This paper utilizes a new flow measure of the true output of bank services to analyze the impact of mergers on the cost and productivity of Bank Holding Companies (BHCs) over the period 1987–1999. It shows that there are conceptual problems in the output measures used in previous studies, which may be the reason for their paradoxical findings: Bank mergers are estimated to lead to significant i...

This paper presents a critical analysis of the economic impacts of past, ongoing, and planned research of BFRL’s construction systems integration and automation technologies (CONSIAT) program. The CONSIAT program is an interdisciplinary research effort within BFRL to develop key enabling technologies, standard communication protocols, and advanced measurement technologies needed to facilitate t...

The 1,652 additional lives saved in all 38 States and the District of Columbia resulting from the increase in seat belt use would represent an increase of 11 percent above the estimate of lives saved by seat belts (15,147) for 2007. Over 50 percent of the total benefits in lives saved (842 out of the total of 1,652 lives saved), non-fatal injuries saved (22,677 out of the total of 39,486 non-fa...

BACKGROUND Gavi recommends solar refrigerators for vaccine storage in areas with less than eight hours of electricity per day, and WHO guidelines are more conservative. The question remains: Can solar refrigerators provide value where electrical outages are less frequent? METHODS Using a HERMES-generated computational model of the Mozambique routine immunization supply chain, we simulated the...

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...

The aim of this study was to assess costs and safety of immediate femoral sheath removal and closure with a suture-mediated closure device (Perclose, Menlo Park, CA) in patients undergoing elective (PCI). A total of 193 patients was prospectively randomized to immediate arterial sheath removal and access site closure with a suture-mediated closure device (SMC; n = 96) or sheath removal 4 hr aft...

The U.S. SO2 Trading Program created by Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendment led to lower compliance costs than what would have occurred under a Command-and-Control approach. However, all compliance cost savings were not realized. There have been several conjectures, including rigidities from fuel contracts, as to why the hypothetical outcome was not obtained. Kneifel (2008) shows how f...