Are the dimensions of private information more multiple than expected? Information asymmetries in the market of supplementary private health insurance in England

Our study reexamines standard econometric approaches for the detection of information asymmetries on insurance markets. We claim that evidence based on a standard framework with 2 equations, which uses potential sources of information asymmetries, should stress the importance of heterogeneity in the parameters. We argue that conclusions derived from this methodology can be misleading if the estimated coefficients in such an `unused characteristics' framework are driven by different parts of the population. We show formally that an individual's expected risk from the perspective of insurance, conditioned on certain characteristics (which are not used for calculating the risk premium), can equal the population's expectation in risk { although such characteristics are both related to risk and insurance probability, which is usually interpreted as an indicator of information asymmetries. We provide empirical evidence on the existence of information asymmetries in the market for supplementary private health insurance in the UK. Overall, we found evidence for advantageous selection into the private risk pool; ie people with lower health risk tend to insure more. The main drivers of this phenomenon seem to be characteristics such as income and wealth. Nevertheless, we also found parameter heterogeneity to be relevant, leading to possible misinterpretation if the standard `unused characteristics' approach is applied

Electrical resistivity near Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions

We analyze the DC charge transport in the quantum critical regime near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability in two dimensions. The transport decay rate is linear in temperature everywhere on the Fermi surface except at cold spots on the Brillouin zone diagonal. For pure systems, this leads to a DC resistivity proportional to T^{3/2} in the low-temperature limit. In the presence of impurities the residual impurity resistance at T=0 is approached linearly at low temperatures.Comment: 9 pages, no figure

Vector current conservation and neutrino emission from singlet-paired baryons in neutron stars

Neutrino emission caused by singlet Cooper pairing of baryons in neutron stars is recalculated by accurately taking into account for conservation of the vector weak currents. The neutrino emissivity via the vector weak currents is found to be several orders of magnitude smaller than that obtained before by different authors. This makes unimportant the neutrino radiation from singlet pairing of protons or hyperons.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Renormalized mean-field t-J model of high-Tc superconductivity: comparison with experiment

Using an advanced version of the renormalized mean-field theory (RMFT) for the t-J model, we examine spin-singlet superconducting (SC) state of $d_{x^2 - y^2}$-symmetry. Overall doping dependence of the SC gap magnitude is in good agreement with experimental results for $\text{Bi}_{2}\text{Sr}_{2}\text{Ca} \text{Cu}_2 \text{O}_{8 + \delta}$ (BSCCO) and $\text{La}_{2-x}\text{Sr}_{x}\text{Cu} \text{O}_{4}$ (LSCO) compounds at the optimal doping and in the overdoped regime. We also calculate the dispersion relation for the Bogoliubov quasiparticles and compare our findings both with the angle resolved photoemission data for the cuprates, as well as with the variational Monte Carlo and other mean-field studies. Within the method proposed by Fukushima [cf. Phys. Rev. B \textbf{78}, 115105 (2008)], we analyze different forms of the t-J Hamiltonian, i.e. modifications caused by the form of exchange interaction, and by the presence of three-site terms. It is shown that although the former has a small influence, the latter suppresses strongly the superconductivity. We also analyze the temperature dependence of the gap magnitude and compare the results with those of the recently introduced finite-temperature renormalized mean-field theory (TRMFT) of Wang et al. [cf. Phys. Rev. B \textbf{82}, 125105 (2010)].Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Submitted to Physical Review

The Role of Private Finance in Paying for Long Term Care

An ageing population and increased longevity means that long term care will become progressively more expensive. In 2009 the Government published a Green Paper on future funding options and a White Paper in 2010. This article considers the role of private finance products under the ‘Partnership’ option. It finds that few households are able to pay for LTC based on income and savings but the number increases if housing assets are included. We show that products can be devised for a range of circumstances, although state support would need to continue. We propose a simplified means testing system based on a combination of income and assets

A study into the detrimental effects of obesity on life in the UK

This paper is an investigation into the effect of excess body fat on mortality within the UK. Health surveys from the UK are used to apply a Cox proportional hazards model to UK-specific data (Health and Lifestyle Survey, 1985) to provide an analysis, at various ages, of the effects of obesity on life expectancy. We explore the issues by replicating and extending US research with UK data using both Body Mass Index(BMI) and Waist to Height (WTH) as obesity measures. We measure the impact of obesity in adults on life expectancy and find that mortality risk associated with obesity in the UK is similar to that found in US studies. However, importantly, we also show WTH to be a better indicator of mortality risk than BMI. Our results include the number of years of life lost (YLL) for UK lives in various severitycategories of obesity compared with lives of the same age at optimum levels of BMI or WTH. The research emphasizes how important it is for the government to promote healthy lifestyles in order to avoid premature death

Emergence of thermodynamic behavior within composite quantum systems

Entanglement within a given device provides a potential resource for quantum information processing. Entanglement between system and environment leads to decoherence (thus suppressing non-classical features within the system) but also opens up a route to robust and universal control. The latter is related to thermodynamic equilibrium, a generic behavior of bi-partite quantum systems. Fingerprints of this equilibrium behavior (including relaxation and stability) show up already far from the thermodynamic limit, where a complete solution of the underlying Schroedinger dynamics of the total system is still feasible.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Physica