Meeting the NICE Requirements: A Markov Model Approach

AbstractThe National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) was established in the United Kingdom in April 1999 to issue guidance for the National Health Service (NHS) on the use of selective new health care interventions. This article describes the NICE requirements for both incidence-based cost-effectiveness analyses and prevalence-based estimates of the aggregate NHS impact of the new drug. The article demonstrates how both of these requirements can be met using Markov modeling techniques. A Markov model for a hypothetical new treatment for HIV infection is used as an illustration of how to generate the estimates that are required by NICE. The article concludes with a discussion of the difficulties of obtaining data of sufficient quality to include in the Markov model to ensure that the submission meets all the NICE requirements and is credible to the NICE advisory board

Financial Innovation and the Monetary Aggregates

macroeconomics, monetary aggregates, financial innovation

A study of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich increment using archival SCUBA data

In a search for evidence of the short wavelength increment in the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect, we have analyzed archival galaxy cluster data from the Sub-millimetre Common User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, resulting in the most complete pointed survey of clusters at 850 microns to date. SCUBA's 850 microns passband overlaps the peak of the SZ increment. The sample consists of 44 galaxy clusters in the range 0 < z < 1.3. Maps of each of the clusters have been made and sources have been extracted; as an ancillary product we generate the most thorough galaxy cluster point source list yet from SCUBA. Seventeen of these clusters are free of obvious AGN and have data deep enough to provide interesting measurements of the expected SZ signal. Specialized analysis techniques are employed to extract the SZ effect signal from these SCUBA data, including using SCUBA's short wavelength band as an atmospheric monitor and fitting the long wavelength channel to a model of the spatial distribution of each cluster's SZ effect. By explicitly excising the exact cluster centre from our analysis we demonstrate that emission from galaxies within the cluster does not contaminate our measurement. The SZ amplitudes from our measurements are consistently higher than the amplitudes inferred from low frequency measurements of the SZ decrement.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figures, replacement matches version published in MNRA

Prevalence-Based Economic Evaluation

AbstractObjectiveResearchers have often stated that economic evaluations of new drugs have rarely been used to inform healthcare decisions, despite the large volume of published studies. In this paper, a new categorization for economic evaluations of new drugs is proposed: incidence-based and prevalence-based. This categorization is designed to increase the likelihood that decisionmakers are given more complete and useable economic information about new treatments.ResultsIncidence-based evaluations (such as cost-effectiveness analysis) focus on the impact of a new treatment on a health condition from onset until cure or death. Prevalence-based evaluations focus on the impact of a new treatment on a health condition during a 1-year period. An incidence-based evaluation may focus either on a representative individual or on a specific disease cohort. A prevalence-based evaluation generally focuses on a specific population. Incidence-based evaluations measure the value of the new treatment compared to alternative treatments for the same health conditions and compared to commonly used treatments for other health conditions. Prevalence-based evaluations measure the impact of introducing the new treatment on annual healthcare budgets and population health.ConclusionBoth types of evaluation provide important information when a new treatment is introduced to a population

Optimal Investment in Deferred Income Annuities

In this thesis we develop and analyze a technique for finding the optimal investment strategy for a deferred income annuity (DIA). We first present some initial background needed to understand what a DIA is. We then lay out a mathematical framework which will allow us to formalize the optimization process. The method and implementation of the optimization is explained, and the results are then analyzed. We then add an extra layer of complication to our model by allowing our optimal portfolio to contain more types of assets. The results of this new model are analyzed, and finally we mention possible extensions to this work

The role of expectations in the FRB/US macroeconomic model

In the past year, the staff of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System began using a new macroeconomic model of the U.S. economy referred to as the FRB/US model. This system of mathematical equations, describing interactions among economic measures such as inflation, interest rates, and gross domestic product, is one of the tools used in economic forecasting and the analysis of macroeconomic policy issues at the Board. The FRB/US model replaces the MPS model, which, with periodic revisions, had been used at the Federal Reserve Board since the early 1970s. A key feature of the new model is that expectations of future economic conditions are explicit in many of its equations. Because of this clear delineation of expectations, the FRB/US model can be used to study issues that would be difficult or impossible to study with the MPS model. For example, the new model can show how the economy's response to specific events, such as a reduction in defense spending, may vary considerably with the speed at which the public recognizes that the event has occurred or will occur.Econometric models ; Federal Reserve System ; Forecasting