Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
The 2006-2007 Global Competitiveness Report has been released by World Economic Forum. The rankings can be found at the World Economic Forum website (PDF). “The rankings are drawn from a combination of publicly available hard data and the results of the Executive Opinion Survey, a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the World Economic Forum, together…
In 5 years, the oldest baby boomers will hit 65 years old. As the boomers begin to retire, this enormous cohort will start to sell off their financial assets in order to finance consumption in their non-working years. One begins to wonder if there will be a stock market crash since equities demand may drop significantly. …
Ten days ago, MedPageToday ran an article (“Hefty Bank Account…“) which claimed that people who have more money are healthier. Using the 2000 Census American Community Survey, the study finds that “a 55-year-old man making about $49,500 per year is 44% more likely to have a functional disability than his neighbor making $57,800 a year.” This…
Greg Mankiw’s Blog looks to online betting for the odds that McCain, Clinton, Giuliani, and Edwards will will the 2008 Presidential Election in his POTUS 2008 post. McCain has the edge, but Hilary Clinton is a close second. Using Bayes rule, however, Mankiw shows that if Edwards were to be the Democratic nominee, he would…
If one does not include Social Security and defined benefit assets, households with heads aged 65-74 have net assets of $190,100. Households with heads aged 75 and above have net assets of $163,100. How do the elderly allocate their assets? Does their portfolio choice change over time? Does it change in response to health shocks? These are the…
In this week’s Economist magazine, one article (“The invisible hand on the keyboard“) asks why economists spend valuable time blogging. Some of the more popular blogs receive thousands of visitors daily, yet why would an economist supply their output (knowledge) for free when they can receive payment from a university, the government, or private business for their work? …
The Health Care Blog has a very interesting post (“Healthcare and the Long Tail“) by Jim Walker. Mr. Walker is a lifelong Philadelphia resident who is the Director of Business Development for the social networking site called MyMedwork. He uses concepts developed in Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail and applies them to the healthcare field. …
Amy Finkelstein is one of my favorite healthcare economists and recently BusinessWeek ran an article (“So that’s why it’s so expensive“) profiling her and her work. I have profiled Ms. Finkelstein before in my June 15th post describing her 2005 paper with McGarry. She also has a new NBER working paper (“The aggregate effects of health…
How many people in Mexico have access to the Internet in their home? What proportion of the Domincan Republic’s poorest fifth of citizens has access to sanitation service? What proporation of the richest 10% of people in El Salvador have access to electricity? In Chile, how many people own their home? [Answers below] If you…
Economists are a peculiar brand of individuals. They often think more quantitatively than researchers from other social sciences, but also are fond of never giving a straight answer. If you wonder how economists view most problems, I will give a basic framework to use. 1. Identify the parties involved 2. Identify the incentives of each…