Estimating The Impacts of Demographic and Policy Changes On Pension Deficit A Simple Method and Application to China

This article derives a simple method for projecting pension deficit as percent of GDP in future years based on commonly available population forecasting and a few predictable economic and policy variables. Compared with the classic basic equilibrium equation of pension funds, our new formula decomposes the retirees-workers ratio which mixes various kinds of impacts into three more-easily-predictable variables – the elderly dependent ratio, the prevalence of pension coverage, and the employment rate. Our illustrative application to China shows that gradually increasing the current low minimum age of retirement will largely reduce the pension deficit, under various demographic regimes. The pension deficit as % of GDP in the low fertility scenarios (which corresponds with keeping the current rigid fertility control policy unchanged in the longrun)would be 5.6-11.1, 3.8-6.3, and 9.0-13.8 times as high as that in the Medium Fertility & Medium Mortality scenarios in 2040, 2060, and 2080

Phase Separation Dynamics in Isotropic Ion-Intercalation Particles

Lithium-ion batteries exhibit complex nonlinear dynamics, resulting from diffusion and phase transformations coupled to ion intercalation reactions. Using the recently developed Cahn-Hilliard reaction (CHR) theory, we investigate a simple mathematical model of ion intercalation in a spherical solid nanoparticle, which predicts transitions from solid-solution radial diffusion to two-phase shrinking-core dynamics. This general approach extends previous Li-ion battery models, which either neglect phase separation or postulate a spherical shrinking-core phase boundary, by predicting phase separation only under appropriate circumstances. The effect of the applied current is captured by generalized Butler-Volmer kinetics, formulated in terms of diffusional chemical potentials, and the model consistently links the evolving concentration profile to the battery voltage. We examine sources of charge/discharge asymmetry, such as asymmetric charge transfer and surface "wetting" by ions within the solid, which can lead to three distinct phase regions. In order to solve the fourth-order nonlinear CHR initial-boundary-value problem, a control-volume discretization is developed in spherical coordinates. The basic physics are illustrated by simulating many representative cases, including a simple model of the popular cathode material, lithium iron phosphate (neglecting crystal anisotropy and coherency strain). Analytical approximations are also derived for the voltage plateau as a function of the applied current

The Financial and Macroeconomic Implications of Banking Frictions and Banking Riskiness

This paper develops a model of banking frictions and banking riskiness, the importance of which is highlighted by the recent Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We propose a model-based approach to decompose the effect of a banking riskiness shock into a pure default effect and a risk effect when risk sharing among the depositors is imperfect. Although the default effect is quantitatively more important, the risk effect is not to be neglected. When the shock generates a bank spread similar in value to the peak during the GFC, the overall effect is a decline in employment by 6:57 percent. The pure default effect leads to a 4:76 percent employment decline by a “within-model” measure, and a 5:05 decline by a “between-model” measure. The remaining is attributed to the risk effect.Banking riskiness shocks; two-sided debt contract; default effects; risk effects; financial crisis.

The association between resilience and survival among Chinese elderly

Based on the unique longitudinal data of the elderly aged 65+ with a sufficiently large sub-sample of the oldest-old aged 85+ from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey, we construct a resilience scale with 7 indicators for the Chinese elderly, based on the framework of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. Cox proportional hazards regression model estimates show that, after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics and initial health status, the total resilience score and most factors of the resilience scale are significantly associated with reduced mortality risk among the young-old and oldest-old. Although the causal mechanisms remain to be investigated, effective measures to promote resilience are likely to have a positive effect on longevity of the elderly in China.China, healthy life expectancy, mortality risk, residence, survival

Sociodemographic Effects on the Onset and Recovery of ADL Disability among Chinese Oldest-old

By pooling the data from the three waves (1998, 2000, and 2002) of the Chinese Longitudinal Health and Longevity Survey, this study examines the association of sociodemographic factors with the onset and recovery of ADL disability including changes in functional status before dying. The results show that the sociodemographic factors play some specific roles in disability dynamics at very high ages even after controlling for a rich set of confounders. Our results also point out that the conventional method, which excludes the information of ADL changes before dying due to unavailability of the data, overestimates the effects of age, gender, ethnicity, and living alone on disability transitions whereas it underestimates the effects of SES, although such discrepancies are not very big compared with the results including information of ADL changes before dying.ADL disability, China, oldest old, socio-demographic effect

Holographic Van der Waals phase transition for a hairy black hole

The Van der Waals(VdW) phase transition in a hairy black hole is investigated by analogizing its charge, temperature, and entropy as the temperature, pressure, and volume in the fluid respectively. The two point correlation function(TCF), which is dual to the geodesic length, is employed to probe this phase transition. We find the phase structure in the temperature$-$geodesic length plane resembles as that in the temperature$-$thermal entropy plane besides the scale of the horizontal coordinate. In addition, we find the equal area law(EAL) for the first order phase transition and critical exponent of the heat capacity for the second order phase transition in the temperature$-$geodesic length plane are consistent with that in temperature$-$thermal entropy plane, which implies that the TCF is a good probe to probe the phase structure of the back hole.Comment: Accepted by Advances in High Energy Physics(The special issue: Applications of the Holographic Duality to Strongly Coupled Quantum Systems