3 mg/kg, i.p., 30-min pretreatment) administered prior to E2 and cocaine suppressed reinstatement in a dose-dependent manner. Finally, PrL-PFC AM251 microinfusions (300 ng/side, 15-min pretreatment) also suppressed E2-potentiated reinstatement. Together, these results suggest that E2 can augment reactivity to an ordinarily subthreshold relapse trigger in a PrL-PFC CB1R activation-dependent manner

The Changing Role of Ancillary Health Care Service Providers: An Evaluation of Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc.

In an effort to reduce cost and improve quality, health care payers have enacted a number of incentives to motivate providers to focus their efforts on achieving better clinical outcomes and reducing the prevalence and progression of disease. In response to these incentives, providers are entering into new arrangements such as accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes to redesign delivery processes and achieve quality and cost objectives. This article reports the results of a study designed to evaluate the impact on cost and quality of care resulting from services provided by Health Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc., a clinical laboratory with a comprehensive care model. The results show that patients who utilized these laboratory services experienced lower total cost of care (23% reduction, P \u3c 0.01) and improved lipid profiles during the follow-up period. Total cost reductions were related to cost reductions found in both inpatient and ambulatory care. These findings suggest that accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes, and other groups entering shared savings initiatives should consider the potential role ancillary service providers with comprehensive care models can play in the delivery of integrated care. (Population Health Management 2014; 17: 121-126

Abelian varieties isogenous to a power of an elliptic curve

Let $E$ be an elliptic curve over a field $k$. Let $R:= \text{End}\, E$. There is a functor $\mathscr{H}\!\!\mathit{om}_R(-,E)$ from the category of finitely presented torsion-free left $R$-modules to the category of abelian varieties isogenous to a power of $E$, and a functor $\text{Hom}(-,E)$ in the opposite direction. We prove necessary and sufficient conditions on $E$ for these functors to be equivalences of categories.Comment: 21 pages, comments welcom

Acute Reperfusion Therapy in ST-elevation Myocardial Infarction from 1994-2003

Background—Appropriate utilization of acute reperfusion therapy is not a national performance measure for ST-elevation myocardial infarction at this time, and the extent of its contemporary use among ideal patients is unknown. Methods—From the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction, we identified 238,291 patients enrolled from June 1994 to May 2003 who were ideally suited for acute reperfusion therapy with fibrinolytic therapy or primary percutaneous coronary intervention. We determined rates of not receiving therapy across 3 time periods (June 1994–May 1997, June 1997–May 2000, June 2000– May 2003) and evaluated factors associated with underutilization. Results—The proportion of ideal patients not receiving acute reperfusion therapy decreased by one-half throughout the past decade (time period 1: 20.6%; time period 2: 11.4%; time period 3: 11.6%; P\u3c0.001). Utilization remained significantly lower in key subgroups in the most recent time period: those without chest pain (OR, 0.29; 95% CI, 0.27–0.32); those presenting 6 to 12 hours after symptom onset (OR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.52–0.61); those 75 years or older (OR, 0.63 compared with patients \u3c55 years old; 95% CI, 0.58–0.68); women (OR, 0.88; 95% CI, 0.84–0.93); and non-whites (OR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.83–0.97). Conclusions—Utilization of acute reperfusion therapy in ideal patients has improved over the last decade, but more than 10% remain untreated. Measuring and improving its use in this cohort represents an important opportunity to improve care