Do consumers really want credit card reform?

Earlier this year, several bills were introduced in Congress to curb what many consumer advocates have described as abusive credit card practices. These bills were intended to keep credit card issuers from penalizing consumers for paying their card balances in full each month. In unveiling one of the measures, Congressman John LaFalce declared, "[Consumers] should not be tricked or trapped into escalating interest rates and unnecessary fees. And they clearly deserve better than to be punished for paying off debt and for responsibly using their credit cards."> Apparently, many consumers agree. According to a November 1996 survey by Money magazine, 79 percent of respondents supported legislation to restrict how credit card issuers set fees and account terms.> With such strong consumer support for credit card reform, it is not surprising that Congress responded. In fact, Congress has repeatedly considered similar measures, some even more restrictive, such as proposals to cap the interest rate charged on credit card accounts. These measures have in common one potentially disturbing feature: if passed into law, they each would impose price controls on credit card accounts.> Combs and Schreft address whether such legislative efforts can achieve the stated objective of benefiting consumers. They find that consumers as a whole generally do not benefit from reform measures of the type studied. The effective price of a credit card account might not fall for many---or any---consumers as a result of such pricing restrictions, and credit availability is likely to be reduced, at least to some consumers. Thus, consumers should think twice before asking for pricing restrictions on credit cards.Credit cards

The Responsiveness of Casino Revenue to the Casino Tax Rate

This paper uses variation in Illinois casino taxes to estimate the elasticity of casino adjusted gross receipts (AGR) with respect to the marginal casino tax rate. Illinois’ shift to a graduated rate schedule initiated increases in the highest marginal tax rate on AGR from 20% to 70% with reversion to a 50% rate. We construct a state-level casino tax rate variable based on the effective marginal rates on AGR at individual casinos, imputing the tax on casino admissions as a proportion of adjusted gross receipts. We find that a 1% increase in this casino tax rate decreases AGR by 0.2%

The Effect of New Jersey Lottery Promotions on Consumer Demand and State Profits

We estimate elasticities of demand for New Jersey’s Pick 3 and Pick 4 midday/evening numbers games by exploiting random price variation generated by episodic promotions for each game. These Pick 3 Green Ball and Pick 4 Red Ball promotions lower the price of a lottery ticket for an evening numbers game by increasing prize payments during the 28-day promotion periods. The own-price elasticity of demand for the evening Pick 3 and Pick 4 games are both approximately -0.5. During the promotions, the loss in margin outweighs the gain in sales because of this inelastic demand. However, Green Ball promotions increase state profits by about $14.5 million because of the increase in sales of Pick 3/Pick 4 games and instant games after the promotion ends, and because of the complementarity of Pick 3 with Pick 4 and instant games during the promotion. Red Ball promotions reduce state profits by an estimated$2.6 million because increased evening Pick 4 sales after the promotion ends are not sufficient to offset the losses during the promotion, and the Pick 4 promotion has a net negative effect on other lottery games. (JEL D12, H71, L83, L98

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Proceedings of the 3rd Biennial Conference of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) 2015: advancing efficient methodologies through community partnerships and team science

It is well documented that the majority of adults, children and families in need of evidence-based behavioral health interventionsi do not receive them [1, 2] and that few robust empirically supported methods for implementing evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist. The Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) represents a burgeoning effort to advance the innovation and rigor of implementation research and is uniquely focused on bringing together researchers and stakeholders committed to evaluating the implementation of complex evidence-based behavioral health interventions. Through its diverse activities and membership, SIRC aims to foster the promise of implementation research to better serve the behavioral health needs of the population by identifying rigorous, relevant, and efficient strategies that successfully transfer scientific evidence to clinical knowledge for use in real world settings [3]. SIRC began as a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-funded conference series in 2010 (previously titled the “Seattle Implementation Research Conference”; $150,000 USD for 3 conferences in 2011, 2013, and 2015) with the recognition that there were multiple researchers and stakeholdersi working in parallel on innovative implementation science projects in behavioral health, but that formal channels for communicating and collaborating with one another were relatively unavailable. There was a significant need for a forum within which implementation researchers and stakeholders could learn from one another, refine approaches to science and practice, and develop an implementation research agenda using common measures, methods, and research principles to improve both the frequency and quality with which behavioral health treatment implementation is evaluated. SIRC’s membership growth is a testament to this identified need with more than 1000 members from 2011 to the present.ii SIRC’s primary objectives are to: (1) foster communication and collaboration across diverse groups, including implementation researchers, intermediariesi, as well as community stakeholders (SIRC uses the term “EBP champions” for these groups) – and to do so across multiple career levels (e.g., students, early career faculty, established investigators); and (2) enhance and disseminate rigorous measures and methodologies for implementing EBPs and evaluating EBP implementation efforts. These objectives are well aligned with Glasgow and colleagues’ [4] five core tenets deemed critical for advancing implementation science: collaboration, efficiency and speed, rigor and relevance, improved capacity, and cumulative knowledge. SIRC advances these objectives and tenets through in-person conferences, which bring together multidisciplinary implementation researchers and those implementing evidence-based behavioral health interventions in the community to share their work and create professional connections and collaborations

The Welfare Effects of Research and Production Joint Ventures

This paper develops a model to analyze behavior and welfare effects of a research and production joint venture (JV). In the model, a research dollar is more productive if spent in the joint venture because it increases the achievable probability of new product introduction. This efficiency of research and production joint ventures offsets, to some degree, the loss due to higher consumer prices. For some parameter configurations and joint venture membership rules, research and production joint ventures yield higher social welfare than research-only joint ventures (RJVs). This contrasts with some of the industrial organization literature on research collaboration and with traditional antitrust views

Who Plays the Numbers Games in the Middle of the Day

We analyse the increase in sales of Pick 3 and Pick 4 daily numbers lottery games and other Ohio Lottery games after Ohio introduced midday drawings for the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games in August 1999. The midday drawings increased Pick 3 sales by 5%, Pick 4 sales by 12%, and total lottery sales by 2% based on our analysis of a 36-month panel dataset of Ohio lottery sales by zip code. Midday drawings raise more revenue from the strongly regressive daily numbers games. However, the introduction of midday drawings does not change the negative income elasticities of demand for numbers games in an economically meaningful manner

Who Plays the Numbers Games in the Middle of the Day?

We analyze the increase in sales of daily numbers lottery games – Pick 3 and Pick 4 games – after Ohio introduced midday drawings in August 1999. Using a 36 month panel data set of Ohio lottery sales by zip code we find that midday drawings increased Pick 3 sales by 12.1% per adult and increased Pick 4 sales by 16.6% per adult. The increase in both Pick 3 and Pick 4 sales after midday drawings began was greater in zip codes with a greater percentage of households receiving public assistance and zip codes with a higher percentage of black residents. The Pick 3 Red Ball promotions during this period, which increased the payouts to winning Pick 3 tickets, were successful in raising Ohio Lottery sales and profits. Pick 3 sales per adult would have declined 15.4% and Pick 4 sales per adult would have dropped 2.4% between 1998 and 2000 without any marketing innovations by the Ohio Lottery. This trend of falling lottery sales over time was more severe in areas near casinos, many of which opened in the mid 1990s.

The Relative Regressivity of Seven Lottery Games

We study the implicit tax incidence of raising state revenue through a monopoly state-run lottery using a new dataset on individual Minnesota lottery game sales by zip code. We use the bootstrap to compute SEs and construct confidence intervals for Suits Indices of seven lottery products. We conclude that the implicit tax on each product is regressive, and find statistically significant differences in regressivity between some products. Minnesota’s newly introduced G3 instant scratch product, printed at time and place of purchase, is also the most regressive lottery game

The Effect of New Jersey Lottery Promotions on Consumer Demand and State Profits

We estimate elasticities of demand for New Jersey’s Pick 3 and Pick 4 midday/evening numbers games by exploiting random price variation generated by episodic promotions for each game. These Pick 3 Green Ball and Pick 4 Red Ball promotions lower the price of a lottery ticket for an evening numbers game by increasing prize payments during the 28-day promotion periods. The own-price elasticities of demand for the evening Pick 3 and Pick 4 games are both approximately –0.5. During the promotions, the loss in profit margins outweighs the gain in sales because of this inelastic demand. However, the combined effects of lower evening Pick 3 profits and increased sales of complementary products boost lottery profits by $30,000 per day, or$840,000 during the 28 days of the Green Ball promotion, while the combined effects of lower evening Pick 4 profits and reduced sales of substitute products decrease lottery profits by $129,000 per day, or$3.61 million during the 28 days of the Red Ball promotion. If higher sales after the promotion are included, the total increase in profits potentially reaches $14.48 million under the Green Ball game, while the Red Ball promotion loses money for the lottery even considering its positive lagged effect