872 resultados para Aggregate after-tax capital rental rate
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Consumption is an important macroeconomic aggregate, being about 70% of GNP. Finding sub-optimal behavior in consumption decisions casts a serious doubt on whether optimizing behavior is applicable on an economy-wide scale, which, in turn, challenge whether it is applicable at all. This paper has several contributions to the literature on consumption optimality. First, we provide a new result on the basic rule-of-thumb regression, showing that it is observational equivalent to the one obtained in a well known optimizing real-business-cycle model. Second, for rule-of-thumb tests based on the Asset-Pricing Equation, we show that the omission of the higher-order term in the log-linear approximation yields inconsistent estimates when lagged observables are used as instruments. However, these are exactly the instruments that have been traditionally used in this literature. Third, we show that nonlinear estimation of a system of N Asset-Pricing Equations can be done efficiently even if the number of asset returns (N) is high vis-a-vis the number of time-series observations (T). We argue that efficiency can be restored by aggregating returns into a single measure that fully captures intertemporal substitution. Indeed, we show that there is no reason why return aggregation cannot be performed in the nonlinear setting of the Pricing Equation, since the latter is a linear function of individual returns. This forms the basis of a new test of rule-of-thumb behavior, which can be viewed as testing for the importance of rule-of-thumb consumers when the optimizing agent holds an equally-weighted portfolio or a weighted portfolio of traded assets. Using our setup, we find no signs of either rule-of-thumb behavior for U.S. consumers or of habit-formation in consumption decisions in econometric tests. Indeed, we show that the simple representative agent model with a CRRA utility is able to explain the time series data on consumption and aggregate returns. There, the intertemporal discount factor is significant and ranges from 0.956 to 0.969 while the relative risk-aversion coefficient is precisely estimated ranging from 0.829 to 1.126. There is no evidence of rejection in over-identifying-restriction tests.
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The FHA program to insure reverse mortgages has brought additional attention to the use of home equity conversion to increase income to the elderly. Using simulation, this study compares the economic consequences of the FHA reverse mortgage with two alternative conversion vehicles: sale of a remainder interest and sale-leaseback. An FHA insured plan is devised for each vehicle, structured to represent fair substitutes for the FHA mortgage. In addition, the FHA mortgage is adjusted to allow for a 4 percent annual increase in distributions to the homeowner. The viability of each plan for the homeowner, the financial institution and the FHA is investigated using different assumptions for house appreciation, tax rates, and homeowners' initial ages. For the homeowner, the return of each vehicle is compared with the choice of not employing home equity conversion. The study examines the impact of tax and accounting rules on the selection of alternatives. The study investigates the sensitivity of the FHA model to some of its assumptions.^ Although none of the vehicles is Pareato optimal, the study shows that neither the sale of a remainder interest nor the sale-leaseback is a viable alternative vehicle to the homeowner. While each of these vehicles is profitable to the financial institution, the profits are not high enough to transfer benefits to the homeowner and still be workable. The effects of tax rate, house appreciation rate, and homeowner's initial age are surprisingly small. As a general rule, none of these factors materially impact the decision of either the homeowner or the financial institution. Tax and accounting rules were found to have minimal impact on the selection of vehicles. The sensitivity analysis indicates that none of the variables studied alone is likely to materially affect the FHA's profitability. ^
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OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content in hip joint cartilage in mature hips with a history of slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE) using delayed gadolinium-enhanced MRI of cartilage (dGEMRIC). METHODS: 28 young-adult subjects (32 hips) with a mean age of 23.8+/-4.0 years (range: 18.1-30.5 years) who were treated for mild or moderate SCFE in adolescence were included into the study. Hip function and clinical symptoms were evaluated with the Harris hip score (HHS) system at the time of MRI. Plain radiographic evaluation included Tonnis grading, measurement of the minimal joint space width (JSW) and alpha-angle measurement. The alpha-angle values were used to classify three sub-groups: group 1=subjects with normal femoral head-neck offset (alpha-angle <50 degrees ), group 2=subjects with mild offset decrease (alpha-angle 50 degrees -60 degrees ), and group 3=subjects with severe offset decrease (alpha-angle >60 degrees ). RESULTS: There was statistically significant difference noted for the T1(Gd) values, lateral and central, between group 1 and group 3 (p-values=0.038 and 0.041). The T1(Gd) values measured within the lateral portion were slightly lower compared with the T1(Gd) values measured within the central portion that was at a statistically significance level (p-value <0.001). HHS, Tonnis grades and JSW revealed no statistically significant difference. CONCLUSION: By using dGEMRIC in the mid-term follow-up of SCFE we were able to reveal degenerative changes even in the absence of joint space narrowing that seem to be related to the degree of offset pathology. The dGEMRIC technique may be a potential diagnostic modality in the follow-up evaluation of SCFE.
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To assess rotation deficits, asphericity of the femoral head and localisation of cartilage damage in the follow-up after slipped capital femoral epiphysis (SCFE).
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T2 and T2* mapping are novel tools to assess cartilage quality.
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Mode of access: Internet.
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Taxes are an important component of investing that is commonly overlooked in both the literature and in practice. For example, many understand that taxes will reduce an investment’s return, but less understood is the risk-sharing nature of taxes that also reduces the investment’s risk. This thesis examines how taxes affect the optimal asset allocation and asset location decision in an Australian environment. It advances the model of Horan & Al Zaman (2008), improving the method by which the present value of tax liabilities are calculated, by using an after-tax risk-free discount rate, and incorporating any new or reduced tax liabilities generated into its expected risk and return estimates. The asset allocation problem is examined for a range of different scenarios using Australian parameters, including different risk aversion levels, personal marginal tax rates, investment horizons, borrowing premiums, high or low inflation environments, and different starting cost bases. The findings support the Horan & Al Zaman (2008) conclusion that equities should be held in the taxable account. In fact, these findings are strengthened with most of the efficient frontier maximising equity holdings in the taxable account instead of only half. Furthermore, these findings transfer to the Australian case, where it is found that taxed Australian investors should always invest into equities first through the taxable account before investing in super. However, untaxed Australian investors should invest their equity first through superannuation. With borrowings allowed in the taxable account (no borrowing premium), Australian taxed investors should hold 100% of the superannuation account in the risk-free asset, while undertaking leverage in the taxable account to achieve the desired risk-return. Introducing a borrowing premium decreases the likelihood of holding 100% of super in the risk-free asset for taxable investors. The findings also suggest that the higher the marginal tax rate, the higher the borrowing premium in order to overcome this effect. Finally, as the investor’s marginal tax rate increases, the overall allocation to equities should increase due to the increased risk and return sharing caused by taxation, and in order to achieve the same risk/return level as the lower taxation level, the investor must take on more equity exposure. The investment horizon has a minimal impact on the optimal allocation decision in the absence of factors such as mean reversion and human capital.
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On 21 September 1999 Division 152 was inserted into the Income Tax Assessment Act (1997) (ITAA 1997). Division 152 contains the small business CGT concessions, which enables eligible small business taxpayers to reduce the amount of tax payable on capital gains arising from certain CGT events that occur after 11:45 am on 21 September 1999. One of the principal objectives of the legislation is to provide a concessionary regime for small business owners who do not have the same ability to access the concessionary superannuation regime generally available to employees. When announcing the introduction of the concessions the then Federal Treasurer, Mr Peter Costello, specifically stated that the objective of Division 152 was to provide ‘small business people with access to funds for retirement or expansion’. The purpose of this article is to: one, assess the extent to which small business taxpayers understand the CGT small business concessions, particularly when considering the sale of their business; two, determine which of the four small business CGT concessions are most commonly adopted and/or recommended by tax practitioners to clients; and three, to determine whether the superannuation changes in relation to the capping of the concessional superannuation thresholds have had an impact on the use of the small business retirement concession.
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In a prospective cohort study of Finnish public sector employees, the authors examined the association between workplace social capital and depression. Data were obtained from 33,577 employees, who had no recent history of antidepressant treatment and who reported no history of physician-diagnosed depression at baseline in 2000-2002. Their risk of depression was measured with two indicators: recorded purchases of antidepressants until December 31, 2005, and self-reports of new-onset depression diagnosed by a physician in the follow-up survey in 2004-2005. Multilevel logistic regression analysis was used to explore whether self-reported and aggregate-level workplace social capital predicted indicators of depression at follow-up. The odds for antidepressant treatment and physician-diagnosed depression were 20-50% higher for employees with low self-reported social capital than for those reporting high social capital. These associations were not accounted for by sex, age, marital status, socioeconomic position, place of work, smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, and body mass index. The association between social capital and self-reported depression attenuated but remained significant after further adjustment for baseline psychological distress (a proxy for undiagnosed mental health problems). Aggregate-level social capital was not associated with subsequent depression.
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My dissertation focuses on dynamic aspects of coordination processes such as reversibility of early actions, option to delay decisions, and learning of the environment from the observation of other people’s actions. This study proposes the use of tractable dynamic global games where players privately and passively learn about their actions’ true payoffs and are able to adjust early investment decisions to the arrival of new information to investigate the consequences of the presence of liquidity shocks to the performance of a Tobin tax as a policy intended to foster coordination success (chapter 1), and the adequacy of the use of a Tobin tax in order to reduce an economy’s vulnerability to sudden stops (chapter 2). Then, it analyzes players’ incentive to acquire costly information in a sequential decision setting (chapter 3). In chapter 1, a continuum of foreign agents decide whether to enter or not in an investment project. A fraction λ of them are hit by liquidity restrictions in a second period and are forced to withdraw early investment or precluded from investing in the interim period, depending on the actions they chose in the first period. Players not affected by the liquidity shock are able to revise early decisions. Coordination success is increasing in the aggregate investment and decreasing in the aggregate volume of capital exit. Without liquidity shocks, aggregate investment is (in a pivotal contingency) invariant to frictions like a tax on short term capitals. In this case, a Tobin tax always increases success incidence. In the presence of liquidity shocks, this invariance result no longer holds in equilibrium. A Tobin tax becomes harmful to aggregate investment, which may reduces success incidence if the economy does not benefit enough from avoiding capital reversals. It is shown that the Tobin tax that maximizes the ex-ante probability of successfully coordinated investment is decreasing in the liquidity shock. Chapter 2 studies the effects of a Tobin tax in the same setting of the global game model proposed in chapter 1, with the exception that the liquidity shock is considered stochastic, i.e, there is also aggregate uncertainty about the extension of the liquidity restrictions. It identifies conditions under which, in the unique equilibrium of the model with low probability of liquidity shocks but large dry-ups, a Tobin tax is welfare improving, helping agents to coordinate on the good outcome. The model provides a rationale for a Tobin tax on economies that are prone to sudden stops. The optimal Tobin tax tends to be larger when capital reversals are more harmful and when the fraction of agents hit by liquidity shocks is smaller. Chapter 3 focuses on information acquisition in a sequential decision game with payoff complementar- ity and information externality. When information is cheap relatively to players’ incentive to coordinate actions, only the first player chooses to process information; the second player learns about the true payoff distribution from the observation of the first player’s decision and follows her action. Miscoordination requires that both players privately precess information, which tends to happen when it is expensive and the prior knowledge about the distribution of the payoffs has a large variance.
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Recently a protocol was developed that precisely synchronizes the time of ovulation in lactating dairy cows (Ovsynch; GnRH-7d-PGF(2 alpha)-2d-GnRH). We evaluated whether initiation of Ovsynch on different days of the estrous cycle altered the effectiveness of this protocol. The percentage of cows (n=156) ovulating to the first GnRH was 64% and varied (P<0.01) by stage of estrous cycle. Treatment with PGF(2 alpha) was effective, with 93% of cows having low progesterone at second GnRH. The overall percentage of cows that ovulated after second GnRH (synchronization rate) was 87% and varied by response to first GnRH (92% if ovulation to first GnRH vs 79% if no ovulation; P<0.05). There were 6% of cows that ovulated before the second injection of GnRH and 7% with no detectable ovulation by 48 h after second GnRH. Maximal diameter of the ovulatory follicle varied by stage of estrous cycle, with cows in which Ovsynch was initiated at midcycle having the smallest follicles. In addition, milk production and serum progesterone concentration on the day of PGF(2 alpha) affected (P<0.05) size of the ovulatory follicle. Using these results we analyzed pregnancy rate at Days 28 and 98 after Al for cows (n=404) in which Ovsynch was initiated on known days of the estrous cycle. Pregnancy rate was lower for cows expected to ovulate larger follicles than those expected to ovulate smaller follicles (P<0.05; 32 vs 42%). Thus, although overall synchronization rate with Ovsynch was above, 85%, there were clear differences in response according to day of protocol initiation. Cows in which Ovsynch was initiated near midcycle had smaller ovulatory follicles and greater pregnancy rates. (C) 1999 by Elsevier B.V.
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INTRODUCTION Recent meta-analyses of the outcome of apical surgery using modern techniques including microsurgical principles and high-power magnification have yielded higher rates of healing. However, the information is mainly based on 1- to 2-year follow-up data. The present prospective study was designed to re-examine a large sample of teeth treated with apical surgery after 5 years. METHODS Patients were recalled 5 years after apical surgery, and treated teeth were classified as healed or not healed based on clinical and radiographic examination. (The latter was performed independently by 3 observers). Two different methods of root-end preparation and filling (primary study parameters) were to be compared (mineral trioxide aggregate [MTA] vs adhesive resin composite [COMP]) without randomization. RESULTS A total of 271 patients and teeth from a 1-year follow-up sample of 339 could be re-examined after 5 years (dropout rate = 20.1%). The overall rate of healed cases was 84.5% with a significant difference (P = .0003) when comparing MTA (92.5%) and COMP (76.6%). The evaluation of secondary study parameters yielded no significant difference for healing outcome when comparing subcategories (ie, sex, age, type of tooth treated, post/screw, type of surgery). CONCLUSIONS The results from this prospective nonrandomized clinical study with a 5-year follow-up of 271 teeth indicate that MTA exhibited a higher healing rate than COMP in the longitudinal prognosis of root-end sealing.
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In this CEPS Commentary, Daniel Gros turns his attention to the main outstanding problem facing Greece today, namely capital flight. Fearful that the country will leave the euro, depositors are withdrawing cash from their bank accounts – thereby making this event more likely. He outlines a proposal in which outgoing payments from Greek banks in the form of cash or via the TARGET system would be limited to the amount of incoming payments, i.e. revenues from exports or tourism, via an auction system. Greece could remain formally a member of the euro area, but the price for cash withdrawals would encourage depositors to wait and stimulate exports.