Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
If you get sick and have a non-group health insurance plan, your premiums will increase. When you think about it, this really doesn’t make much sense. The concept of ‘health insurance’ is that it is supposed to protect your assets in the case where your health deteriorates. John Cochrane proposes one solution: the creation of…
Last month, I blogged about allowing a government-sponsored health plan to compete with private insurers. Joe Paduda gives one argument in favor of a public health insurer that any economist would love: increased competition. “The reality today is that almost every market is already dominated by a very few health plans, so much so that…
As an economist, I conduct most of my analysis based on the quantitative data. However, qualitative data should not be overlooked. A paper by Tucker et al. (2008) looks at how the front-line hospital staff evaluates quality issues. Some examples of their findings are: The largest number of operational failures occurred in the equipment/supply category.…
The N.Y. Times has an interesting profile of Freeman Dyson, a man who claims that global warning may not pose a grave risk to civilization. Dyson agrees with the scientific consensus that: Rapidly rising carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere are caused by human activity, The world is getting warmer, also due to human activity Using…
Are people irrational? Many economic experiments have shown that people often make seemingly irrational or paradoxical choices. An article by Ryan, Watson, and Entwistle (Health Econ 2009) probes whether or not people really are irrational using discrete choice experiments (i.e., pick option A or option B). What they found is that some of the “irrational” behavior is often…
This week my paper on Pharmacists as vaccinators was accepted for publication by the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Benefits. Co-authored with John Fontanesi, Jan Hirsch, Sarah Lorentz, and Debra Bowers, “Comparison of Pharmacists and Primary Care Providers as Immunizers” examines whether pharmacists are productive and efficient vaccinators. The abstract of the paper is below. The…
In the run-up of real estate and stock market prices, demand for labor in the construction, real estate, finance industry was high. With the drastic drop in real estate and stock market prices, the demand for loan officers, construction workers and investment bankers has dropped. Individuals who have been laid must find a new job.…
Cuba is well known for its high quality cigars and sugar production, but is less well-known for its production of high quality pharmaceuticals. According to MSNBC, “With more than 7,000 scientists dedicated to researching new drugs, Cuba has one of the most sophisticated biotech industries in the developing world. Last year the country earned $350…
The latest edition of the Cavalcade of Risk is up at Wisdom from Wenchpoo’s Mental Wastebasket.
Foreign born recipients of U.S. based doctoral degrees: Science and Engineering: 51% in 2003, 27% in 1973. Physical sciences: 50% in 2003 Engineering: 67% in 2003 Economics: 68% in 2003 Citation: John Bound, Sarah Turner, Patrick Walsh (2009) “Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education,” NBER Working Paper No. 14792.