sweeping US$130-billion health care reform plan, the country faces huge obstacles to progress in what’s been described as the world’s largest health care experiment. The plan centres on quickly reforming hospital management while delivering universal access to primary health care through national insurance schemes. But roadblocks have arisen, according to new research presented at the annual wo...

We examine the possibility that gauge field configurations on stacks of parallel Dp-branes support topological solitons. We give an exhaustive list of possible soliton charges for p ≤ 6. We also discuss how configurations carrying the soliton charges can be constructed from intersecting branes.

Corruption is defined in an occupational choice model as extra fees that must be paid by some entrepreneurs. Higher corruption leads to lower wages and total output. Income inequality follows a Kuznets relationship with both corruption and income. Two types of decentralization of the bribe-setters are distinguished, regional and bureaucratic. When mobility is imperfect, bureaucratic decentraliz...

We examine the effect of labor income and health uncertainty on the optimal choices of policyholders with Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefits embedded in Variable Annuities. These choices are determined in the context of a utility-based life cycle model including bequest motives and optimal term life purchases. We then determine riskneutral prices from the perspective of the issuing financial ins...

The aims of the paper are two-fold, namely to analyse the seasonal patterns of tourist arrivals from South Korea to Australia, and to use econometric time series modelling to quantify the factors affecting the flow of international tourists between Australia and Korea. Estimates of the effects of changes in income, relative prices, exchange rates, seasonality and other factors are provided, and...

Congress has recently extended funding for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for two more years through the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-10). 1 By 2017, it will have to consider whether to once again extend funding for the program or permit current law to take effect, sending current CHIP enrollees to other sources of coverage. One issue in t...