经济学最新文献

{"title":"Exploring unmet healthcare needs and associated inequalities among middle-aged and older adults in Eastern China during the progression toward universal health coverage.","authors":"Yunhan Wang, Nan Jiang, Haiya Shao, Zhonghua Wang","doi":"10.1186/s13561-024-00521-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-024-00521-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Given the rapid population aging in China, achieving universal health coverage (UHC) presents a primary challenge in addressing unmet healthcare needs and associated inequalities among middle-aged and older adults. Several studies have focused on healthcare utilization and its inequalities, but little attention has been paid to the inequality in unmet healthcare needs. This study aimed to analyze the inequalities in unmet the healthcare needs of middle-aged and older adults in eastern China during the progression toward UHC.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Data were obtained from the fourth, fifth, and sixth National Health Service Survey (NHSS) of Jiangsu Province, located in eastern China, during the years 2008, 2013, and 2018, respectively. Logistic regression models were used to assess the associated factors of unmet healthcare needs. The inequality was measured according to the concentration index (CI) and its decomposition.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In this study, we found that 12.86%, 2.22%, and 48.89% of middle-aged and older adults reported unmet needs for outpatient and inpatient services and physical examinations, respectively. The prevalence of unmet outpatient needs increased from 2008 to 2018, while the prevalence of unmet inpatient services was lower but maintained. The prevalence of unmet needs for physical examinations among middle-aged and older adults markedly decreased since 2008. Rural areas had a higher prevalence of unmet needs for inpatient services and physical examinations than urban areas. Unmet healthcare needs were more prevalent among the poor. The pro-poor inequalities of unmet healthcare needs have been mitigated during the progression toward UHC; however, they remain predominant among rural middle-aged and older adults for outpatient and inpatient services. Socioeconomic factors significantly influenced unmet healthcare needs and contributed to their inequalities.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The findings characterize the prevalence and inequality of unmet healthcare need among middle-aged and older adults in eastern China during the progression toward UHC. Policy interventions should be actively advocated to effectively mitigate the unmet healthcare needs and address the associated inequalities.</p>","PeriodicalId":46936,"journal":{"name":"Health Economics Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141459875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Retrospective analysis of hospitalization costs using two payment systems: the diagnosis related groups (DRG) and the Queralt system, a newly developed case-mix tool for hospitalized patients.","authors":"Júlia Folguera, Elisabet Buj, David Monterde, Gerard Carot-Sans, Isaac Cano, Jordi Piera-Jiménez, Miquel Arrufat","doi":"10.1186/s13561-024-00522-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-024-00522-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Hospital services are typically reimbursed using case-mix tools that group patients according to diagnoses and procedures. We recently developed a case-mix tool (i.e., the Queralt system) aimed at supporting clinicians in patient management. In this study, we compared the performance of a broadly used tool (i.e., the APR-DRG) with the Queralt system.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>Retrospective analysis of all admissions occurred in any of the eight hospitals of the Catalan Institute of Health (i.e., approximately, 30% of all hospitalizations in Catalonia) during 2019. Costs were retrieved from a full cost accounting. Electronic health records were used to calculate the APR-DRG group and the Queralt index, and its different sub-indices for diagnoses (main diagnosis, comorbidities on admission, andcomplications occurred during hospital stay) and procedures (main and secondary procedures). The primary objective was the predictive capacity of the tools; we also investigated efficiency and within-group homogeneity.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The analysis included 166,837 hospitalization episodes, with a mean cost of € 4,935 (median 2,616; interquartile range 1,011-5,543). The components of the Queralt system had higher efficiency (i.e., the percentage of costs and hospitalizations covered by increasing percentages of groups from each case-mix tool) and lower heterogeneity. The logistic model for predicting costs at pre-stablished thresholds (i.e., 80th, 90th, and 95th percentiles) showed better performance for the Queralt system, particularly when combining diagnoses and procedures (DP): the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve for the 80th, 90th, 95th cost percentiles were 0.904, 0.882, and 0.863 for the APR-DRG, and 0.958, 0.945, and 0.928 for the Queralt DP; the corresponding values of area under the precision-recall curve were 0.522, 0.604, and 0.699 for the APR-DRG, and 0.748, 0.7966, and 0.834 for the Queralt DP. Likewise, the linear model for predicting the actual cost fitted better in the case of the Queralt system.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The Queralt system, originally developed to predict hospital outcomes, has good performance and efficiency for predicting hospitalization costs.</p>","PeriodicalId":46936,"journal":{"name":"Health Economics Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141451850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Turning less into more: Measuring real GDP growth in the green transition","authors":"Nick O'Donovan","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108293","url":null,"abstract":"Proponents of degrowth query the compatibility of ecological sustainability with economic growth and a capitalist system predicated on the ongoing expansion of economic output. This article deploys insights from constructivist political economy and recent literature on the politics of technocratic expertise to build upon and challenge this analysis. Using UK national accounting practices as a case study, it explores how current approaches to GDP measurement both facilitate and obstruct the treatment of reduced material throughput as increased economic output, of “less” as “more”. Rather than advancing an alternative to GDP growth, it highlights how tensions between the pursuit of growth and the pursuit of sustainability might be reduced using conceptual resources drawn from established approaches to national accounting and GDP measurement. Although far from a panacea, changes in technocratic practices of national accounting could reduce economic and political barriers to green transition policies.","PeriodicalId":51021,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141461790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Offsetting schemes and ecological taxes for wind power production","authors":"Mads Greaker, Cathrine Hagem, Andreas Skulstad","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108292","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108292","url":null,"abstract":"On the one hand, wind power production on land seems necessary for decarbonizing the electricity sector. On the other hand, we risk replacing one environmental problem with other environmental problems. The present paper provides a novel contribution to the literature on how to regulate the development of wind power plants on land (WPPs). Current regulation is largely based on a concession system, where both ecological taxes and offset schemes are left unexplored. We develop a theoretical model of WPP development with offsets and ecological taxes. We show that if additional loss of pristine nature and biodiversity is acceptable at some monetary price, establishing an offset market for WPP development and combining it with an ecological tax will be socially desirable. In fact, this solution is preferable to both only having an ecological tax or only having a compulsory offset market. Compared to only an ecological tax, it leads to lower environmental costs and more electricity from wind power production. By looking at a WPP project and two restoration cases, we demonstrate how an offset scheme could be conducted and conclude that offsetting WPPs could be possible. However, since wind power, to our knowledge, never have been exposed to an offsetting scheme, high quality measurement methods and thorough regulations must first be in place to ensure equivalence in the values of ecosystem services lost and gained.","PeriodicalId":51021,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141461711","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Effects of residential self-taxing districts on urban surface water quality","authors":"Andrew Hutchens, David Scrogin","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108282","url":null,"abstract":"An extensive literature documents the economic benefits associated with improving the quality of inland surface waters, including lakes, streams, and rivers. Efforts to do so in urban U.S. landscapes are often limited due to laws restricting the use of property taxes for surface water management. However, programs in several states allow homeowners to establish residential self-taxing districts through referendum to fund management and improvement activities. This study investigates the effectiveness of self-taxing districts for improving lake water quality, focusing upon a long-standing program in Orange County, Florida. Results from dynamic panel data models estimated with annual measures of total nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, secchi disk depth, and trophic state from >250 lakes over 1970–2018 indicate significant differences in mean annual water quality emerge over time between taxing district lakes and un-managed lakes and that particular district objectives and best management practices are associated with significant reductions in nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations.","PeriodicalId":51021,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141461874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Intensive personal mentoring: accelerators’ secret sauce","authors":"Eyal Rechter, Gil Avnimelech","doi":"10.1007/s11187-024-00943-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-024-00943-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Over the past fifteen years, the startup accelerator sector has emerged as a vital component in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, offering structured support to novice entrepreneurs. This study explores the impact of mentorship within accelerators, shedding light on the critical role mentors play in the success of early-stage entrepreneurs. Utilizing comprehensive data from 779 graduates of Israeli accelerators, we investigate six dimensions where accelerators enhance entrepreneurial success: entrepreneurial human capital, network expansion, fundraising skills, legitimacy, psychological development, and operational progress of the venture. We hypothesize that mentorship amplifies accelerators’ impact across these dimensions. Our findings confirm that founders who engage with personal mentors during accelerators, rather than solely relying on ad-hoc experts, and those with more intensive mentorship experience significantly greater progress across all six dimensions. These findings hold when accounting for background variables. These insights enrich the study of accelerators, emphasizing the value of personal mentorship in enhancing the positive effects of accelerators</p>","PeriodicalId":21803,"journal":{"name":"Small Business Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":6.4,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141448075","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Meeting Targets in Competitive Product Markets","authors":"EMILIO BISETTI, STEPHEN A. KAROLYI","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13369","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13369","url":null,"abstract":"We show that public banks face negative stock return jumps after missing their earnings per share (EPS) targets, and theoretically and quantitatively link these jumps to bunching behavior in the EPS surprise distribution. Bunching banks cut deposit rates to meet their targets, but do so at the expense of deposit outflows and franchise value losses. Local competitors, including private banks unexposed to capital market pressure, increase deposit rates, compensating depositors for switching. Our results provide new evidence that performance targeting incentives can affect consumer product prices, and suggest that competition may provide a check on public firms' targeting efforts.","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141452794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ecological design of a production plant","authors":"Tibor Kiss, Zsolt Hetesi, Viktor Kiss","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108290","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108290","url":null,"abstract":"The concepts and solutions of sustainability, resource efficiency, and waste-free production are increasingly influencing our thinking, policy guidelines, and corporate strategies. However, some strategies extend beyond conventional sustainable approaches by embracing the fundamental operating principles of ecosystems. In this context, resilience—a natural risk management strategy—is incorporated into the design of a manufacturing company, considering all types of material flows, including solid, liquid, gaseous, and thermal. This ecological approach to resilience is applied to both the operational and financial aspects of the company, via concurrent analysis.","PeriodicalId":51021,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141461938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Did Banks Pay Fair Returns to Taxpayers on TARP?","authors":"THOMAS FLANAGAN, AMIYATOSH PURNANANDAM","doi":"10.1111/jofi.13367","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.13367","url":null,"abstract":"Financial institutions received investments under the Troubled Asset Relief Program in a bad state of the world but repaid them in a relatively good state. We show that the recipients paid considerably lower returns to taxpayers compared to private-market securities with similar risk over the same investment horizon, resulting in a subsidy of over $50 billion on the preferred equity investment by the government. Ex-post renegotiation of contract terms limited the upside gains received by taxpayers in good times and contributed to the subsidy. These findings have important implications for the design and implementation of future bailouts. Our simple methodology for calculating the subsidy can be applied to evaluate the financial costs of other bailouts.","PeriodicalId":15753,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Finance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":8.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141448864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why should imminent international funds for solar photovoltaics go to families and the private sector and not to the government to stop the electricity crisis in Lebanon?","authors":"Caroline Merheb","doi":"10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114223","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114223","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In Lebanon, the failure to supply oil-based electricity was mostly due to flawed management, increasing costs of bills of private generators, the rise of fuel prices, and the absence of subsidies. In response, individuals have started funding small-scale rooftop PV (RPV) to increase the solar share beyond the national target while the government has struggled for years to pass bidding phases for 12 utility-scale PV (USPV). In addition to publicly unavailable details, specifications, assessments, and termination plans about the 12 solar farms, their geographical sitting was not technically evaluated. Therefore, this study mapped USPV suitability in Lebanon using a multi-criteria decision-making algorithm. Although the highly suitable lands can supply 40% of the total land needed to cover the peak demand, the areas were not equally distributed throughout the governorates. Even if USPV can help reach national solar targets, investing in public-related projects can be perilous, especially with historical patterns of inappropriate allocation of funding, political instability, and absence of accountability. Thus, investing in RPV can be more attractive due to its efficiency, grid independence, and flexibility and should be oriented primarily towards low-income families and small entrepreneurs and later to wealthier people to ensure social equity and welfare.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":11672,"journal":{"name":"Energy Policy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141444455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}