Deductibles in health insurance are often regarded as a means to contain health care costs when individuals exhibit moral hazard. However, in the absence of moral hazard, voluntarily chosen deductibles may instead lead to self-selection into different insurance contracts. We use a set of new variables in the German Socioeconomic Panel for the years 2002, 2004, and 2006 that measure individual h...

Three experiments are described which investigate the effects of varied auditory stimulation (VAS) on the visual vigilance performance of relatively introverted and relatively extraverted subjects and the preferences of these two groups for such stimulation. In Expt. I , 80 db VAS was found to be associated with a significantly lower commission error rate than was 50 db steady noise, but only i...

A detailed investigation on the electrical, structural and fatigue characteristics of thin film ferroelectric memory devices fabricated from potassium nitrate-phase I11 (KN03-111) was conducted at Michigan Technological University under a grant from Ramtron Corporation, Colorado Springs, Colorado. This research involved: (1) fabrication and processing of 16x16 (256 bit) capacitor type memory de...

We analyse the fi nancial performance of small German hospitals based on balance sheet data of about 1,000 hospitals in 2007. Measures of fi nancial performance are the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) and the probability of default (PD). We fi nd that, on average, small hospitals have more fi nancial diffi culties than large ones. However, there is conside...

Till now for control of dracontiasis, the drinking water sources showing prolific breeding of c;/clops in endemic areas were either super' chlorinated or the biological method of control by introduction of cyclopscidal fishes like Ambassis, Etroplus, Barbus etc., was resorted to after the removal of the predatory fishes. Super-chlorination, if done regularly, gives fairly good results but socia...

Spatial Disparities in Hospital Performance Using a French exhaustive dataset, this paper studies the determinants of regional disparities in mortality for patients admitted to hospitals for a heart attack. These disparities are large, with an 80% difference in the propensity to die within 15 days between extreme regions. They may reflect spatial differences in patient characteristics, treatmen...

Ultraviolet and blue light were obtained by nonlinear frequency conversion in a random laser (RL) based on Nd0.10Y0.90Al3(BO3)4 nanocrystalline powder. RL operation at 1062 nm, due to the (4)F3/2 → (4)I11/2 transition of neodymium ions (Nd(3+)), was achieved by exciting the Nd(3+) with a tunable beam from 680 to 920 nm covering the ground state absorption transitions to the (4)F9/2, ((4)F7/2,(4...

This paper investigates the topping-up scheme in health insurance when both public and private firms use linear contracts. First, the case with identical consumers is analyzed. The optimal public coverage is derived both when the firms play simultaneously and when they play sequentially. In the former case consumers are over-insured, whereas, in the latter case, the second-best allocation is ob...

New approaches in health care, such as e.g. Integrated Delivery Systems, affect the role and tasks of medical suppliers. More and more, medical suppliers are incorporated into the process of guiding patients to medical specialists and hospitals and thus managing the course of disease. In this context, the role of medical gatekeepers and case managers may provide opportunities for undesirable be...

Some models of provider behavior predict that physicians, like other experts, may respond dysfunctionally to financial incentives by recommending unnecessary treatment. We empirically test this relationship using data from inpatient hospitalizations surrounding a 2003 Colorado auto insurance reform. The reform shifted a large fraction of auto injury patients from coverage through auto insurers ...