What investment patterns across equipment and industries tell us about the recent investment boom and bust

A study of capital expenditure trends identifies investment in information technology as a major factor in the 1990s boom and subsequent bust. Spending on computers and software, fueled by Y2K preparations and the rise of the Internet, drove investment growth in the late 1990s but slowed in 2000, while overly optimistic profit expectations by communications industries likely prompted an unsustainable investment surge in 2000.Capital investments ; Information technology ; Telecommunication

Debt, delinquencies, and consumer spending

The sharp rise in household debt and delinquency rates over the last year has led to speculation that consumers will soon revert to more cautious spending behavior. Yet an analysis of the past relationship between household liabilities and expenditures provides little support for this view.Consumption (Economics) ; Consumer credit ; Bank loans

Are home prices the next "bubble"?

The strong rise in home prices since the mid-1990s has raised concerns over a possible bubble in the housing market and the effect of a sharp price decline on the U.S. economy. This article assesses two measures frequently cited to support a bubble-the rising price-to-income ratio and the declining rent-to-price ratio-and finds the measures to be flawed and the conclusions drawn from them unpersuasive. In particular, the measures do not fully account for the effects of declining nominal mortgage interest rates and fail to use appropriate home price indexes. The authors also estimate a structural model of the housing market and find that aggregate prices are not inconsistent with long-run demand fundamentals. Accordingly, they conclude that market fundamentals are strong enough to explain the recent path of home prices and that no bubble exists. Nevertheless, weakening fundamentals could have an impact on home values on the east and west coasts, where the new housing supply appears to be relatively inelastic. However, prices in these regions have typically been volatile, and previous declines have not had a sizable negative effect on the overall economy.Housing - Prices ; Housing - Finance ; Business cycles

The impact of individual retirement accounts on savings

Bills to expand individual retirement accounts have been introduced in both houses of Congress this year. While proponents argue that these accounts can help reverse the nation's declining saving rate, recent economic research suggests that the effect of the accounts on savings is in fact quite small.Individual retirement accounts ; Saving and investment

Monetary policy transmission to residential investment

Paper for a conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York entitled Financial Innovation and Monetary TransmissionMonetary policy ; Housing - Finance ; Mortgages

A data driven approach to student retention: the impact on leadership behaviour

Student retention is important to all Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s). The typical focus has seen institutions identifying ‘at risk’ students by monitoring a set of factors such as student attendance, engagement, performance, socio-economic background, etc. Institutions want to identify ‘at risk’ students and intervene before the ‘at risk’ student becomes a retention statistic. Once the factors are identified, this typical model often provides data to decision makers (leaders and/or senior managers) to assist with the identification of ‘at risk’ students in each leader’s department. However, some HEI’s have also historically relied on more tacit knowledge (opinions, anecdotes and biases) rather than actual data. In a data driven culture, leaders make decisions based on data and information rather than intuition and bias. HEI’s typically provide relevant data to leaders creating an opportunity to craft an intervention to change student behaviour. Interestingly, whether HEI’s are using data or tacit knowledge, all typically employ the same next steps once an ‘at risk’ student is identified: intervene to try and change the ‘at risk’ student’s behaviour. These interventions are quite consistent across HEI’s and can include supports such as interaction with faculty, mentoring, career guidance, counselling, orientation programmes or even access to technology. These interventions, or supports, can be grouped into three categories: Academic, Environmental and Institutional. What is also interesting however, is that there are a number of methodological and theoretical gaps in the area of student retention research. The vast majority of the research has used positivist approaches to collect and analyse data and focused, understandably, on the perspective of the student. Exploiting these gaps, this exploratory study is building theory by analyzing data gathered through interviews, surveys and participant observation in a HEI. A single case study design is chosen with an Irish HEI as the case. Another crucial difference is that this research focuses on the perspective of the leader rather than the student. After moving towards a data driven culture, the paper will ask a number of key questions: 1. What characterises leadership behaviour in a typical* student retention model? 2. What is the impact of a data-driven approach on leadership behaviour in a student retention model? *A typical student retention model is one which may rely heavily on opinions, biases and anecdotes i.e. (non data-driven). It also focuses on 1st year full time students, which is also the primary focus of this research

The Prevalence and Outcomes of Colorectal Cancer Surgery in the Very Elderly

Introduction: Sixty percent of all colorectal cancer patients in the UK undergo major surgery. Of these, 22% of patients are aged 80 years or older. Historically there has been a tendency to exclude very old patients from entering clinical trials (not just those within surgery), making evidence based clinical decision making more challenging [3]. It is difficult, therefore, to accurately guide this group of patients who have been assessed as fit for surgery. This is the first study to assess the outcomes for all older patients with colorectal cancer, regardless of whether they underwent surgical intervention or not. Results: Clinical case notes and electronic patients records were retrospectively reviewed for all patients admitted to North Bristol NHS Trust over a five-year period (January 2009 to February 2014). Patients presenting with a new diagnosis of colorectal cancer were identified. All patients aged 85 years and over were included in the study. Patients were stratified by clinical management strategy i.e. operative or non-operative management of their colorectal cancer. Primary outcome measure was overall survival. Methods: There were 199 patients included in the study, 50.8% (101) were male. Median age of all patients was 88 years (range 85-97 years) and 47% of all patients underwent surgery. More than half (57%) underwent right-sided resections (including hepatic flexure). Overall mean survival for non acute presentations of colorectal cancer were longer in both the operative group and non operative groups (p = 0.007 and p = 0.03 respectively). There was no difference between mean survival in patients presenting as acute surgical emergencies irrespective of operative or non-operative management (p = 0.31). Conclusion: A third of patients with colorectal cancer present as an acute surgical emergency. For this group of patients prognosis is poor and there does not appear to be a survival benefit in undergoing surgical resection