A Playroom Internal Waiting Area Improves Productivity in the Pediatric Emergency Department

Introduction: Pediatric emergency department (PED) volume is often constrained by the number of available treatment rooms. In many PEDs patients occupy treatment rooms while awaiting test results or imaging, thereby delaying care for patients who arrive after them.Methods: We opened a PED where selected patients were moved to a playroom when they did not actively require a treatment room. The treatment room was then available for the next patient. We measured the effect of using the playroom on time from arrival to rooming and length of stay (LOS) using proportional hazards regression and the odds of being roomed within 30 minutes of arrival using logistic regression. We adjusted for the number  of the previous eight patients who were “playroom eligible”; age; triage category; provider; the number of patients who arrived within the preceding hour; prior census; and testing ordered in the preceding eight patients.Results: We analyzed 43,634 patient encounters, of which 10,134 (23%) were playroom eligible. The adjusted hazards ratio for the next patient being roomed was 1.14 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10-1.18) per prior playroom eligible patient. The adjusted odds ratio of the next patient being roomed within 30 minutes was 1.46 (95% CI, 1.33-1.56) per prior playroom eligible patient. The playroom typically decreased median rooming time by four to 42 minutes and LOS by two to 40 minutes depending on patient volumes and acuity. The benefit of the playroom was maximal at busier times.Conclusion: Implementing a playroom in the PED for selected patients generally decreased time to rooming of the next patient and LOS

Individual Pay and Outside Options: Evidence from the Polish Labour Force Survey

Using Polish Labour Force Survey data, we examine whether competition for labour has induced individual pay to depend on outside options, availability and quality of jobs. Exploiting the lack of inter-regional job and worker flows we estimate the elasticity of individual pay, amongst a rich set of individual characteristics, to be approximately -0.1 for local unemployment (job shortages) and + 0.1 for local job reallocation (restructuring). Variations in local labour market conditions explain approximately 50 per cent of the differences in expected individual earnings across regions, while differences in inherited human capital and occupation structures explain the rest.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39748/3/wp364.pd

Linking Productivity to Trade in the Structural Estimation of Production within UK Manufacturing Industries

We estimate productivity dynamics within 4-digit manufacturing industries, using FAME data on UK Companies, from 1994 to 2003. We extend the algorithm in Olley and Pakes (1996) to allow for a selection bias driven by the Melitz (2003) effect (high productivity types selecting to exporting) to get more consistent and unbiased estimates of the parameters of the production function. We demonstrate a link between trade orientation and productivity within industries that is driven by selection, not by learning. Hence aggregate productivity is driven by market share reallocations amongst companies rather than from improvements in company level productivity.Simultaneity, Selection (Exit and Trade) Biases, Productivity Dynamics, UK Manufacturing Companies, within 4-digit industries.

Did political constraints bind during transition? Evidence from Czech elections 1990 - 2002

Many theoretical models of transition are driven by the assumption that economic decision making is subject to political constraints. In this paper we empirically test whether the winners and losers of economic reform determined voting behaviour in the first five national elections in the Czech Republic. We propose that voters, taking stock of endowments from the planning era, could predict whether they would become “winners” or “losers” of transition. Using survey data we measure the percentage of individuals by region who were “afraid” and “not afraid” of economic reform in 1990. We define the former as potential “winners” who should vote for pro-reform parties, while latter are potential “losers” who should support left-wing parties. Using national election results and regional economic indicators, we demonstrate that there is persistence in support for pro-reform and communist parties driven by prospective voting based on initial conditions in 1990. As a result, we show that regional unemployment rates in 2002 are good predictors of regional voting patterns in 1990.

ESTIMATING PRODUCTIVITY DYNAMICS DURING INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: AN APPLICATION TO CHINESE STATE OWNED ENTERPRISES 1980-1994

We estimate the productivity dynamics of 680 industrial Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) between 1980 and 1994. During this time managerial autonomy over factor markets was introduced. The timing of autonomy varied across SOEs and take-up was an endogenous process: high-productivity SOEs where more likely to take managerial control. We allow for this by adapting an algorithm developed in Olley & Pakes (1996) in order to generate estimates of productivity dynamics that deal with both simultaneity and endogenous selection biases. Apart from offering a methodology to estimate productivity dynamics during endogenous institutional change, we demonstrate that SOEs in China obtained productivity gains from managerial autonomy over factor markets in the years before privatisation.

Mr Whitaker and Industry: Setting the Record Straight–A Reply to Barry and Daly

The turnaround in economic policy from the late 1950s was remarkable. Protectionism was abandoned and exporting incentivised. As Barry and Daly (2011) admit, Conventional wisdom accords the bulk of the credit for the turnaround in policy to Seán Lemass, Minister for Industry and Commerce in most Fianna Fáil governments since 1932 and Taoiseach from 1959 to 1966, and T. K. Whitaker, Secretary of the Department of Finance from 1956 to 1969. Their main agenda is to set the record straight about the role of Mr. Whitaker in this historical turnaround in economic policy in Ireland. Their bottom line: Conventional wisdom is wrong. They attempt to illustrate this through a critique of our Walsh and Whelan (2010) paper. In our response to their paper we wish to address three issues. First, outline the real essence of our paper; secondly defend our analytical frameworks; and finally, place their new thesis on the role of Whitaker in economic policy during the “long 1950s” in the context of our paper and mainstream beliefs.

Product Differentiation and Firm Size Distribution - An Application to Carbonated Soft Drinks

Using brand level retail data, the firm size distribution in Carbonated Soft Drinks is shown to be an outcome of the degree to which firms have placed brands effectively (store coverage) across vertical (flavour, packaging, diet attributes) segments of the market. Regularity in the firm size distribution is not disturbed by the nature of short-run brand competition (turbulence in brand market shares) within segments. Remarkably, product differentiation resulting from firms acquiring various portfolios of product attributes and stores in market evolution determines the limiting firm size distribution.Firm Size Distribution; Product Differentiation; Carbonated Soft Drinks

Is there a rural-urban divide? Location and Productivity of UK manufacturing

We compute the productivity gaps in manufacturing industries by urban, rural less sparse and rural sparse locations in the UK. This is done by using firm-specific total factor productivities, which are estimated by a semi-parametric algorithm within 4-digit manufacturing industries using FAME data over the period 1994-2001, by each location. We analyse the productivity differentials across locations by decomposing them into firm differences within the same industry and by differences that are explained by industry composition effects. Our analysis indicates that at the end of twentieth century a rural-urban divide in manufacturing productivity still remains but there is a tendency of convergence between rural and urban location categories. Even though industry productivity is different by location, industry composition effects are positively correlated with industry productivity by location suggesting that locations with high productivity are also characterised by industrial structures with higher productivity.Total factor productivity, structural estimation, rural-urban divides, UK manufacturing