Economics Commons^™

Student Loan Debt: The Devil Is In The Details, Christopher R. Bollinger

Issue Brief on Topics Affecting Kentucky’s Economy

Student loan debt has received a great deal of attention on in the popular press recently. However, the statistics and data that are frequently presented fail to fully capture the complexity of student loans and student debt. This brief presents a more complete picture of student loan debt, examining not only average debt of student borrowers, but presenting a full assessment of the distribution of debt and the types of schools.

Medicaid Crowd-Out Of Other Public Health Spending: Modeling Economic & Health Effects, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

MOTIVATION: Thirty states are expanding Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as of 2015, and while federal funds cover most costs for newly eligible recipients, states must share the additional costs of covering previously-eligible state residents who enroll in Medicaid. States, together with their local government counterparts, also provide the vast majority (87%) of public sector funds for public health programs designed to promote health and prevent disease and injury on a population-wide basis. Fiscal constraints and generous federal matching funds create strong budgetary incentives for states to channel their health-related spending to Medicaid rather than to other …

Using Network Analysis To Understand Public Health Delivery Systems & Community Health Initiatives, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

The increasingly connected world of health care delivery relies on an expanding frontier of multi-stakeholder structures and processes, from interdisciplinary patient-centered care teams, to virtual accountable care organizations (ACOs), to complex community-level interventions. This session highlights recent advances in applying social network analysis (SNA) methods to study the implementation and impact of these types of innovations. This methods workshop examines the benefits and limits of novel SNA applications based on the expanding availability of large, linkable electronic clinical and administrative data sources with dependent data structures. This paper profiles examples of using SNA principles and methods to study the implementation …

Learning From Network Analysis: Care Transitions, Market Competition, & Community Interventions, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

The increasingly connected world of health care delivery relies on an expanding frontier of multi-stakeholder structures and processes, from interdisciplinary patient-centered care teams, to virtual accountable care organizations (ACOs), to complex community-level interventions. This methods workshop highlights recent advances in applying social network analysis (SNA) methods to study the implementation and impact of these types of innovations. This session will examine the benefits and limits of novel SNA applications based on the expanding availability of large, linkable electronic clinical and administrative data sources with dependent data structures.

Learning From Delivery System Behavior, Dynamics & Interactions To Advance A Culture Of Health, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

A new "Systems for Action" national research program flows directly from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health action framework. This program will build evidence on how best to align the delivery and financing systems for medical care, public health, and community services & supports so as to promote wellbeing and resiliency, realize efficiencies in resource use, and reduce inequities in health.

Changes In Public Health System Capital And Long-Run Health And Economic Outcomes: 1998 To 2014, Glen P. Mays, Cezar B. Mamaril

Health Management and Policy Presentations

Research Objective: The Affordable Care Act created new resources and incentives for hospitals, insurers, public health agencies, and others to contribute to disease prevention and health promotion activities, potentially changing the structure of public health delivery systems and expanding the implementation of strategies that improve population health. This study uses data from the 1998-2014 National Longitudinal Survey of Public Health Systems to examine: (1) the extent and nature of change in inter-organizational contributions to public health activities, which we use as indicators of public health “system capital”; and (2) the effects of these changes on preventable mortality and resource use. …

Cost Estimation In Public Health Services & Systems Research, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

Considerable uncertainty persists about the resources required to implement public health programs and policies, and about the factors that drive variation in resource needs and utilization across community and institutional settings. This paper reviews several alternative approaches to cost estimation that we have used in the field of public health services & systems research (PHSSR). This review was prepared for an expert panel meeting convened as part of a study commissioned by the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) to estimate the costs associated with public health emergency preparedness capabilities.

A Cost Analysis Of The 1-2-3 Pap Intervention, Kristina M. Rabarison, Rui Li, Connie L. Bish, Robin C. Vanderpool, Richard A. Crosby, Mehran S. Massoudi

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

Background: Cervical cancer places a substantial economic burden on our healthcare system. The three-dose human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series is a cost-effective intervention to prevent HPV infection and resultant cervical cancer. Despite its efficacy, completion rates are low in young women aged 18 through 26 years. 1-2-3 Pap is a video intervention tested and proven to increase HPV vaccination completion rates.

Purpose: To provide the full scope of available evidence for 1-2-3 Pap, this study adds economic evidence to the intervention’s efficacy. This study tested the economies of scale hypothesis that the cost of 1-2-3 Pap intervention per number of …

Gold Mining And Unequal Exchange In Western Amazonia: A Theoretical Photo Essay, Gordon L. Ulmer

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

I combine fieldwork photography and ethnographic documentation of gold mining in Madre de Dios, Peru, to examine the localized material, social, environmental, and health outcomes of the global gold boom. This 'theoretical photo essay’ examines how local and global forces coalesce around gold mining and influence peoples and environments in Western Amazonia. I use embodiment theory in anthropology, ecological economics, and theories of underdevelopment to understand local consequences of the global gold trade and to elucidate how opulence and the machinations of capital accumulation in economic centers of the world occur at the expense of human lives and environments in …

A Measure Of The Economic Impact Of Keeneland Racing And Sales On Lexington-Fayette County, Christopher R. Bollinger

CBER Research Report

Keeneland is an important Lexington Institution. This report shows that Keeneland draws individuals into Fayette County who spend money not only at Keeneland but in the city itself. We measure the economic impact of this spending on the local economy. For our initial study, we considered spending by patrons at the 2014 Fall Meet, the September Yearling Sale and the November Breeding Stock Sale. Based upon these findings, we were also able to assess the impact of the Spring Race Meeting, January Horses of All Ages Sale and the April Two-Year-Olds in Training Sale.

Geographic Variation In The Delivery Of Public Health Services: Understanding Causes And Consequences, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

The implementation and reach of evidence-based prevention and public health programs varies widely across the U.S., as does the availability of cross-cutting infrastructure and foundational capabilities required to support these interventions. This talk profiles ongoing research to uncover the causes and consequences of variation in public health delivery. This research points to policy and administrative strategies that can reduce inequities and inefficiencies in public health protections.

Aca Implementation In The South: The Political Economy Of Full Participation In Kentucky, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

This analysis, conducted as part of the ACA Implementation Research Network, examines economic and political forces shaping Kentucky's early experience with implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Impact Of Welfare Participation During Childhood On Adult Income, Curran A. Prettyman

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

This paper analyzes the impact of welfare participation during childhood on adult income. In the United States, welfare programs have a long history originating from the 1800s, and over $20 billion are currently allocated to various anti-poverty programs, such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and Supplemental Security Income. Many people believe that these programs effectively eradicate childhood poverty. However, ordinary least squares and instrumental variables regression models suggest welfare programs are counterproductive. On average, holding all else constant, with 95% confidence, the total dollar amount of funding received from welfare programs during childhood is statistically significant to a …

Life-Cycle Cost Analysis Of Reinforced Concrete Bridges Rehabilitated With Cfrp, Jeffrey L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The deterioration of highway bridges and structures and the cost of repairing, rehabilitating, or replacing deteriorated structures is a major issue for bridge owners. An aging infrastructure as well as the need to upgrade structural capacity for heavier trucks adds to problem. Life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is a useful tool for determining when the deployment of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite components is an economically viable alternative for rehabilitating deteriorated concrete bridges.

The use of LCCA in bridge design and rehabilitation has been limited. The use of LCCA for bridges on a project level basis has often been limited to the …

Housing And The Macroeconomy, Emily Corinne Marshall

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation studies the impact of several different housing market features on the macroeconomy.

Chapter 1 augments the New-Keynesian model with collateral constraints to incorporate long-term debt in order to examine the interaction between multi-period loans, leverage, and indeterminacy. Allowing firms to borrow heavily against commercial housing by increasing the loan-to-value ratio from 0.01 to 0.90 reduces the level of steady state output approximately 3.19% and decreases social welfare. In contrast, increasing the debt limit of households increases steady state output by 2.72%. Social welfare is maximized under a utilitiarian function when households can borrow at a loan-to-value ratio of …

The Impact Of Education Cascading Through The Economy, Center For Business And Economic Research, Gatton College Of Business And Economics, University Of Kentucky

CBER Infographic Posters

Research confirms what common sense suggests, higher levels of education are associated with better economic outcomes like higher wages and lower unemployment. And by improving health, increasing technology use, expanding volunteerism, and reducing public assistance, higher education levels have long-lasting effects on the economy. Eighty years ago, Kentucky's per capita personal income was just over 50% of the U.S. average; today it is just over 80%. Kentucky's educational position has improved significantly over the last twenty-five years, but the state still lags the U.S. in college attainment (23% compared to 30%) and academic achievement gaps continue to mute overall educational …

Kentucky Annual Economic Report 2015, Christopher R. Bollinger, William H. Hoyt, David Blackwell, Michael T. Childress, James M. Sharpe

Kentucky Annual Economic Report

No abstract provided.

Firm Characteristics And Organizational Change: The Effects Of Electronic Commerce In The United States Manufacturing Industry, Candice Y. Wallace

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation seeks to provide insight to how e-commerce adoption and utilization change the condition of U.S. Manufacturing establishments, by answering two interrelated questions: (1) What are the characteristics of manufacturing establishments that were early adopters of e-commerce activities?; (2) Once e-commerce is adopted, how has adoption affected employment within manufacturing establishments? The U.S. manufacturing industry was selected for analysis as manufacturing has been and continues to be an important sector for employment and the overall U.S. economy and has been the primary sector responsible for the majority of Business-to-Business e-commerce activity.

Using two econometric models, seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) …

The Macroeconomic Effects Of Tax News, Sandeep Kumar Rangaraju

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation explores the effect of tax news on national and state-level economic activity.

In the first chapter, I explore the effect of tax news on state economic activity. I estimate a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model, which allows us to consider the possibility that unobserved regional factors --such as credit and fiscal conditions-- might be relevant for modelling the dynamic response of aggregate and state-level economic activity. Tax news is identified as a shock to the implicit tax rate, measured by the yield spread between the one year tax-exempt municipal bond and the one-year taxable Treasury bond. My results …

Essays On Job-Related Risks And Worker Sorting, Teguh Yudo Wicaksono

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation examines heterogeneity in the value of a statistical life (henceforth VSL) stemming from employer-provided health insurance (henceforth EHI) and worker sorting. The dissertation consists of three essays.

In the first essay (Chapter 2), I investigate the effect of health-driven productivity on the wage compensation for mortality risk, and how EHI influences VSL using the US labor market data. In this chapter I build a framework showing that the level of job risks influences the incentive of employers to provide EHI. The basic notion of the framework is that health insurance is an investment in health and health is …

Competition’S Effect On Teacher Pay And Teacher Characteristics, Casey S. Brasher

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation adds to the literature that examines the effect of competition and school choice reform in elementary and secondary education. Specifically, we explore how three major forms of competition in U.S. schooling markets in Tiebout competition, charter competition, and private school competition affect the teaching profession by estimating a teacher wage equation and series of teacher characteristic equations. Since it has been well-established that all 3 forms of competition are likely endogenous, we present 2SLS estimates of competition’s effect in addition to simple OLS estimates. Our findings confirm the importance of studies controlling for endogeneity concerns, particularly in regards …

Three Essays On The Economic Impact Of Immigration, James Sharpe

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

With the significant rise in immigration to the U.S. over the last few decades, fully understanding the economic impact of immigration is paramount for policy makers. As such, this dissertation consists of three empirical essays contributing to the literature on the impact of immigration. In my first essay, I re-examine the impact of immigration on housing rents and completely controlling for endogenous location choices of immigrants. I model rents as a function of both contemporaneous and initial economic and housing market conditions. I show that existing estimates of the impact of immigration on rents are biased and the source of …

Three Essays In International Macroeconomics, Simeon Boyanov Nanovsky

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

This dissertation spans topics related to global trade, oil prices, optimum currency areas, the eurozone, monetary independence, capital controls and the international monetary policy trilemma. It consists of four chapters and three essays. Chapter one provides a brief summary of all three essays. Chapter two investigates the impact of oil prices on global trade. It is concluded that when oil prices increase, countries start trading relatively more with their neighbors. As an application this chapter provides a new estimate of the eurozone effect on trade. Chapter three continues to study the eurozone and asks whether it is an optimum currency …

The Balloon Analogue Risk Task And Behavioral Correlates In Pigeons, Aaron P. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Individuals experience risk ubiquitously, but measuring risk taking is difficult. The balloon analogue risk task (BART) was developed in order to assess risk taking through having subjects press a key that accrues reward but also risk losing all reward with each press. In humans, greater responding in this task is associated with other maladaptive risk taking behaviors. The present research modeled this relationship in pigeons due to their previously shown propensity towards risk taking behavior. Experiment 1 used an unsignaled balloon task in which losing could only occur after 5 pecks. Results showed below optimal performance with greater pecks associated …

The Economics Of Implementing Population Health Strategies: Progress In Public Health Services & Systems Research, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

Successful strategies to scale up and spread complex community-level interventions require an understanding of the resources required for implementation, how best to distribute them among supporting institutions, and how resource consumption and distribution varies across settings. This session reviews methods and early findings from the RWJF’s Public Health Delivery and Cost Studies (DACS) Initiative, which includes 12 inter-related studies examining the causes and consequences of variation in the costs of delivering complex community-level prevention strategies across more than 300 community settings in 12 states. Findings from these studies highlight the value of studying the economics of implementation, the measurement and …

The Dynamics Of Medicaid & Public Health Spending: Implications For Aca Implementation, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

We estimate the dynamics and interactions of governmental spending on Medicaid and other public health services in all 50 states over a 15 year period. Using a quasi-experimental design with instrumental variables estimation, we find evidence that increased Medicaid spending leads to reduced governmental spending on other public health services, consistent with a crowd-out effect. Over 10 years, such crowd-out has the potential to diminish the health status improvements generated through health insurance coverage expansions.

Geographic Variation In The Delivery Of High-Value Public Health Services: Exploring Causes & Consequences, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

OBJECTIVES: A growing body of evidence indicates that the delivery of public health activities varies widely across states and communities, creating missed opportunities for prevention as well as inequities in health protection. Measures of quality in public health are needed to guide public health improvement initiatives and to support research on the comparative effectiveness of alternative public health strategies. The Multi-network Practices and Outcomes Variation Examination Study (MPROVE), uses the infrastructure of six Public Health Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs) across the U.S. to develop and validate a “starter set” of measures and to analyze geographic variation delivery across diverse public …

Cost Estimates Of Foundational Public Health Services: Results From Piloting An Expert Consensus Methodology, C. B. Mamaril, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

We review preliminary estimates from pilot testing a cost estimation methodology developed to identify the resources required to implement a set of Foundational Public Health Services as recommended by the Institute of Medicine and defined by the Public Health Leadership Forum.

Medicaid Expansions & Public Health Spending: Cross-Subsidies, Complementarities, And Crowd-Out, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

In this paper we estimate the causal impact of state Medicaid enrollment expansions and expenditures on state and local resources allocated to other public health programs and services. Using a quasi-experimental design with instrumental variables estimation, we find evidence that increased Medicaid spending leads to reduced governmental spending on other public health services, consistent with a crowd-out effect. Over 10 years, such crowd-out has the potential to diminish the health status improvements generated through health insurance coverage expansions.

Cost Estimates Of Foundational Public Health Services: Results From Piloting The Expert Consensus Methodology In Kentucky, C. B. Mamaril, Glen P. Mays

Health Management and Policy Presentations

We developed a methodology for estimating the resources required to deliver a set of foundational public health capabilities as recommended in the 2012 Institute of Medicine report on public health financing. The capabilities are based on IOM recommendations and defined by a national expert panel convened as part of the Public Health Leadership Forum. This paper presents preliminary estimates from a pilot test of the cost estimation methodology in Kentucky, and outlines plans for the national estimation strategy.