Do Elected Public Utility Commissioners Behave More Politically than Appointed Ones?

This paper investigates whether the means by which public utility commissioners are selected affects the influence of political affiliation on policy choices. This question is asked in the context of telecommunications network lease prices and retail prices. While political affiliation appears to have limited influence on lease prices set by appointed commissioners, it has a significant impact when these prices are set by elected commissioners. Conversely, the political affiliation of appointed regulators appears to affect retail prices, whereas the political affiliation of elected commissioners does not.

Is there a Relationship Between HMO Quality of Care and Financial Performance? Evidence from Texas HMOs

The profits earned by health insurance companies have been under intense scrutiny by policymakers and the general public. However, attempts to reduce insurance company profits could affect the quality of care that they provide to their enrollees. This study investigates whether there is a relationship between the profitability of an HMO and the quality of care that its enrollees receive. The sample is comprised of health maintenance organizations in Texas from 2000 to 2008. Quality of care is proxied by HEDIS compliance rates for selected child and female health measures, while profits are measured both on a dollar and percentage basis. Annual data are used that are disaggregated by market area. The results suggest that there is a statistically significant relationship between profits and some measures of quality. Specifically, the child health measures used here are positively related to profits, in that increases (decreases) in profits are associated with increases (decreases) in quality. By contrast, there is not a statistically significant relationship between the available female health measures and profits. Further, for the child health measures, instrumental variable models that attempt to address to the potential endogeneity of quality and profits are consistent with the possibility that changes in profits have a causal effect on quality of care.

Does the Relationship Between Mortality and the Business Cycle Vary by the Level of Economic Development? Evidence from Mexico

We investigate the relationship between mortality and business cycles within Mexico, where development varies significantly. We exploit this variation by separately analyzing the top ten and bottom ten developed states. We find that while mortality is procyclical nationally and in the top ten states, it is countercyclical in the bottom ten. Further, we show that in the top ten states mortality due to noncommunicable conditions is procyclical, while in the bottom ten mortality due to noncommunicable conditions and infectious and parasitic diseases is countercyclical. This suggests that the relationship between mortality and business cycles may vary by level of development.

Macroeconomic Changes and Mortality in Mexico

While previous studies examine how the business cycle affects mortality in developed countries, less is known about this relationship in developing countries. In this paper, we investigate whether the procyclical nature of mortality in developed countries found by Ruhm (2000) and others is also present in Mexico. We assemble a unique panel data set that contains state-level data on mortality rates by age and cause of death, GDP per capita, and socioeconomic status. We find that for Mexico total mortality rates are procyclical, with the largest impact on those aged 20 to 49. While these findings are similar to those in Ruhm (2000), the effects of business cycles on mortality rates differ for several specific causes of death. These results suggest that whereas total mortality may be procyclical in some developed and developing countries, significant differences may exist for some causes of death.

Are Recessions Good for Everyone's Health? The Association Between Mortality and the Business Cycle by Race in the U.S.

In this paper we study the effect of the business cycle on the mortality rate of the major racial groups in the U.S. Using county-level data from 1999 to 2005, we find that the unemployment rate is negatively related to mortality for whites and latinos but that there is not a statistically significant relationship for blacks. Moreover, the magnitude of this relationship is larger for latinos than for whites. Finally, the relationship becomes more pronounced for latinos and whites as the proportion of population of that race increases. Taken together, these findings suggest that the procyclical association between mortality and the business cycle identified in previous studies of the general U.S. population may vary by race.

Does the Form of Physician Compensation Affect the Quality of Care in Medicaid HMOS?

In the United States a growing fraction of Medicaid participants are enrolled in Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs). The HMOs contract with physicians to provide health care services to the enrollees. Generally the physicians are compensated either via fee for service (FFS) or capitated arrangements. This paper investigates whether the means by which the physicians are compensated influences the quality of care received by enrollees. Using data for all Medicaid HMO enrollees in a large state, we find that enrollees in HMOs that pay their Primary Care Physicians (PCPs) exclusively via FFS arrangements are more likely to receive services for which the HMO’s PCPs receive additional compensation. Further, these enrollees are less likely to receive services for which the HMO’s PCPs do not receive additional compensation. These findings suggest that financial incentives may influence the behavior of PCPs in Medicaid HMOs, and thus the health care received by Medicaid participants enrolled in HMOs.

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Measurement of the top quark forward-backward production asymmetry and the anomalous chromoelectric and chromomagnetic moments in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV

Abstract The parton-level top quark (t) forward-backward asymmetry and the anomalous chromoelectric (d̂ t) and chromomagnetic (μ̂ t) moments have been measured using LHC pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected in the CMS detector in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1. The linearized variable AFB(1) is used to approximate the asymmetry. Candidate t t ¯ events decaying to a muon or electron and jets in final states with low and high Lorentz boosts are selected and reconstructed using a fit of the kinematic distributions of the decay products to those expected for t t ¯ final states. The values found for the parameters are AFB(1)=0.048−0.087+0.095(stat)−0.029+0.020(syst),μ̂t=−0.024−0.009+0.013(stat)−0.011+0.016(syst), and a limit is placed on the magnitude of | d̂ t| < 0.03 at 95% confidence level. [Figure not available: see fulltext.