Financial openness is often associated with higher rates of economic growth. We show that the impact of openness on factor productivity growth is more important than the effect on capital growth. This explains why the growth effects of liberalization appear to be largely permanent, not temporary. We attribute these permanent liberalization effects to the role financial openness plays in stock m...

The effectiveness of safety inspections of ships has been analysed from various angles, but until now, relatively little attention has been given to translate risk reduction into incident cost savings. This paper provides a monetary quantification of the cost savings that can be attributed to port state control inspections and industry vetting inspections. The dataset consists of more than half...

We examine whether countries that have high levels of financial inclusion fewer non-performing loans and loan loss provisions in their banking sectors. The fixed effect panel regression methodology was used to analyse the on bank provisions. Using data from 48 countries, we find greater formal account ownership is associated with loans. Bank are only when achieved through combined use ownership...

The Affordable Care Act's regulation of medical loss ratios requires health insurers to use at least 80-85 percent of the premiums they collect for direct medical expenses (care delivery) or for efforts to improve the quality of care. To gauge this rule's effect on insurers' financial performance, we measured changes between 2010 and 2011 in key financial ratios reflecting insurers' operating p...

The main focus in this study is on data pre-processing, reduction in number of inputs or input space size reduction the purpose of which is the justified generalization of data set in smaller dimensions without losing the most significant data. In case the input space is large, the most important input variables can be identified from which insignificant variables are eliminated, or a variable ...

OBJECTIVE To compare changes in the costs of statins following patent expiry in Australia and England, and to estimate projected savings for Australia based on the government and consumers paying prices equivalent to those in England and increased use of generics. DESIGN Review of administrative data and predictive models based on recent trends. SETTING Administrative price and quantity dat...

Studies on the cost structures of banks tend to find that economies of scale are negligible whereas improvements in X-efficiency facilitate much larger cost reductions. The implication is that banks should reduce costs by emulating industry best practice rather than increasing size. This interpretation is questionable because it is based on comparisons of two different economic concepts scale e...