Economics Insights @ CBS

This paper lays out a decomposition of book-to-price (B/P) that derives from the accounting for book value and that articulates precisely how B/P "absorbs" leverage. The B/P ratio can be decomposed into an enterprise book-to-price (that pertains to operations and potentially reflects operating risk) and a leverage component (that reflects financing risk).

This paper furnishes robust evidence that the WTO has had a strong positive impact on trade, amounting to about 120 percent of additional world trade (or US$ 8 trillion in 2000 alone). The impact has, however, been uneven. This, in many ways, is consistent with theoretical models of the GATT/WTO. The theory suggests that the impact of a country's membership in the GATT/WTO depends on what the country does with its membership, with whom it negotiates, and which products the negotiation covers.

This paper develops a pure simulation-based approach for computing maximum likelihood estimates in latent state variable models using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods (MCMC). Our MCMC algorithm simultaneously evaluates and optimizes the likelihood function without resorting to gradient methods. The approach relies on data augmentation, with insights similar to simulated annealing and evolutionary Monte Carlo algorithms. We prove a limit theorem in the degree of data augmentation and use this to provide standard errors and convergence diagnostics.

BACKGROUND: Delays for appointments are prevalent, resulting in patient dissatisfaction, higher costs, and possible adverse clinical consequences. A "just-in-time" approach to patient scheduling, called advanced access, has been effective in reducing delays in multiple clinical settings. Offering most patients appointments on the same day requires achieving an appropriate balance between supply of and demand for appointments, but no methods have been previously proposed to determine what this balance should be.