Approaches to Estimating the Health State Dependence of the Utility Function

If the marginal utility of consumption depends on health status, this will affect the economic analysis of a number of central problems in public finance, including the optimal structure of health insurance and optimal life cycle savings. In this paper, we describe the promises and challenges of various approaches to estimating the effect of health on the marginal utility of consumption. Our basic conclusion is that while none of these approaches is a panacea, many offer the potential to shed important insights on the nature of health state dependence.

Effects of fluctuations and Coulomb interaction on the transition temperature of granular superconductors

We investigate the suppression of superconducting transition temperature in granular metallic systems due to (i) fluctuations of the order parameter (bosonic mechanism) and (ii) Coulomb repulsion (fermionic mechanism) assuming large tunneling conductance between the grains $g_{T}\gg 1$. We find the correction to the superconducting transition temperature for 3$d$ granular samples and films. We demonstrate that if the critical temperature $T_c > g_T \delta$, where $\delta$ is the mean level spacing in a single grain the bosonic mechanism is the dominant mechanism of the superconductivity suppression, while for critical temperatures $T_c < g_T \delta$ the suppression of superconductivity is due to the fermionic mechanism.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, several sections clarifying the details of our calculations are adde

Benefit Plan Design and Prescription Drug Utilization Among Asthmatics: Do Patient Copayments Matter?

Objective: The ratio of controller to reliever medication use has been proposed as a measure of treatment quality for asthma patients. In this study we examine the effects of plan level mean out-of-pocket asthma medication patient copayments and other features of benefit plan design on the use of controller medications alone, controller and reliever medications (combination therapy), and reliever medications alone. Methods: 1995-2000 MarketScan claims data were used to construct plan-level out-of-pocket copayment and physician/practice prescriber preference variables for asthma medications. Separate multinomial logit models were estimated for patients in fee-for-service (FFS) and non-FFS plans relating benefit plan design features, physician/practice prescribing preferences, patient demographics, patient comorbidities and county-level income variables to patient-level asthma treatment patterns. Results: We find that the controller reliever ratio rose steadily over 1995-2000, along with out-of-pocket payments for asthma medications, which rose more for controllers than for relievers. However, after controlling for other variables, plan level mean out-of-pocket copayments were not found to have a statistically significant influence upon patient-level asthma treatment patterns. On the other hand, physician practice prescribing patterns strongly influenced patient level treatment patterns. Conclusions: There is no strong statistical evidence that higher levels of out-of-pocket copayments for prescription drugs influence asthma treatment patterns. However, physician/practice prescribing preferences influence patient treatment.

Localized to extended states transition for two interacting particles in a two-dimensional random potential

We show by a numerical procedure that a short-range interaction $u$ induces extended two-particle states in a two-dimensional random potential. Our procedure treats the interaction as a perturbation and solve Dyson's equation exactly in the subspace of doubly occupied sites. We consider long bars of several widths and extract the macroscopic localization and correlation lengths by an scaling analysis of the renormalized decay length of the bars. For $u=1$, the critical disorder found is $W_{\rm c}=9.3\pm 0.2$, and the critical exponent $\nu=2.4\pm 0.5$. For two non-interacting particles we do not find any transition and the localization length is roughly half the one-particle value, as expected.Comment: 4 two-column pages, 4 eps figures, Revtex, to be published in Europhys. Let

Topology in Physics - A Perspective

This article, written in honor of Fritz Rohrlich, briefly surveys the role of topology in physics.Comment: 16pp, 2 figures included (encapsulated postscript

Consistency, Amplitudes and Probabilities in Quantum Theory

Quantum theory is formulated as the only consistent way to manipulate probability amplitudes. The crucial ingredient is a consistency constraint: if there are two different ways to compute an amplitude the two answers must agree. This constraint is expressed in the form of functional equations the solution of which leads to the usual sum and product rules for amplitudes. A consequence is that the Schrodinger equation must be linear: non-linear variants of quantum mechanics are inconsistent. The physical interpretation of the theory is given in terms of a single natural rule. This rule, which does not itself involve probabilities, is used to obtain a proof of Born's statistical postulate. Thus, consistency leads to indeterminism. PACS: 03.65.Bz, 03.65.Ca.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures (old version did not include the figures

Simplicial quantum dynamics

Present-day quantum field theory can be regularized by a decomposition into quantum simplices. This replaces the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space by a high-dimensional spinor space and singular canonical Lie groups by regular spin groups. It radically changes the uncertainty principle for small distances. Gaugeons, including the gravitational, are represented as bound fermion-pairs, and space-time curvature as a singular organized limit of quantum non-commutativity. Keywords: Quantum logic, quantum set theory, quantum gravity, quantum topology, simplicial quantization.Comment: 25 pages. 1 table. Conference of the International Association for Relativistic Dynamics, Taiwan, 201

The quantum speed up as advanced knowledge of the solution

With reference to a search in a database of size N, Grover states: "What is the reason that one would expect that a quantum mechanical scheme could accomplish the search in O(square root of N) steps? It would be insightful to have a simple two line argument for this without having to describe the details of the search algorithm". The answer provided in this work is: "because any quantum algorithm takes the time taken by a classical algorithm that knows in advance 50% of the information that specifies the solution of the problem". This empirical fact, unnoticed so far, holds for both quadratic and exponential speed ups and is theoretically justified in three steps: (i) once the physical representation is extended to the production of the problem on the part of the oracle and to the final measurement of the computer register, quantum computation is reduction on the solution of the problem under a relation representing problem-solution interdependence, (ii) the speed up is explained by a simple consideration of time symmetry, it is the gain of information about the solution due to backdating, to before running the algorithm, a time-symmetric part of the reduction on the solution; this advanced knowledge of the solution reduces the size of the solution space to be explored by the algorithm, (iii) if I is the information acquired by measuring the content of the computer register at the end of the algorithm, the quantum algorithm takes the time taken by a classical algorithm that knows in advance 50% of I, which brings us to the initial statement.Comment: 23 pages, to be published in IJT