Tone in Fwe

This paper describes the use of tone in Fwe, a little-studied Bantu language (K.402) spoken in Zambia and Namibia. Fwe has two underlying tones, and their surface realization is determined by a number of tone rules, such as Meeussen’s Rule, high tone shift and the realization of high tones as falling. Tone also interacts with prosodic lengthening, which affects the penultimate syllable of a phrase-final word, and phonological lengthening, which affects syllables with a glide or followed by a prenasalized consonant

General Practice: Four Empirical Essays on GP Behaviour and Individuals’ Preferences for GPs

On June 1, 2001 a reform took place in Norwegian general practice. This implied some advantages of importance to empirical analysis. First, a new organisation and a new payment system were introduced, which makes it possible to perform before-after analysis. Second, the GPs' preferred list-sizes are known, which makes it possible to analyse the effect of patient constraints for individual GPs. Third, the size and composition of patient-lists are known on the individual practice level. Previously, it was not known whether consultations provided during a certain period were given to a large or a small number of persons, and this made it difficult to compare practice styles. If, for instance, two GPs provide the same number of services during one year, but GP A is responsible for twice as many patients as GP B, GP B has a more service-intensive practice style. When information on the number of patients on the list is not known, we might erroneously conclude that A and B have the same practice style. Last, but not least, the population filled in an entry form ahead of the nationwide reform - which gives us information on preferences for GPs for the whole population. Report 2004: 1 "General Practice: Four Empirical Essays on GP Behaviour and Individuals Preferences for GPs" focuses on the General Practitioner reform. Four essays show different impacts this reform had on the general practitioners practice and preferences in the population. Summing up the reform in general practice is very well suited for collecting interesting data and doing empirical analysis. The first three analyses in this doctoral thesis by Hilde Lurås are based on the evaluation of the list patient trial (in four municipalities in 1993-1996). The last analysis is based on the evaluation of the nationwide reform in 2001.General practice; Payment systems; Capitation; Service provision; Preferences; Applied econometrics

A healthy lifestyle: The product of opportunities and preferences

In this explorative study we examine factors explaining individual choice of lifestyle. The empirical analysis of smoking, exercising and diet show that the mechanisms determining people’s lifestyle are complex. We argue that the economic models on the demand for health is a meaningful framework for analysing this issue, but that it needs some refinements. A suggestion for further analytical work is therefore to reformulate the model to incorporate own past behaviour (habits), the society individuals belongs to (traditions and norms), as well as a more immediate effect on utility of lifestyle.Health demand models; lifestyle; ordered probit analysis

Monetary policy and exchange rate interactions in a small open economy

This paper analyses the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy in a small open economy like Norway through structural VARs, paying particular attention to the interdependence between the monetary policy stance and exchange rate movements in the inflation-targeting period. Previous studies of the effects of monetary policy in open economies have typically found small or puzzling effects on the exchange rate; puzzles that may arise due to the recursive restrictions imposed on the contemporaneous interaction between monetary policy and the exchange rate. By instead imposing a long-run neutrality restriction on the real exchange rate, thereby allowing the interest rate and the exchange rate to react simultaneously to any news, the interdependence increases considerably. In particular, following a contractionary monetary policy shock, the real exchange rate appreciates immediately and thereafter depreciates back to baseline. Furthermore, output and consumer price inflation fall gradually as expected; thereby also ruling out any price puzzle that has commonly been found in the literature. Results are compared and found to be consistent with among other the findings from an “event study” that focuses on immediate responses in asset prices following a surprise monetary policy decision.VAR, monetary policy, open economy, identification, event study

Estimating the equilibrium real exchange rate in Venezuela

To determine whether the real exchange rate is misaligned with respect to its long-run equilibrium is an important issue for policy makers. This paper clarifies and calculates the concept of the equilibrium real exchange rate, using a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model. By imposing long-run restrictions on a VAR model for Venezuela, four structural shocks are identified: Nominal demand, real demand, supply and oil price shocks. The identified shocks and their impulse responses are consistent with an open economy model of economic fluctuations and highlight the role of the exchange rate in the transmission mechanism of an oil-producing country.