Role of Media Coverage in Keeping Lid on Government Expenses

Information monopoly of bureaucrats helps them maximize discretionary budget. Public disclosure of budget can alleviate information asymmetry between government and the public and empower public supervision on government budget. With information intermediary function and reputational governance function, the media exert a budget intervention effect in the public disclosure of government budget, which further increases the effect of government budget disclosure. This paper investigates how media reports influence "three public expenses"(TPE) budget planning of central government departments by examining media reports on the disclosure of budget and final accounts and using TPE budget as a proxy variable for discretionary budget of bureaucrats. We have reached the following findings:(1) The higher the TPE budget implementation rate, the greater budget growth will be. But this correlation can be restrained by media attention;(2) Different stance of the media may exert different governance effects on TPE budget. Good news about TPE may motivate bureaucrats to restrain the positive impact of TPE budget implementation on budget growth. However, bad news about TPE will exert its budget intervention effect only when administrative governance mechanism intervenes. This study has broadened research on the media's governance effect from the perspective of government budget transparency and verified that under China's unique institutional background, the media may still play a positive role in public sector governance.

Reducing Hospital Utilization and Related Expenses at the Community Level

The reduction of health care expenses continues to be a major challenge for the economy and society of the United States and other nations. This study focused on a major source of health care expenses, inpatient hospitals, at the community level. It was based on the assumption that fewer inpatient hospital admissions per population contribute to lower health care costs. The study demonstrated that the hospitals of Syracuse, New York have generated fewer inpatient admissions and discharges than those of other New York State metropolitan areas per population. It suggested that the application of utilization rates for inpatient hospitalization in Syracuse to some other New York State areas could result in substantial savings. Between 2016 and 2017, the hospital discharge rates in Syracuse were 1.6 - 3.1 percentage points lower than those of Albany, 2.2 - 5.0 percentage points lower than those of Rochester, 4.1 - 4.9 lower than those of New York City, 5.4 - 8.2 percentage points lower than those of Buffalo, and 17.2 - 18.3 percentage points lower than those of Utica. The study suggested that the conservative hospitalization rates in Syracuse were developed and sustained over long periods of time through the use of ambulatory surgery, reduction of admissions through hospital emergency departments, and limitation of the inpatient bed supply. This was a lengthy process that resulted in a conservative hospital admission pattern. The study demonstrated, more recently, that specific programs such as the reduction of inpatient hospital readmissions and hospital lengths of stay have supported additional reductions of hospital and related utilization in Syracuse.

Cultural Practice in Cote d'Ivoire: An Ethnography of the Feminization of Funeral Expenses

The“Letagonins”:a concept socially constructed to designate the“beating”women of Ivorian society,evokes those who have as their leitmotif,a self-realization through work.The purpose lies in their ability to free themselves from male domination.This concept means in one of the local Ivorian languages,notably the Gouro1:female boy.These women of Gouro ethnicity show a deep passion for the marketing of food products in Abidjan.However,behind this passion for food is their commitment to funeral expenses;a cultural activity customary lying with agnatic parentage.The transgression of custom by the latter under the prism of their social repositioning is the symbolic manifestation of the destandardization of the traditional relationship between man and woman in the organization of funerals in Gouro country,in the central West Ivorian.Understanding this relational reconfiguration has fuelled our passion as a researcher.In fact,ethnography has been mobilized as a method of observing the funeral practices of these women.In this regard,the study traces the strategies for negotiating access to the land as well as those used to negotiate access to information.

Minimum Expenses,Maximum Savings:How to Live in China Smartly

For more information,please click www.echinacities.com While it's at least very annoying,and at most woefully erroneous that many Chinese people judge all foreigners to be totally minted,it's not hard to see why,when many foreigners are here living decadent lifestyles,partying on weekends(and weekdays),travelling all over the country and mincing around town with Macbooks,iPods and Ray Bans.But then there are the secret 'squirrelers',who scrimp together just enough cash to

Income and Expenses for Ordinary People

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Can the Super-deduction of R&D Expenses BoostR&DInvestment?

The super-deduction of research and development(R&D)expenses is at the core of the policy to stimulate enterprise innovation in China.This paper identifies whether firms are supported by the super-deduction policies for R&D expenses and uses the diferencein-diferences method to investigate the impact of the policies on R&D investment.The results show that changes in policy in 2013 significantly increased the R&D investment of firms engaging in key state-supported technologies.Policy changes in 2016 significantly increased the R&D investment of firms engaging in non-key-state-supported technologies.Enterprises not only invested all their tax incentives in R&D activities but also increased their investment in self-raised funds.The super-deduction policy had different impacts on different industries,firms with different boards,and firms with diferent ownership.The policy significantly affected the manufacturing and construction industries,the Small and Medium Enterprise Board,and non-state-owned enterprises.Through a mechanism analysis,we found that the policy significantly reduced the user cost of R&D and increased the net cash flow of enterprises,which could raise a firm's R&D investment.It is necessary to increase policy support,expand the scope of super-deductible expenses,and increase the super-deduction rate based on industry classification according to the sensitivity of different industries to the policy.

Analysis of Hospitalization Costs and Influencing Factors of AKI in Adult Patients

Objective:To investigate the economic burden of patients with acute kidney injury(AKI)by analyzing the distribution of hospitalization expenses and its influencing factors in the Affiliated Hospital of Hebei University.Methods:The hospitalization information of patients with AKI from January 2020 to January 2023 was collected and sorted through the hospital charging system and the factors affecting the total hospitalization cost were analyzed by multiple linear regression.Results:Univariate analysis showed that age,occupation,marriage,length of hospitalization,recovery of renal function,and stage of AKI had significant effects on hospitalization cost(P<0.05).The result of the multiple linear regression analysis model showed that age(t=4.11,P<0.0001),length of hospitalization(t=16.10,P<0.0001),recovery of renal function(t=3.26,P<0.0001),AKI stage(t=5.23,P=0.002)are factors affecting the economic burden of patients with AKI.Conclusion:AKI patients should be managed according to age stratification to effectively control the progression of the disease and improve the quality of the medical services provided.This will reduce the economic burden of patients.

Effects of formal credit on pastoral household expense: Evidence from the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau of China

Formal credit is critical in agricultural production,allowing more expenditure and productive input,thereby improving farmers'welfare.In pastoral China,formal financial institutions are gradually increasing.However,a limited understanding remains of how formal credit affects herders'household expenses.Based on a survey of 544 herders from the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau of China,this study adopted the propensity score matching approach to identify the effect of formal credit on herders'total household expenses,daily expenses,and productive expenses.The results found that average age,grassland mortgage,and other variables significantly affected herders'participation in formal credit.Formal credit could significantly improve household expenses,especially productive expenses.A heterogeneity analysis showed that formal credit had a greater impact on the household total expense for those at higher levels of wealth;however,it significantly affected the productive expense of herders at lower wealth levels.Moreover,the mediating effect indicated that formal credit could affect herders'household income,thus influencing their household expenses.Finally,this study suggests that policies should improve herders'accessibility to formal credit.

Utilization and expenses of outpatient services among tuberculosis patients in three Chinese counties:an observational comparison study

Background:The China-Gates TB project Phase II implemented case-based payment reform in three Chinese counties in 2014,designed specifically for patients diagnosed with Tuberculosis(TB).This study aimed to examine the changes in utilization and expenses of outpatient services before and after the reform implementation,among TB patients in the three counties in China.Methods:We collected quantitative data using surveys in 2013(baseline year)and 2015(final year).We used outpatient hospital records to measure service utilization and medical expenses of TB patients.We conducted qualitative interviews with local health authorities,officers of health insurance agencies,and hospital managers(n=18).We utilized three focus group discussions with hospital staff and TB doctors and nurses.The x^2 tests and Mann-Whitney U tests were used to analyse quantitative data,and the thematic analysis using a framework approach was applied to analyse qualitative data.Results:Dantu and Yangzhong counties enacted TB-specific case-based payment method in 2014.Jurong County maintained global budget payment but raised the reimbursement rate for TB care.Compared to the baseline,the percentage of TB patients in Dantu and Yangzhong with eight or above outpatient visits increased from 7.5 to 55.1%and from 22.1 to 53.1%in the final survey,respectively.Jurong experienced the opposite trend,decreasing from 63.0 to 9.8%.In the final survey,the total outpatient expenses per patient during a full treatment course in Dantu(RMB 2939.7)and Yangzhong(RMB 2520.6)were significantly higher than those in the baseline(RMB 690.4 and RMB 1001.5,respectively),while the total outpatient expenses in Jurong decreased significantly(RMB 1976.0 in the baseline and RMB 660.8 in the final survey).Health insurance agencies in Dantu and Yangzhong did not approve the original design with outpatient and inpatient expenses packaged together,revealed by qualitative interviews.Furthermore,staff at designated hospitals misunderstood that health insurance agencies would only reimburse actual expenses.Many TB doctors complained about their reduced salary,which might be due to decreased hospital revenue generated from TB care after the payment method reform.Conclusions:The intended effect on cost containment of case-based payment was not evident in Dantu and Yangzhong.In Jurong,where the global budget payment system maintained with the reimbursement rate enhanced,we found an effect on cost containment but the quality of TB care might be compromised.The TBspecific case-based payment method could be redesigned to combine payment on outpatient and inpatient expenses and to set an appropriate payment standard for TB care during a full treatment course.Local health insurance agencies have to provide explicit explanations on the payment method.TB care providers should be provided with proper incentives.Monitoring and evluaiton on the quality of TB care should be undertaken at regular intervals.

上海市静安区区级医院慢性肾衰竭患者住院总费用负担评价

目的 对上海市静安区2015—2019年区级医院慢性肾衰竭患者住院总费用负担进行评价,探讨导致住院总费用负担增加的主要因素,为控制住院总费用、减轻患者本人和社会经济压力提供可行性建议。方法 利用基于松弛变量的数据包络分析法对住院总费用技术效率进行测算。结果 各年度的住院总费用技术效率均低于0.8,其中2015年技术效率值最高,而2019年技术效率值最低。各类医疗费用中治疗费和检查化验费技术效率值较低。不同医院之间技术效率值存在显著差异。结论 慢性肾衰竭患者住院总费用负担呈逐年上升趋势。慢性肾衰竭住院患者药费支出较为合理。降低治疗费和检查化验费是控制住院总费用的关键。各医疗机构诊疗行为的不同是造成疾病经济负担差异的重要因素。

No-Arbitrage in Financial Economics: Solution of the Mystery of Implied Volatility and S&P 500 Volatility Index

We have shown that classic works of Modigliani and Miller, Black and Scholes, Merton, Black and Cox, and Leland making the foundation of the modern asset pricing theory, are wrong due to misinterpretation of no arbitrage as the martingale no-arbitrage principle. This error explains appearance of the geometric Brownian model (GBM) for description of the firm value and other long-term assets considering the firm and its assets as self-financing portfolios with symmetric return distributions. It contradicts the empirical observations that returns on firms, stocks, and bonds are skewed. On the other side, the settings of the asset valuation problems, taking into account the default line and business securing expenses, BSEs, generate skewed return distributions for the firm and its securities. The Extended Merton model (EMM), taking into account BSEs and the default line, shows that the no-arbitrage principle should be understood as the non-martingale no arbitrage, when for sufficiently long periods both the predictable part of returns and the mean of the stochastic part of returns occur negative, and the value of the return deficit depends on time and the states of the firm and market. The EMM findings explain the problems with the S&P 500 VIX, the strange behavior of variance and skewness of stock returns before and after the crisis of 1987, etc.

上海市耐多药结核病患者经济负担研究

目的基于上海市近年结核病诊疗费用减免政策,探索耐多药结核病(multidrug resistant tuberculosis,MDR-TB)患者疾病经济负担及其影响因素,为优化MDR-TB诊疗费用减免政策和综合管理模式提供依据。方法收集上海市2017—2019年确诊MDR-TB患者情况和诊疗费用减免情况数据,开展针对疾病经济负担的问卷调查,建立涵盖患者人口和社会经济情况、临床特征、疾病经济负担和诊疗费用减免情况数据库,明确患者疾病经济负担和灾难性卫生支出(catastrophic health expenditure)发生情况。以多元线性回归法分析可能影响患者疾病经济负担的因素,以多因素logistic回归法分析不同比例下灾难性卫生支出发生的影响因素。结果196例纳入研究分析的MDR-TB患者平均年龄为(44±16)岁,男性139例(占70.9%),上海户籍占46.4%,49%的患者为家庭主要劳动力。治疗期间,患者自付诊疗费用中位数为4.0(四分位数区间2.0~6.5)万元。113例患者获得减免诊疗,减免费用中位数为2.6(四分位数区间1.3~4.9)万元。若自付费用占家庭年收入的40%及以上,有47.8%的患者会发生灾难性支出;若不考虑减免政策,有59.8%的患者发生灾难性卫生支出。上海户籍(OR=0.3,95%CI为0.1~1.0)、更低家庭收入水平(P_(trend)=0.002)、医疗保险类型[(农村合作医疗保险/外来人口综合保险(OR=13.3,95%CI为1.0~171.2),无医疗保险(OR=17.5,95%CI为2.7~113.0)]和既往结核病治疗史(OR=3.3,95%CI为1.1~10.0)可能影响灾难性卫生支出的发生。结论上海市MDR-TB患者的自付诊疗费用较高。医疗保障力度较小和家庭经济情况不佳的患者更易发生高额自付费用,导致灾难性卫生支出。上海市MDR-TB诊疗费用减免政策有效降低了患者的经济负担。

药品集中带量采购对糖尿病患者住院费用的影响

目的评价药品集中带量采购对糖尿病患者住院总费用及各类构成费用的影响。方法基于研究医院的9852份糖尿病患者病案首页数据,整理患者基本信息、医疗服务利用信息及各项医疗费用信息,综合运用普通最小二乘法(ordinary least square,OLS)和倾向性得分匹配法(propensity score matching,PSM)进行数据分析。结果集中带量采购政策确实能够降低糖尿病住院患者的药品费用(t=-2.27,P<0.05),但是对住院总费用、医疗服务性费用影响不显著。OLS回归低估了药品集中带量采购对患者检查化验耗材费用的增费效应(t=2.26,P<0.05)。结论在进一步加强宣传教育的同时,要有序扩大药品集中带量采购,系统推动医药领域集约式改革,持续放大改革红利,实现患者总体医疗负担减轻,让政策福利遍及更多患者。

Research on the Effect of R&D Investment Intensity and Sales Expense on the Performance of Biomedical Enterprises

Objective To explore the influence of new drug R&D investment and sales expense on the performance of biomedical enterprises.Methods The financial statements of 76 listed biomedical enterprises for 5 consecutive years were selected,and the data were modeled to study the effect of R&D investment and sales expense on the performance of biomedical enterprises by using financial indicators as tools and statistical methods of multiple linear regression.Results and Conclusion Under the premise that the weak related factors such as enterprise scale,life cycle and asset-liability ratio are set as unrelated variables,the R&D investment intensity of biomedical enterprises is negatively correlated with the current performance,which also shows that the R&D of biomedical enterprises has the characteristics of high risk.Besides,the influence of early R&D investment is delayed.However,the sales expense of leading biomedical enterprises with large scales have higher proportion.Meanwhile the greater sales expense of the same enterprise in different periods,the better the enterprise performance is.Biomedical enterprises should consider their own development stage to develop more patented drugs.Besides,they must formulate plans for allocating reasonable sales personnel and cost expense to ensure that enterprises can obtain better benefits.

Urban Plazas:The Politics of Space in Urban Constraints

The most crucial notion in built environment studies,space,is forced to undergo a reinterpretation due to the influence of numerous social phenomena and cultural movements,such as postmodernism,the information age,and globalization.The traditional concept of time subverts time division and space restriction,along with the changes brought on by contemporary urbanization and postmodernist cultural norms.As a result,the urban plaza area,which is a unique cultural space,begins to take shape.It brings together previously different places,such as“public and private,”“political and daily,”“working and leisure,”as well as“physical and virtual.”The urban plaza is a useful research subject since it is a public area where the majority of cultural traits associated with urbanization are found.The spatial politics of the urban plaza experience a historic shift from macro politics to micro politics under the influence of postmodernism.Premised on this notion,the purpose of this study is to investigate the specific space of today’s cities,which is the urban plaza,as well as the politics of space and the in-depth interpretation of space culture.This study uses techniques from many other fields that are related to spatial ideas,including philosophy,political science,cultural studies,and geography.This study expands the cultural space of post-modernist interpretation of cultural depth of character based on the theoretical paradigm in multidisciplinary cross-application in order to enhance individuals’awareness of urban plaza cultural forms and further their understanding of its political and cultural space power traits as well as underlying meaning.This paper examines the role and culture of urban plaza from the perspectives of numerous well-known spatial culture theories in the context of the analysis.In addition to identifying the nature of the cultural politics,this paper addresses the significance of spatial politics of urban plazas.

美国促进技术创新的税收优惠制度评价

沿革为了刺激技术创新,美国很早就制定颁布了相应的税收优惠制度。1954年美国《国内税收法典》就确立了研发费用扣除制度(174节)。但是令人遗憾的是,研发费用扣除制度没有带来预想的效果。数据显示,研发投资与国民生产总值的比例从1968年的2.01%下降到1975年的1.58%。更重要的是,美国将其大部分研发投资都用于国防工业。与其他发达国家相比,它的非国防研发支出(civilian research expense)是比较少的。1970-1980年间,美国的研发投入与GDP的比例始终在1.5%到2%之间徘徊。而在同时段的德国和日本,这一比例从来没有低过1.9%。

Effect of Corporate Debt on Firm Value

We have shown that three classic works considering the effects of corporate debt on the firm value,namely,Modigliani and Miller(1958,1963),Merton(1974),and Leland(1994),are wrong.Their main mistake is ignoring the business security expenses,BSEs.We suggest the model taking account of BSEs and apply it to the analysis of debt influence on the firm value and survival.Our modeling demonstrates that(1)the debt affects the firm value and its survival,(2)this influence is negative,diminishing the firm value and its chances to survive,(3)the pressure of the negative effect of debt increases as the debt grows,provoking the firm default.The debt can be beneficial for the firm if the loan is taken to improve its technology.The model helps estimate the chances to succeed in the technological modernization for various parameters of the firm and its business environment;and by that,to find the technology most suitable for the firm.It is shown that there is a serious problem in reading the market signals concerning a firm and using this information to control this firm.

比较级英汉互译探讨

英汉语均广泛使用比较级,但英语用比较级更广泛些,花样也多些。因此,相对说来,英译汉困难多些。其实汉译英也不易,只是一般采用平铺直叙的译法,不常采用英语丰富多采的表达方式来翻译。例如下面提到的“绝不坏”,一般就译为“not bat at all”,“not absolutely bad”或“quite good”,很少译为“no less good”。又如“这种布由于很漂亮,也就不算贵了”,一般直译为“This

Scalability of the DVFS Power Management Technique as Applied to 3-Tier Data Center Architecture in Cloud Computing

The increase in computing capacity caused a rapid and sudden increase in the Operational Expenses (OPEX) of data centers. OPEX reduction is a big concern and a key target in modern data centers. In this study, the scalability of the Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) power management technique is studied under multiple different workloads. The environment of this study is a 3-Tier data center. We conducted multiple experiments to find the impact of using DVFS on energy reduction under two scheduling techniques, namely: Round Robin and Green. We observed that the amount of energy reduction varies according to data center load. When the data center load increases, the energy reduction decreases. Experiments using Green scheduler showed around 83% decrease in power consumption when DVFS is enabled and DC is lightly loaded. In case the DC is fully loaded, in which case the servers’ CPUs are constantly busy with no idle time, the effect of DVFS decreases and stabilizes to less than 10%. Experiments using Round Robin scheduler showed less energy saving by DVFS, specifically, around 25% in light DC load and less than 5% in heavy DC load. In order to find the effect of task weight on energy consumption, a set of experiments were conducted through applying thin and fat tasks. A thin task has much less instructions compared to fat tasks. We observed, through the simulation, that the difference in power reduction between both types of tasks when using DVFS is less than 1%.

我国借款费用准则与美国会计准则的比较研究

本文通过对我国与美国会计准则的比较,系统阐述了有关借款费用的确认、计量、资本化期间,以及披 露等问题,通过比较总结了我国与美国会计准则的区别。