There are two broad classes of models used to address the econometric problems caused by skewness in data commonly encountered in health care applications: (1) transformation to deal with skewness (e.g., ordinary least square (OLS) on ln(y)); and (2) alternative weighting approaches based on exponential conditional models (ECM) and generalized linear model (GLM) approaches. In this paper, we en...

Relative performance evaluation has been suggested as a means to overcome information asymmetry between regulators and organizations when assessing e ciency. By comparing similar organizations the relationship between costs and e€ ort can be better isolated. The English Department of Health (DoH) has undertaken relative performance evaluation in comparing the unit costs of acute hospitals usin...

The asymptotic efficiency of OLS and IV estimators is examined in a simple dynamic structural model with a constant and two explanatory variables: the lagged dependent variable and another autoregressive variable, which may also include lagged or instantaneous feedbacks from the dependent variable. The parameter values are such that all variables are stationary. The asymptotic efficiency of OLS...

We propose and derive the asymptotic distribution of a tapered narrow-band least squares estimator (NBLSE) of the cointegration parameter in the framework of fractional cointegration. This tapered estimator is invariant to deterministic polynomial trends. In particular, we allow for arbitrary linear time trends that often occur in practice. Our simulations show that, in the case of no determini...

BACKGROUND Transformation of the dependent cost variable is often used to solve the problems of heteroscedasticity and skewness in linear ordinary least square regression of health service cost data. However, transformation may cause difficulties in the interpretation of regression coefficients and the retransformation of predicted values. AIMS OF THE STUDY The study compares the advantages a...

A practical synthesis of polyhydroxy- and regiospecifically methylated flavone-3-ols which are components of commercial 'seabuckthorn flavone' has been achieved by modified Algar-Flynn-Oyamada method. Antioxidant activities of seabuckthorn extracts, isolated products and a number of flavone-3-ols have been determined. Structure-activity relationships have been discussed. Amongst the compounds t...

Ridge regression is often the method of choice in ill–conditioned systems. A canonical form identifies regions in the parameter space where Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) is problematic. A curious but unrecognized property of ridge solutions emerges: Under spherical errors with or without moments, the relative concentrations of the canonical estimators reverse as the ridge scalar evolves, the est...