Digital Commons Network^™

Spillover Effects Of Medicare Advantage Plans: Does The Market Penetration Of Plans Affect Hospital Care Quality?, Qianwei Shen

Wayne State University Dissertations

The percentage of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans increased from 12 percent in 2003 to 28 percent in 2013 out of the about 50 million Medicare enrollees. Although Medicare beneficiaries are increasingly choosing MA plans, little is known about whether and how the market penetration of these plans affect the quality of hospital care provided to Medicare beneficiaries. This issue is extremely important to policy makers when they try to evaluate the importance and effectiveness of current Medicare policy, like Obama Care. This paper is designed to examine the spillover effect on the quality of hospital care …

Dynamics In Health Care Expenditures For Emerging And Developed Countries, Edmundo Roman Reyes

Wayne State University Dissertations

This paper analyzes the dynamics on health care expenditures and health outcomes for emerging and developed countries. The first part of the study focus on the short-run dynamics in health care expenditures for six emerging and a selected group of six developed economies of the OECD group. An error correction model is utilized for the analysis. Results for the presence of a long term relation are consistent within the sample. In addition, direct convergence is found to be consistent as well. The speed of adjustment is larger for emerging economies than for developed economies, which indicates that developed economies would …

Essays In Adaptive Learning And Mean-Square Stability In Regime Switching Models, Jason Robert Reed

Wayne State University Dissertations

The first chapter of this dissertation analyzes the necessary and sufficient conditions for stability under recurring structural changes. Using a finite state Markov process to model stochastically evolving, state-dependent parameters I find that by employing the conditions unique to mean-square stability, the minimum state variable (MSV) solution, found in non-linear models of this reduced form, is also stable in the learning sense. However, the choice of parameter values limits the robustness of this result. Furthermore, to illustrate this outcome I develop empirical results for a model similar to Cagan’s 1956 work on hyperinflation for Germany and the United States. I …

A Three Essay Examination Of Current Pay And Safety Issues In The Truckload Sector Of The Motor Carrier Industry, Michael Robert Faulkiner

Wayne State University Dissertations

Driver turnover remains a significant problem in the truckload sector of the motor carrier industry and has been linked to large truck crashes. Large truck crashes remain a significant problem in the truckload sector of the motor carrier industry. Employing a unique firm level data set from a large U.S. truckload motor carrier, this research showed that higher driver pay reduced driver exit rates, significantly reduced a driver’s relative crash rate, reduced driver probability of sustaining a crash, and lowered the average cost of a crash for the cooperating firm.

This research identified two driver groups who were hired during …

Economic Welfare Of Firefighting Service In Detroit, Matthias H. Jung

Wayne State University Dissertations

Chapter 1 is concerned with the effect of public fire service quality on individual utility. I develop a theoretical model to account for fire risk as a function of socio-economic, housing, and spatial factors. I review relevant literature on certain inherent public fire service issues regarding technology and cost structure before I briefly discuss the importance of public fire service with regard to overall social welfare. Finally, I employ equity mapping in a case study to assess the effect of a budget cut on equity of fire service allocation in Detroit.

Chapter 2 examines whether socio-economic factors, various aspects of …

Essays On Horizontal Divestitures And Product Market Relationships, Norkeith Ervin Smith

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation is the first to study the product effect of horizontal divestitures on upstream and downstream firms. This first essay examines product market impact of a sample of horizontal asset sales from 1988 to 2005 on corporate customers, suppliers, and industry rivals. I create a sample of firms that classifies corporate customers, suppliers, and industry competitors of firms proposing horizontal asset sales, and employ this data set to investigate the wealth effects at announcement. This study also considers post-divestiture changes in abnormal operating performance for divesting firms, customers, and suppliers.

I document evidence that divestiture related wealth effects for …