Transparency and Public Reporting Are Essential for a Safe Health Care System

Compares three approaches to spurring hospitals to improve patient safety and argues that public reporting of performance and feedback to providers is more effective than regulation and accreditation or financial incentives

Asset Accumulation, Information, and the Life Cycle

Empirical tests of the life cycle model have focused on its implications for the level of a household's total net worth and paid little attention to changes in portfolio composition over the life cycle. In this paper, we examine a new survey of the asset holdings of 6,010 U.S households and show that there is a pronounced life-cycle pattern to both the number and value of assets held by U.S. households. Direct survey evidence suggests that incomplete information is a significant determinant of household portfolio composition. We test the hypothesis that information about investment opportunities arrives stochastically over time, estimating a Poisson model for the arrival of new information.

Zero-draft proposal on sustainable development goals falls short

In November 2014, the IGC, along with 18 world-leading economists, sent an open letter to the Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon of the United Nations urging the UN to champion economic growth as the driving force in achieving meaningful and sustained poverty reduction. The newly published ‘Zero-draft’ of the Sustainable Development Goals has fallen disappointingly short of the recommendations put forth in our letter

Wealth and Portfolio Composition: Theory and Evidence

In this paper, we examine a new survey of 6,010 U.S.households and estimate a model for the allocation of total net worth among different assets. The paper has three main aims. The first is to investigate the extent to which a conventional portfolio choice model can explain the differences in portfolio composition among households. Our survey data show that most households hold only a subset of the available assets. Hence we analyze a model in which investors choose to hold incomplete portfolios. We show that the empirical specification of the joint discrete and continuous choice that characterizes household portfolio behavior is a switching regressions model with endogenous switching. The second aim is to examine the impact of taxes on portfolio composition. The survey contains a great deal of information on taxable incomes and deductions which enable us to calculate rather precisely the marginal tax rate facing each household.The third aim is to estimate wealth elasticities of demand for a range of assets and liabilities. We test the frequently made assumption of constant relative risk aversion.

Prescribing and medication communication on the post-take ward round

Gaps in communication between medical officers and poor planning are associated with prescribing errors and may result in patient harm. This study describes medication communication on Post Take Ward Rounds (PTWR). Over 6 weeks on 24 PTWRs, 130 patients, prescribed 1244 medications were observed. Of these, 811(65%) medications were discussed, with 249 discussions (relating to 126 medications) being ‘in-depth’. Of 191 planned medication-related actions, 38 (20%) were not implemented by the end of the PTWR and 21 (11%) by time of discharge from hospital. This study suggests that the level of medication communication and subsequent actions are suboptimal. Processes to improve this situation should be explored

Data analysis and recommendations for the determination of the equilibrium constant for CO steam conversion and of consumption ratios of ammonia production

Проведений аналіз значень константи рівноваги конверсії СО водяною парою Кp1, визначеною за різними джерелами. Для розрахунку Кp1 обґрунтовано використання рівняння Тьомкіна М.І. Витратні коефіцієнти виробництва аміаку по РПГ та ТПГ, розраховані з використанням значень Кp1, визначеної за рівняннями Тьомкіна М.І. і Kjer J., рівняннями апроксимації табличних даних Семенова В.П. та даних Wagman D., відрізняються не більше як на 0,1 %.Analysis of the equilibrium constant for CO steam conversion, Kp1 from various sources was conducted. To calculate Kp1 it is reasonable to use the equation of Temkyn M.I. Equilibrium constants Kp1 for the watergas shift of carbon monoxide is recommended to determine by the Temkin M.I. equation. Expense ratios of ammonia by an RNG and FNG, calculated using the Kp1 values, defined by the equations of Temkin M.I.; Kjer J., by the approximation equations of tabular data of Semenov V.P. and data of Wagman D., — differ by no more than 0,1 %