bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Determinants of Health Care Utilization in Portugal: An Approach with Count Data Models
Authors: Salvado João Cotter 
Published: January 2018

Summary
This work aims to identify the determinants of health care utilization in Portugal and to quantify their effects. A clear idea about this may help the policy debate on the delivery and organization of health services. Toward this end, we developed an approach based on count data models. We found that demographic factors influence health care demand; unemployment strongly increases utilization, and income effects are only observed for frequent users. Furthermore, chronic conditions increase demand for health services, and personal habits have mixed effects. Both private insurance and the use of subsystems increase the utilization.
Biased Estimation in a Simple Extension of a Standard Error Correction Model
Authors: Müller Christian 
Published: January 2018

SummaryThis paper considers an expectations augmented version of theEngleandGranger(1987) error correction model and shows that standard inference about the adjustment coefficients can be severely biased. This bias has implications for long-run causality and impulse-response analysis in particular. However, a sometimes simple remedy exists which only requires some additional regressions. The results are illustrated with popular macroeconomic relationships like the Fisher relation and uncovered interest parity hypothesis using U.S., German and Swiss data.
Measuring Capital Stocks and Capital Services in Switzerland
Authors: Rudolf Barbara , Zurlinden Mathias 
Published: January 2018

SummaryThis paper presents estimates of the aggregate net (wealth) capital stock and aggregate capital services for Switzerland. We derive these estimates in a consistent manner using the perpetual inventory method. Due to changes in data availability, the annual time series cover the period 1970–2005 for a 2-asset breakdown (equipment and structures) and 1990–2005 for a 12-asset breakdown (nine categories of equipment and three of structures). The sensitivity of the results is examined by varying assumptions on the initial capital stocks, the length of asset lives, the method for calculating service prices, and the choice of ICT deflators. The paper also presents quarterly measures of capital and estimates of capital services based on mid-year asset stocks.
Estimating a Taylor Rule with Markov Switching Regimes for Switzerland
Authors: Perruchoud Alexander 
Published: January 2018

SummaryIn this paper a Taylor rule including the exchange rate gap is estimated for Switzerland under the assumption that the parameters depend on two states governed by a Markov switching process. The estimates from a Gibbs sampler suggest the presence of a smooth and an active regime. The former is characterized by a high degree of interest rate smoothing. By contrast, the aggressive regime shows much less smoothing. The regime probabilities indicate that Swiss monetary policy is well characterized by the smooth regime with short interruptions by the active regime. Many of these few active periods can be associated with specific and unusual events. Furthermore, the analysis makes clear that often the active regime prevailed in periods where the Swiss National Bank decided to counteract sharp appreciations or depreciations of the Swiss franc.
The role of monetary aggregates in the policy analysis of the swiss national bank
Authors: Kirchgässner Gebhard , Wolters Jürgen 
Published: January 2018

SummaryUsing Swiss data from 1983 to 2008, this paper investigates whether growth rates of the different measures of the quantity of money and or excess money can be used to forecast inflation. After a preliminary data analysis, money demand relations are specified, estimated and tested. Then, employing error correction models, measures of excess money are derived. Using recursive estimates, indicator properties of monetary aggregates for inflation are assessed for the period from 2000 onwards, with time horizons of one, two, and three years. In these calculations, M2 and M3 clearly outperform M1, and excess money is generally a better predictor than the quantity of money. Taking into account also the most (available) recent observations that represent the first three quarters of the economic crisis, the money demand function of M3 remains stable while the one for M2 is strongly influenced by these three observations. While in both cases forecasts for 2010 show inflation rates inside the target zone between zero and two percent, and the same holds for forecasts based on M3 for 2011, forecasts based on M2 provide evidence that the upper limit of this zone might be violated in 2011.
Interest rate dynamics and monetary policy implementation in Switzerland
Authors: Abbassi Puriya , Nautz Dieter , Offermanns Christian J. 
Published: January 2018

Summary
The maturity of the operational target of monetary policy is a distinguishing feature of the SNB’s operational framework of monetary policy. While most central banks use targets for the overnight rate to signal the policy-intended interest rate level, the SNB announces a target range for the three-month Libor. This paper investigates the working and the consequences of the SNB’s unique operational framework for the behavior of Swiss money market rates before and during the financial crisis.
Test of fiscal sustainability and causality hypotheses for Switzerland
Authors: Prohl Silika 
Published: January 2018

SummaryThis paper examines the causality between the Swiss federal governments revenue and expenditure over the 1900 to 2002 period by estimating the short- and long-run relation within an error-correction approach that places more emphasis on the long-run relation as a source of the causal link. The results suggest both that the fiscal policy is consistent with the governmental budget constraint — revenue and expenditure are cointegrated, and revenue cause expenditure and vice versa. There is also evidence that World War II had a significant impact on the stability of the cointegrating relation between revenue and expenditure.
‘Baumol’s diseases’: The case of Switzerland
Authors: Hartwig Jochen 
Published: January 2018

Summary
Nordhaus (2008) has developed a testing strategy for what he calls ‘Baumol’s diseases’, by which name he designates a number of by-products of structural change that are unwanted from an economic policy perspective. He finds that the U.S. economy is strongly affected by the ‘diseases’. This paper applies Nordhaus’s testing methodology to Swiss data. The results suggest that — unlike the U.S. — Switzerland is not affected by the most serious of the ‘diseases’, namely the negative impact of structural change on economic growth.
Estimating a stock-flow model for the Swiss housing market
Authors: Steiner Elizabeth 
Published: January 2018

SummaryThis paper analyzes the development of housing market imbalances, housing prices and residential investment in Switzerland within a stock-flow framework. In the long run, the desired level of residential capital stock and the existing residential capital stock revert. Empirical results indicate, however, that housing demand can diverge from the existing supply for several years due to the slow adjustment of the residential capital stock to shocks. In the short run, the market therefore has to be cleared by price adjustments. And indeed, it can be shown empirically that changes in prices are significantly and strongly dependent on the level of stock imbalances. Furthermore, housing prices prove to be an important determinant of residential investment, which in turn drives the adjustment process of the residential capital stock towards its desired level.
Introduction to Energy Systems Modelling
Authors: Herbst Andrea , Toro Felipe , Reitze Felix , Jochem Eberhard 
Published: January 2018

Summary
The energy demand and supply projections of the Swiss government funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and carried out by a consortium of institutes and consulting companies are based on two types of energy models: macroeconomic general equilibrium models and bottom-up models for each sector. While the macroeconomic models are used to deliver the economic, demographic and policy framework conditions as well as the macroeconomic impacts of particular scenarios, the bottom-up models simulate the technical developments in the final energy sectors and try to optimise electricity generation under the given boundary conditions of a particular scenario. This introductory article gives an overview of some of the energy models used in Switzerland and — more importantly — some insights into current advanced energy system modelling practice pointing to the characteristics of the two modelling types and their advantages and limitations.
The weak rationality principle in economics
Authors: Kirchgässner Gebhard 
Published: January 2018

SummaryThe weak rationality principle is not an empirical statement but a heuristic rule for how to proceed in social sciences. It is a necessary ingredient of any ‘understanding’ social science in the Weberian sense. In this paper, first this principle and its role in economic theorizing are discussed. It is also explained why it makes sense to use a micro-foundation and, therefore, to employ the rationality assumption in economic models. Then, we discuss whether the anomalies of individual behaviour as highlighted in modern behavioural economics impair the applicability of the weak rationality principle. This is not the case. We conclude with some remarks on handling the problems of ‘free will’ as well as ‘weakness of the will’ within the economic approach.
Fiscal institutions at the cantonal level in Switzerland
Authors: Kirchgässner Gebhard 
Published: January 2018

SummaryIn this paper, institutions are described which are designed to reach sustainability of public finances in the Swiss cantons. These are on the one hand direct popular rights, the fiscal referendum in particular, which allow citizens to express their fiscal preferences. These are on the other hand debt breaks, i.e. institutions, which prevent expenditure and revenue from drifting apart too much in order to limit possible deficits. Both together, fiscal referenda and debt breaks, allow cantons to perform a sustainable fiscal policy. This also holds — and is particularly important — for those cantons that are financially weak. That these institutions are successful is not only demonstrated by descriptive analysis but also supported by econometric analyses. Moreover, they also reduce interest payments cantons have to bear for investment expenditure. Thus, with well-designed institutions federal states might even be able to better follow a sustainable fiscal policy than unitary ones.
The determinants of long-run economic growth: A conceptually and computationally simple approach
Authors: Hlouskova Jaroslava , Wagner Martin 
Published: January 2018

Summary
In this paper we use principal components augmented regressions (PCARs), partly in conjunction with model averaging, to determine the variables relevant for economic growth. The use of PCARs allows to effectively tackle two major problems that the empirical growth literature faces: (i) the uncertainty about the relevance of variables and (ii) the availability of data sets with the number of variables of the same order as the number of observations. The use of PCARs furthermore implies that the computational cost is, compared to standard approaches used in the literature, negligible. The proposed methodology is applied to three data sets, including the Sala-i-Martin, Doppelhofer, and Miller (2004) and Fernandez, Ley, and Steel (2001) data as well as an extended version of the former. Key economic variables are found to be significantly related to economic growth, which demonstrates the relevance of the proposed methodology for empirical growth research.
Natural Hedging of Exchange Rate Risk: The Role of Imported Input Prices
Authors: Fauceglia Dario , Shingal Anirudh , Wermelinger Martin 
Published: January 2018

Summary
In this paper, we estimate ERPT into imported input prices and export prices using disaggregated quarterly trade data for Switzerland over 2004–2011. We find evidence for high pass-through rates into imported input prices. This demonstrates the effectiveness of natural hedging. On the export side, ERPT exhibits substantial sectoral heterogeneity and changes in imported input costs are not transmitted to foreign consumers in most cases. This suggests the use of cheaper imported inputs to offset adverse effects of currency appreciation on export profit margins.
Valuing Public Investments to Support Bicycling
Authors: Götschi Thomas , Hintermann Beat 
Published: January 2018

Summary
We develop a framework for assessing the net benefits of investments to promote bicycling, which explicitly accounts for internal costs of bicycling. We apply our model to eight Swiss cities using data from the Swiss national travel survey and find that increasing the level of bicycling by reducing internal costs leads to inframarginal benefits that exceed the net benefits from the additional bicycling. We further find that Swiss cyclists only partially internalize health benefits, which affects the benefits from infrastructure investments but also implies that there is scope for “soft” measures that would inform users about health benefits of bicycling.
A Real-Time Data Set for Switzerland
Authors: Indergand Ronald , Leist Stefan 
Published: January 2018

Summary
Accessibility of real-time data is crucial for applied macroeconomic researchers who aim at evaluating forecasts, policy decisions or the accuracy of initial data estimates. To the extent of our knowledge, no appropriate and comprehensive real-time data set has been published for Switzerland so far. This paper introduces such a data set, which can be downloaded online. The balanced database includes quarterly, seasonally adjusted vintages of the most important economic variables on the national level. A short analysis of data revisions is provided for quarterly GDP. The magnitude of revisions are comparable to other countries such as the Euro Area or the United States. However, revision policy may differ considerably and potentially influence a statistical analysis.
The Exposure of Mortgage Borrowers to Interest Rate Risk and House Price Risk — Evidence from Swiss Loan Application Data
Authors: Brown Martin , Guin Benjamin 
Published: January 2018

Summary
We study the exposure of mortgage borrowers in Switzerland to interest rate and house price risks and examine how the households' choice of risky mortgages is related to individual interest rate expectations and risk-aversion. Our analysis is based on a unique data set of household mortgage applications from September 2012 until January 2014. Our assessment of risk exposure among mortgage borrowers in Switzerland is highly sensitive to the underlying assumptions on mortgage costs, household income and house value. Our main results suggest that the exposure of mortgage borrowers to interest rate and house price risks is limited in the medium term. We further document that the choice of mortgage contract seems to be more influenced by affordability concerns than risk concerns. In particular, individual interest rate expectations hardly affect mortgage contract choice.
A Cautionary Note on the Put-Call Parity under an Asset Pricing Model with a Lower Reflecting Barrier
Authors: Hertrich Markus 
Published: January 2018

Summary
The put-call parity is free from distributional assumptions. It is tempting to assume that this parity also holds when an asset pricing model includes reflecting barriers. This paper shows that in the case of geometric Brownian motion with reflection such barriers cause the standard put-call parity to differ from the riskneutral parity. This paper then analyzes the error that arises when the diffusion is bounded and the standard put-call parity is applied in a risk-neutral framework as a shortcut to impute put prices from call prices, and vice versa. The risk-neutral parity that is derived for a reflected geometric Brownian motion is then used to analyze the impact that the Swiss National Bank’s minimum exchange rate regime vis-à-vis the euro has had on foreign exchange hedging costs. The analysis shows that in the analyzed period domestic investors may have incurred substantial costs as a result of hedging exposure to the euro currency and may have been overexposed to foreign exchange risk.
Capital Markets Union in Europe: Why Other Unions Must Lead the Way
Authors: Acharya Viral V. , Steffen Sascha 
Published: January 2018

Summary
Government bond markets in the Euro Area are highly fragmented causing further fragmentation in bond and equity markets. Capital Markets Union with fully integrated capital markets across member countries can only work when the status of member country sovereign bonds as risk-free assets is restored. Banking Union and fiscal union are both required for this outcome. However, the Banking Union remains an unfinished project without an European deposit insurance framework and there is little consensus at the moment for a fiscal union in the Euro Area. It appears thus that the fate of the Capital Markets Union solely rests with the European Central Bank in the near to medium term.
Emerging Lessons from Half a Century of Fiscal Federalism in Switzerland
Authors: Schmidheiny Kurt 
Published: January 2018

SummaryOver the last six years, researchers collaborating through the SNF Sinergia Project have collected data on fiscal federalism in Switzerland over more than half a century. The analysis of these new data in a range of projects has generated new and robust evidence on fiscal interdependencies among local governments and on behavioral responses of households facing local differences This article presents some of the data collected and reports on nine examples of associated research projects.
Prenatal vitamin D status and offspring’s growth, adiposity and metabolic health: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Santamaria Christina , Bi Wei Guang , Leduc Line , Tabatabaei Negar , Jantchou Prévost , Luo Zhong-Cheng , Audibert François , Nuyt Anne Monique , Wei Shu Qin 
Published: January 2018

AbstractIn this systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies, we aimed to estimate the associations between prenatal vitamin D status and offspring growth, adiposity and metabolic health. We searched the literature in human studies on prenatal vitamin D status and offspring growth in PubMed, up to July 2017. Studies were selected according to their methodological quality and outcomes of interest (anthropometry, fat mass and diabetes in offspring). The inverse variance method was used to calculate the pooled mean difference (MD) with 95 % CI for continuous outcomes, and the Mantel–Haenszel method was used to calculate the pooled OR with 95 % CI for dichotomous outcomes. In all, thirty observational studies involving 35 032 mother–offspring pairs were included. Vitamin D status was evaluated by circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) level. Low vitamin D status was based on each study’s cut-off for low 25(OH)D levels. Low prenatal vitamin D levels were associated with lower birth weight (g) (MD −100·69; 95 % CI −162·25, −39·13), increased risk of small-for-gestational-age (OR 1·55; 95 % CI 1·16, 2·07) and an elevated weight (g) in infant at the age of 9 months (g) (MD 119·75; 95 % CI 32·97, 206·52). No associations were observed between prenatal vitamin D status and other growth parameters at birth, age 1 year, 4–6 years or 9 years, nor with diabetes type 1. Prenatal vitamin D may play a role in infant adiposity and accelerated postnatal growth. The effects of prenatal vitamin D on long-term metabolic health outcomes in children warrant future studies.
Alfred Waterhouse’s Romanesque ‘Temple of Nature’: The Natural History Museum, London
Authors: Bullen J. B. 
Published: January 2018

The Natural History Museum in London is a spectacular building in many senses (Fig. 1). As one of the outstanding landmarks of high Victorian architecture, it was designed to draw attention both to itself and to its contents. No other museum building in Britain adopted a Romanesque style on this scale; no other building had used terracotta in such a rich and decorative manner, and no other building (other than, perhaps, the University Museum, Oxford) so curiously employed external decoration to illustrate its internal function. It was calculated to appeal to a wide public and its animal sculpture was selfconsciously didactic in the way in which a number of contemporary museum buildings were created to a programme. Planned as a showcase for the nation’s imperial scientific achievements, its appearance was strongly ecclesiastical. When it opened in 1881, The Times leader called it a ‘true Temple of Nature’, which, the writer said, demonstrated ‘the Beauty of Holiness’. But for many visitors in 1881 Nature had abandoned the temple for wilder places; she had bloodied her claws, and the beauty of holiness had been replaced by the more severe, mechanistic principles formulated by Charles Darwin.The concept of a large museum of natural history was the inspiration of the great naturalist Richard Owen. It was also the crowning achievement of his lifetime in science. The ‘Temple of Nature’ that Alfred Waterhouse built for him embodied Owen’s belief that the history of the natural world was not a matter of randomness and chance but the creation of a transcendent presence. In other words, the Natural History Museum is the expression of an ideology, and its shape, size, position, style and decoration are charged with legible meanings. Some of those meanings are readily interpreted, others less so, and although the building history of the museum has been well documented, many questions remain. Why, for example, was Waterhouse chosen as its architect? What spurred him on to use terracotta in such an original way? And above all why did he risk the unusual Romanesque style? The choice of Romanesque for such a building, although it was later imitated elsewhere, was highly original. But that choice was conditioned by a substantial web of aesthetic, social, and political factors. The Natural History Museum was not just Waterhouse’s creation; it was very much the product of its time. It was born of national and local politics; it was shaped by Owen’s unusual position in the scientific world, and it was an expression of Waterhouse’s passion for early medieval architecture.
Automated robotic monitoring and inspection of steel structures and bridges
Authors: La Hung Manh , Dinh Tran Hiep , Pham Nhan Huu , Ha Quang Phuc , Pham Anh Quyen 
Published: January 2018

SummaryThis paper presents visual and 3D structure inspection for steel structures and bridges using a developed climbing robot. The robot can move freely on a steel surface, carry sensors, collect data and then send to the ground station in real-time for monitoring as well as further processing. Steel surface image stitching and 3D map building are conducted to provide a current condition of the structure. Also, a computer vision-based method is implemented to detect surface defects on stitched images. The effectiveness of the climbing robot's inspection is tested in multiple circumstances to ensure strong steel adhesion and successful data collection. The detection method was also successfully evaluated on various test images, where steel cracks could be automatically identified, without the requirement of some heuristic reasoning.