on the estimation of hospital cost functions abstract data from 166 general hospitals in new york state 1981 is used to estimate a quadratic and logarithmic long run cost function both equations fit the data very well but give very different results the quadratic appears to confirm the commonly held view of a shallow u shaped average cost curve whereas the log function indicates significant economies of scale a total and average cost elasticity of 0 9 and 0 10 respectively using beds or patient days to measure output ramsey s reset test is used to discriminate between the two models and the quadratic is clearly rejected as a misspecification scale economies thus exist even where the usual quadratic suggests otherwise

japanese fuel mix strategy after disaster of fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant lessons from international comparison among industrial nations measured by dea environmental assessment in time horizon abstract on june 1 2015 the japanese government has announced that the fuel mix will consist of nuclear generation with a range between 20 and 22 and renewable generation with a range between 22 and 24 of the total electricity generation by 2030 a difficulty in understanding the governmental future energy plan is that it does not contain any scientific evidence concerning why japan needs to maintain the amount of nuclear generation and that of renewable at the level between 20 and 22 and between 22 and 24 respectively to investigate the future energy plan this study uses data envelopment analysis dea as a methodology the proposed dea approach incorporates the property of translation invariance the property indicates that an efficiency measure should not be influenced even if inputs and or outputs are shifted toward a same direction by adding or subtracting a specific real number the property makes it possible that we can evaluate the performance of organizations whose production factors i e inputs desirable and undesirable outputs contain many zeros and negative values in a data set such an occurrence of zero and negative in production factors is widely observed in many dea performance evaluations this study first uses the desirable property for dea environmental assessment in a time horizon the proposed dea environmental assessment identifies that the reasonable ranges for japanese future fuel mix are a combustible fuel generation within the range between 34 5 and 56 1 b hydro generation within the range between 22 4 and 40 5 c nuclear generation within the range between 10 4 and 13 7 d pumped hydro generation within the range between 3 9 and 6 9 and e renewable generation within the range between 3 7 and 8 4 all of which are measured by these generation capacities it is clearly identified that the future fuel mix proposed by the japanese government is inconsistent with the estimated one which we determine by relatively comparing it with the energy structures of 33 industrial nations the comparison indicates that the japanese future energy plan will be too ambitious to implement the future goal it is easily envisioned that the energy plan will have a considerable difficulty in future it is hoped that the electric power industry can access drastic technological advancements including eco technology innovation and then japan will be able to change the future direction on fuel mix as the government expects

evaluation of the long term power generation mix the case study of south korea s energy policy abstract this paper presents a practical portfolio model for the long term power generation mix problem the proposed model optimizes the power generation mix by striking a trade off between the expected cost of power generation and its variability we use monte carlo simulation techniques to consider the uncertainty associated with future electricity demand fuel prices and their correlations and the capital costs of power plants unlike in the case of conventional power generation mix models we employ cvar conditional value at risk in designing variability to consider events that are rare but enormously expensive a comprehensive analysis on south korea s generation policy using the portfolio model shows that a large annual cost is additionally charged to substitute a portion of nuclear energy with other alternatives nonetheless if korea has to reduce its dependency on nuclear energy because of undermined social receptivity from the fukushima disaster it turns out that lng or coal could be a secure candidate from an economic perspective

risk constrained portfolio selection of renewable sources in hydrothermal electricity markets renewable sources have recently emerged as a generation option for many countries in order to promote clean energy development in the case of brazil small hydro plants and cogeneration from sugarcane waste bagasse have been attractive alternatives during the past years with hundreds of mw installed since 2004 despite their advantages both alternatives are hindered by seasonal yet complementary availability this forces producers to discount or price the risks faced when selling firm energy contracts and may ultimately lead to projects being commercially unattractive we propose a stochastic optimization model that defines the optimal composition of a portfolio based on these two renewable sources in order to maximize the revenue of an energy trading company at the same time this model mitigates hydrological and fuel unavailability risks thus allowing the participation of both sources in the forward market environment in a competitive manner a case study is presented based on data from the brazilian system

a portfolio risk analysis on electricity supply planning abstract conventional electricity planning selects from a range of alternative technologies based on the least cost method without assessing cost related risks the current approach to determining energy generation portfolios creates a preference for fossil fuel consequently this preference results in increased exposure to recent fluctuations in fossil fuel prices particularly for countries heavily depend on imported energy this paper applies portfolio theory in conventional electricity planning with taiwan as a case study the model objective is to minimize the risk weighted present value of total generation cost both the present value of generating cost and risk variance of the generating cost are considered risk of generating cost is introduced for volatile fuel prices and uncertainty of technological change and capital cost reduction the impact of risk levels on the portfolio of power generation technologies is also examined to provide some valuable policy suggestions study results indicate that replacing fossil fuel with renewable energy helps reduce generating cost risk however due to limited renewable development potential in taiwan there is an upper bound of 15 on the maximum share of renewable energy in the generating portfolio in the meantime reevaluating the current nuclear energy policy for reduced exposure to fossil fuel price fluctuations is worthwhile

on the effectiveness of scenario generation techniques in single period portfolio optimization in single period portfolio selection problems the expected value of both the risk measure and the portfolio return have to be estimated historical data realizations used as equally probable scenarios are frequently used to this aim several other parametric and non parametric methods can be applied when dealing with scenario generation techniques practitioners are mainly concerned on how reliable and effective such methods are when embedded into portfolio selection models in this paper we survey different techniques to generate scenarios for the rates of return we also compare the techniques by providing in sample and out of sample analysis of the portfolios obtained by using these techniques to generate the rates of return evidence on the computational burden required by the different techniques is also provided as reference model we use the worst conditional expectation model with transaction costs extensive computational results based on different historical data sets from london stock exchange market ftse are presented and some interesting financial conclusions are drawn

the role of decentralized distributed generation in achieving universal rural electrification in south asia by 2030 this study is motivated by the goal of achieving universal energy access by 2030 and looks at electricity access for rural households in the south asian region the message access model is employed to assess the cost effectiveness of centralized and decentralized distributed generation ddg technologies delivery mechanisms are modelled to include mini grid and stand alone systems and the analysis includes an estimation of rural household electricity demand from lighting and appliances we assume two future demand scenarios with a minimum threshold and a higher threshold of electricity consumption of 65 and 420 kw h per household per year respectively we find that the cost of delivering electricity by centralized generation and grid distribution is up to four times the cost of stand alone and mini grid ddg options in the case of minimum threshold demand scenario these results are robust to alternate assumptions regarding costs of technologies we also estimate that public subsidy bill for kerosene can be substantially reduced if all households switch to electricity as their primary source of lighting thus promoting ddg options can reduce capital investments needed to meet access goals significantly and have an important role to play in meeting the goal of universal electrification by 2030

the time price of medical care an econometric mod el is used to impute the value of time in the demand for medical care for member s of a prepaid group practice medical care program separate estimates are obtai ned for 1 individuals who were employed full time 2 housewives and 3 ti me associated with taking children to a doctor for individuals who were employe d full time the estimate was close to the median wage rate sick leave was esti mated to substantially reduce the value of time it was concluded that ignoring the time price of medical care may result in misleading statistical analysis and mistaken policy recommendations copyright 1987 by mit press

the effects of wind generation capacity on electricity prices and generation costs a monte carlo analysis abstractwe use monte carlo analysis to examine the potential of increased renewable generation to provide a hedge against variability in energy prices and costs fuel costs electricity demand and wind generation are allowed to vary and a unit commitment and economic dispatch algorithm is employed to produce cost minimizing generation schedules under different levels of installed wind capacity increased wind capacity reduces the mean and the variance of production costs but only the variance of electricity prices wind generators see their market revenues increase while consumer payments and fossil generator profits do not considerably vary as wind capacity increases risk aversion is captured by considering the conditional value at risk for both consumers and producers the optimal level of wind generation increases as risk aversion increases due to the potential of wind to act as a hedge against very high electricity prices in high fuel price scenarios

cdm potential of spv pumps in india so far the cumulative number of renewable energy systems such as solar photovoltaic spv irrigation pumps in the agriculture sector in india is far below their theoretical potential despite government subsidy programmes one of the major barriers are the high costs of investments in these systems the clean development mechanism cdm provides industrialized countries with an incentive to invest in emission reduction projects in developing countries to achieve a reduction in co2 emissions at lowest cost that also promotes sustainable development in the host country solar photovoltaic spv irrigation pumps could be of interest under the cdm because they directly displace greenhouse gas emissions while contributing to sustainable rural development however there is only one spv project under the cdm so far

stability in the federal employees health benefits program recently the federal employees health benefits program has been the subject of much discussion in washington as a result of the rather large premium increases in 1982 and 1983 the delayed open season of 1981 and the benefit reductions enrollees responded in may 1982 to the changes a record number switched plans it appears that enrollees were simply responding to the new premiums and benefits in this paper we describe the economic incentives faced by enrollees in the fehbp we find that due to the strong incentives for enrollees to leave certain high cost plans continued instability should be expected in fact the disparity between expected benefits and premium is so great for some plans e g the blue cross high option that their survival is questionable this lack of stability raises important questions about the viability of some pro competition proposals involving multiple insurer systems

diversification of fuel costs accounting for load variation a practical mathematical programming model for the strategic fuel diversification problem is presented the model is designed to consider the tradeoffs between the expected costs of investments in capacity operating and maintenance costs average fuel costs and the variability of fuel costs in addition the model is designed to take the load curve into account at a high degree of resolution while keeping the computational burden at a practical level the model is illustrated with a case study for indiana s power generation system the model reveals that an effective means of reducing the volatility of the system level fuel costs is through the reduction of dependence on coal fired generation with an attendant shift towards nuclear generation model results indicate that about a 25 reduction in the standard deviation of the generation costs can be achieved with about a 20 25 increase in average fuel costs scenarios that incorporate costs for carbon dioxide emissions or a moratorium on nuclear capacity additions are also presented

the income tax and nonwage compensation d ramatic changes in the division of labor compensation between wage and nonwage payments have occurred since world war ii voluntary employer contributions to private pension and welfare funds have risen from 1 2 of wage and salary compensation in 1947 to 8 3 in 1979 with half the increase taking place since 1969 see table 1 major changes in the composition of the fringe benefit package have also taken place during this period employer contributions to group health insurance plans have risen from 24 of total fringe benefits in 1947 to 40 o in 1979 if this growth continues group health insurance will replace pension and profit sharing plans as the largest fringe benefit expenditure by employers these trends in the compensation mix have long been noted by researchers and various factors have been offered as explanations including the favorable tax treatment of fringe benefits demographic changes such as increased life expectancy and unionization rice 1966 ture 1976 mabry 1973 freeman 1978 however most explanations have not been subjected to rigorous empirical testing and the few results that have been published are both questionable and dated for example rice 1966 estimated that changes in the tax rate structure had little influence on the relative increase in fringe benefits from world war ii to 1963 more recent studies schiller and weiss 1979 1980 have examined a specific fringe benefit the private pension plan for its impact on turnover and its role as an equalizing difference but these studies have not analyzed the determinants of the compensation mix this paper discusses the theoretical determinants of the division of labor compensation between fringe benefits and cash income and empirically estimates their importance it concentrates on the impact of taxation on the compensation mix for several reasons first the assumption that rising tax rates encourage individuals to substitute fringe benefits for cash income underlies estimates of the welfare cost of tax preferences browning 1979 second proposals to fully tax employee fringe benefits under a comprehensive9 income tax have surfaced in recent years nolan 1977 clotfelter 1979 finally current federal tax policy is calling for large tax rate reductions to increase supply incentives unlike the determinants of the compensation mix that change slowly over time such as life expectancy tax rate changes can occur rapidly through legislative action reducing tax rates might enlarge the tax base by increasing the fraction of labor income received as taxable cash wages and salaries section ii outlines the tax treatment of various forms of labor compensation and in section iii other factors thought to influence the choice between wage and nonwage compensation are discussed empirical analyses of the compensation mix are presented in section iv a brief summary and implications of the major findings for the future growth of fringe benefits follow in section v

power sector investment risk and renewable energy a japanese case study using portfolio risk optimization method the conventional pricing mechanism used for electricity systematically hides huge investment risks which are embedded in the overall cost of production although consumers are often unaware of these risks they present a large financial burden on the economy this study applies the portfolio optimization concepts from the field of finance to demonstrate the scope of greater utilization of renewable energies re while reducing the embedded investment risk in the conventional electricity sector and its related financial burden this study demonstrates that re investment can compensate for the risks associated with the total input costs such costs being external volatilities of fossil fuel prices capital costs operating and maintenance costs and the carbon costs by means of example this case study shows that japan could in theory obtain up to 9 of its electricity supply from green sources as compared to the present 1 37 based on the utilization of a portfolio risk analysis evaluation explicit comparison of the monetary values of the investment risks of conventional and renewable energy sources shows that renewable energies have high market competitiveness the study concludes with a recommendation that as a business objective investors would benefit by focusing on electricity supply portfolio risk minimization instead of cost this could also inherently increase the supply of renewable energy in the market

tax policy and the demand for health insurance estimates of the price and income elasticities of demand for health insurance are derived from econometric estimates of the parameters of a discrete choice model of health insurance demand using data from a survey of plan choices among a sample of federal government employees the estimated income elasticity 0 01 is similar to most previous estimates the estimated price elasticity 0 16 is in absolute value much less than the earlier previous estimates and somewhat less than the more recent previous estimates possible causes of these differences in price elasticity estimates are discussed

carbon abatement potential of solar home systems in india and their cost reduction due to carbon finance about 78 million rural households in india reportedly lack access to grid electricity about 67 million of them use kerosene for lighting government of india is promoting the use of solar home systems shs as one of the options for meeting lighting requirements in households in remote and less inhabited villages about 363 399 shs were reportedly disseminated across the country by december 2007 apart from meeting the basic lighting need of the households shs also help in abating the emissions of green house gases ghgs by directly displacing the use of kerosene in households that currently use it for lighting this study has attempted at estimating the co2 mitigation potential of shs in india by studying the potential for their diffusion and the appropriate baseline subsequently the scope for cost reduction to the user due to carbon finance if received is also studied it is found that carbon finance could reduce the effective burden of shs to the user by 19 if carbon prices were 10 tco22 and no transaction costs were involved in getting the carbon revenues these benefits are also estimated for scenarios where transaction costs are incurred by the project proponent in getting the carbon benefits

assessment of sustainability indicators for renewable energy technologies the non combustion based renewable electricity generation technologies were assessed against a range of sustainability indicators and using data obtained from the literature the indicators used to assess each technology were price of generated electricity greenhouse gas emissions during full life cycle of the technology availability of renewable sources efficiency of energy conversion land requirements water consumption and social impacts the cost of electricity greenhouse gas emissions and the efficiency of electricity generation were found to have a very wide range for each technology mainly due to variations in technological options as well as geographical dependence of each renewable energy source the social impacts were assessed qualitatively based on the major individual impacts discussed in literature renewable energy technologies were then ranked against each indicator assuming that indicators have equal importance for sustainable development it was found that wind power is the most sustainable followed by hydropower photovoltaic and then geothermal wind power was identified with the lowest relative greenhouse gas emissions the least water consumption demands and with the most favourable social impacts comparing to other technologies but requires larger land and has high relative capital costs

dissemination of solar photovoltaics a study on the government programme to promote solar lantern in india abstract the study examines the reasons for the limited dissemination of solar lanterns in india it uses diffusion of innovation framework to examine the dissemination process the impact of the characteristics of solar lantern on dissemination and also the communication within the community about the product are examined to understand the influence of the characteristics of solar lantern on dissemination and the information source used by adopters a survey of 188 users across 15 locations is carried out the study shows that the benefits promoted by the government programme for disseminating solar lantern are not the reasons for purchase in most cases the results suggest that the emphasis on subsidy by the support programme shifts the focus to the cost of the solar lantern than its benefits contrary to expectation there is no significant difference in the profile of early and late adopters the subsidy for solar lanterns and the targets set for government officials are the possible influence on the observed profile for adopter categories the early majority who can afford the solar lantern and take up the innovation on its merits are expected to disseminate the innovation the programme on the contrary not only fails to identify and promote to the early adopters but focus on the disadvantaged groups there are therefore no champions for the innovation and an absence of word of mouth communication the information source is restricted to government agencies while the potential user looks for evaluative information on the product from existing users the application of diffusion of innovation framework to understand the dissemination process of solar lantern suggests reworking the support programmes designed to promote solar lanterns the lessons can be extended to programmes designed for dissemination of other solar photovoltaic products

a monte carlo based decision support tool for assessing generation portfolios in future carbon constrained electricity industries abstract this paper presents a novel decision support tool for assessing future generation portfolios in an increasingly uncertain electricity industry the tool combines optimal generation mix concepts with monte carlo simulation and portfolio analysis techniques to determine expected overall industry costs associated cost uncertainty and expected co 2 emissions for different generation portfolio mixes the tool can incorporate complex and correlated probability distributions for estimated future fossil fuel costs carbon prices plant investment costs and demand including price elasticity impacts the intent of this tool is to facilitate risk weighted generation investment and associated policy decision making given uncertainties facing the electricity industry applications of this tool are demonstrated through a case study of an electricity industry with coal ccgt and ocgt facing future uncertainties results highlight some significant generation investment challenges including the impacts of uncertain and correlated carbon and fossil fuel prices the role of future demand changes in response to electricity prices and the impact of construction cost uncertainties on capital intensive generation the tool can incorporate virtually any type of input probability distribution and support sophisticated risk assessments of different portfolios including downside economic risks it can also assess portfolios against multi criterion objectives such as greenhouse emissions as well as overall industry costs

the main support mechanisms to finance renewable energy development considering that the major part of greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide there is a global concern aimed at reducing carbon emissions additionally major consumer countries are looking for alternati

gas versus oil prices the impact of shale gas abstract what significance will developments in shale gas production have for european gas prices some commentators paint a gloomy picture of the future gas markets but most forecasts for the oil market are positive consequently a view appears to prevail that price trends will differ sharply between oil and gas markets this article looks at developments in us shale gas production and discusses their impact on the movement of european gas prices the relationship between oil and gas prices over time is also analysed

hospital profits the effects of reimbursement policies this paper provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effect of cost based reimbursement cbr on hospital costs and charges it takes issue with previous analyses which have treated cbr as paying economic costs plus a mark up and have concluded that the mark up is too small to significantly distort hospital decision making the basic thesis here is that if reimbursement is based on costs accounting costs become a price to cost paying patients and will be optimized to maximize revenue a hospital serving both cost and charge paying private patients can set two price schedules accounting profits ratio of charges to costs are not a measure of economic profit but of relative prices to these two groups of patients in the absence of constraints from regulation or patient co payment the optimum level of accounting costs would be infinite in practice the medicare reimbursement formula links allowable costs to charges received from charge paying patients this formula creates incentives for the hospital to raise charges above the single price profit maximizing monopoly level this inflationary effect of the medicare formula does not presuppose that medicare pays less than full cost the empirical analysis of hospital laboratory costs and charges generally supports the predictions for other departments the conclusions are consistent but more tentative because of data limitations overall evidence suggests minimal cross subsidy between cost and charge paying patients comparisons of cost and charge levels in for profit voluntary non profit and government hospitals are presented but it is emphasized that inferences about relative efficiency and profitability cannot be drawn from accounting data given the incentives created by cbr

the economics of medicare equilibrium within the medical community this paper partially fills a theoretical void by developing an integrated model of the various branches of the medical community a consistent and general framework is adopted to analyze equilibrium within the market for medical services under a stylized form of socialized medicine without invoking demand shifting the optimization problem faced by each agent is specified and the equilibrium is defined the effect of various parameter changes on the market for medical services is analyzed the predictions are not contradicted by the stylized facts

substitution between wage and nonwage benefits you gotta be kidding ollie you re just robbing yourself schuylkill mutual offers a terrific deal on keogh and we could plug you in in fact we advise plugging you in on the corporate end so not a nickel comes out of your personal pocket it comes out of the corporate pocket and there s that much less for uncle to tax these poor saps carrying their own premiums with no company input are living in the dark ages there s nothing shady about rigging it this way we re just using the laws the government has put there they want people to take advantage it all works to up the gross national product you know what i mean by keogh don t you you re looking kind of blank john updike p 296