Future Expenditures Research Articles

Human energy expenditure: advances in organ‐tissue prediction models

Humans expend energy at rest (REE), and this major energy exchange component is now usually estimated using statistical equations that include weight and other predictor variables. While these formulas are useful in evaluating an individual's or group's REE, an important gap remains: available statistical models are inadequate for explaining underlying organ-specific and tissue-specific mechanisms accounting for resting heat production. The lack of such systems level REE prediction models leaves many research questions unanswered. A potential approach that can fill this gap began with investigators who first showed in animals and later in humans that REE reflects the summated heat production rates of individual organs and tissues. Today, using advanced imaging technologies, REE can be accurately estimated from the measured in vivo mass of 10 organ-tissue mass components combined with their respective mass-specific metabolic rates. This review examines the next frontier of energy expenditure models and discusses how organ-tissue models have the potential not only to better predict REE but also to provide insights into how perturbations in organ mass lead to structure-function changes across other interacting organ systems. The introductory ideas advanced in this review provide a framework for future human energy expenditure modelling research.

Australian attitudes to intergenerational equity: impacts of social and policy change

AbstractAttitudes to ageing can predispose decision-making as governments, interest groups and electorates negotiate competing demands in the context of economic constraints and social change. This paper, based on national survey data, investigates change and stability in Australian attitudes to intergenerational equity from 2009–2010 to 2015–2017, alongside concurrent socio-economic and policy change as well as cohort succession. The emphasis is on the baby-boom cohort who are viewed as significant beneficiaries of social change relative to opportunities of younger and older cohorts. Views of older people as a needy group may be changing slightly as more enter later life with substantial wealth and resources. Our results show that there is little perception of intergenerational conflict with the exception of the Millennial cohort whose life chances are compromised by economic and expenditure constraint over the past decade. Overall, attitudes remain sympathetic to older people, especially among women and people rendered vulnerable by poor health, non-home-ownership and low socio-economic positions. The findings do not align with government portrayals of intergenerational inequalities notwithstanding many having negative views of the future and ongoing expenditure restraint strategies. At what appears to be a critical turning point in the life chances of successive cohorts, the findings indicate the interplay between attitudes and social and policy change, as well as implications for social equity and processes of attitudinal change.

Measuring and reporting the actuarial obligations of the Canada Pension Plan

AbstractThe processes used to assess the financial sustainability of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the corresponding reporting are recognized internationally as “best practices”. In the context of the international and multi‐disciplinary debate about the most appropriate methodology for the measuring and reporting of social security assets and obligations, the experience and practices of Canada offer a number of important policy lessons. The article analyses the assets and obligations of the CPP using different actuarial balance sheet methodologies, i.e. open and closed group. It concludes that the balance sheets under the closed‐group with and without future benefit accruals methodologies do not reflect the nature of the partial funding approach of the CPP, whereby future contributions represent a major source of financing for future expenditures. As such, it is inappropriate to reach a conclusion regarding the Plan's financial sustainability considering only the asset shortfalls determined under the closed group with and without future accruals balance sheets. The article asserts that measuring the Plan's assets and obligations using the open‐group approach provides information that properly reflects how changing demographic and economic environments affect the long‐term sustainability of the CPP. In contrast, using the closed group without future accruals approach may provide incomplete or even misleading information. Finally, the article discusses approaches used to report the financial state of the CPP, including both actuarial and financial reporting. It highlights the comprehensive disclosures approach adopted for the purpose of CPP annual reports and the Public Accounts of Canada.

Assessing Fiscal Sustainability

Every country faces an intertemporal budget constraint, which requires that its government's future expenditures, including servicing its outstanding official debt, be covered by its government's future receipts when measured in present value. The present value difference between a country's future expenditures and its future receipts is its fiscal gap. The US fiscal gap now stands at $205 trillion. This is 10.3 percent of the estimated present value of all future US GDP. The United States needs to raise taxes, cut spending, or engage in a combination of these policies by an amount equal to 10.3 percent of annual GDP to close its fiscal gap. Closing the gap via raising taxes would require an immediate and permanent 57 percent increase in all federal taxes. Closing the gap via spending cuts (apart from servicing official debt) would require an immediate and permanent 37 percent reduction in spending. This grave picture of America's fiscal position effectively constitutes a declaration of bankruptcy.

Assessment of exogenous geological hazards in Moscow, Russia

Exogenous geological processes are exerting a significant impact on urban geo environment in Moscow endangering both surface and subsurface constructions. For surface construction, the principle geohazards in Moscow are karst-suffosion sinkholes, land subsidence, landslides, and waterlogging. The subsurface construction is endangered by karstification and fracturing of limestone, decompaction and swelling of clay, quicksand phenomena, and groundwater breakthrough to tunnels. Different methods are applied to study geohazards depending on the purpose and the scale of study. At the preliminary investigation stage, small-scale mapping and zoning of city surface or subsurface appears to be the most appropriate for the qualitative assessment of the risk of economic losses caused by exogenous geohazards. Assessment of the geological risk in Moscow was carried out separately for already existing urban infrastructure and for future planned construction. For existing surface urban infrastructure, geological risk is considered to be an integral parameter of probable damage caused by geohazards and the anthropogenic load on the specific territories. The main aim of risk mapping in this case is outlining the territories, for which restrictions and prohibitions should be imposed for further urban engineering development. For future subsurface urban construction, the risk-analysis consists in assessing the impact of geohazards on the engineering structure by comparing the future expenditures for the construction and operation under different engineering geological conditions. The risk maps in this case will help planners to compare and make alternative project decisions in order to minimize the cost in future economic expenditures. Both approaches are successfully approved in this investigation in Moscow.

Lithologic mapping using Random Forests applied to geophysical and remote-sensing data: A demonstration study from the Eastern Goldfields of Australia

The Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia is one of the world’s premier gold-producing regions; however, large areas of prospective bedrock are under cover and lack detailed lithologic mapping. Away from the near-mine environment, exploration for new gold prospects requires mapping geology using the limited data available with robust estimates of uncertainty. We used the machine learning algorithm Random Forests (RF) to classify the lithology of an underexplored area adjacent to the historically significant Junction gold mine, using geophysical and remote-sensing data, with no geochemical sampling available at this reconnaissance stage. Using a sparse training sample, 1.6% of the total ground area, we produce a refined lithologic map. The classification is stable, despite including parts of the study area with later intrusions and variable cover depth, and it preserves the stratigraphic units defined in the training data. We assess the uncertainty associated with this new RF classification using information entropy, identifying those areas of the refined map that are most likely to be incorrectly classified. We find that information entropy correlates well with inaccuracy, providing a mechanism for explorers to direct future expenditure toward areas most likely to be incorrectly mapped or geologically complex. We conclude that the method can be an effective additional tool available to geoscientists in a greenfield, orogenic gold setting when confronted with limited data. We determine that the method could be used either to substantially improve an existing map, or produce a new map, taking sparse observations as a starting point. It can be implemented in similar situations (with limited outcrop information and no geochemical data) as an objective, data-driven alternative to conventional interpretation with the additional value of quantifying uncertainty.

A Critical Examination of Enrolment Forecasts and Fiscal Projections in the Worth Report

There are seven major chapters in A Choice of Futures: (1) Tomorrow: Future-Forecasts, (2) A Sense of Direction, (3) Structure, (4) Process, (5) Planning, (6) Resources, and (7) Next Steps. In the study of this Report, it is difficult to discover adequate relationships of the various parts to one another even as it is difficult to discover concrete research evidence for forecasts, estimates and projections. However, the forecasts on future expenditures are obviously meant to relate to the forecasts in earlier chapters dealing with aspects of the future and in particular, the population and enrolment forecasts. These forecasts were largely derived from a compilation of data synthesized earlier by Seastone. In the preface of his study, Seastone writes: "Thus, the study should be regarded as a compilation of available data and analyses, and extensions of these data where necessary, according to a set of assumptions and analyses that reflect my judgment about probable future patterns of behaviour"

National trends in prescription drug expenditures and projections for 2018.

Historical trends and factors likely to influence future pharmaceutical expenditures are discussed, and projections are made for drug spending in 2018 in nonfederal hospitals, clinics, and overall (all sectors). Drug expenditure data through calendar year 2017 were obtained from the IQVIA (formerly QuintilesIMS) National Sales Perspectives database and analyzed. New drug approvals, patent expirations, and other factors that may influence drug spending in hospitals and clinics in 2018 were also reviewed. Expenditure projections for 2018 for nonfederal hospitals, clinics, and overall (all sectors) were made based on a combination of quantitative analyses and expert opinion. Total U.S. prescription sales in the 2017 calendar year were $455.9 billion, a 1.7% increase compared with 2016. The top drug based on expenditures was adalimumab ($17.1 billion), followed by insulin glargine and etanercept. Prescription expenditures in nonfederal hospitals totaled $34.2 billion, a 0.7% decrease in 2017 compared with 2016. Expenditures in clinics increased 10.9%, to a total of $70.8 billion. The decrease in spending in nonfederal hospitals was driven by lower utilization. The top 25 drugs by expenditures in nonfederal hospitals and clinics were dominated by specialty drugs. We project a 3.0-5.0% increase in total drug expenditures across all settings, a 11.0-13.0% increase in clinics, and a 0.0-2.0% increase in hospital drug spending in 2018. Health-system pharmacy leaders should carefully examine their own local drug utilization patterns to determine their own organization's anticipated spending in 2018.

Telephone Encounters Predict Future High Financial Expenditures in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients: A 3-Year Prospective Observational Study.

Telephone activity is essential in management of complex chronic diseases including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Telephone encounters logged in the electronic medical record have recently been proposed as a surrogate marker of disease activity and impending health care utilization; however, the association between telephone calls and financial expenditures has not been evaluated. We performed a 3-year prospective observational study of telephone encounters logged at a tertiary referral IBD center. We analyzed patient demographics, disease characteristics, comorbidities, clinical activity, and health care financial charges by telephone encounter frequency. Eight hundred one patients met inclusion criteria (52.3% female; mean age, 44.1 y), accounted for 12,669 telephone encounters, and accrued $70,513,449 in charges over 3 years. High telephone encounter frequency was associated with female gender (P=0.003), anxiety/depression (P<0.001), and prior IBD surgery (P<0.001). High telephone encounter categories had significantly more hospitalizations (P<0.001), IBD surgery (P<0.001), worse quality of life (P<0.001), more corticosteroid (P<0.001), biological (P<0.001), and opiate prescriptions (P<0.001). High telephone encounter frequency patients amassed higher total available charges in each year (P<0.001) and over the 3 years (P<0.001). Telephone encounters in 2009 (P=0.02) and 2010 (P<0.001) were significantly associated with financial charges the following year after controlling for demographic, utilization, and medication covariates. Increased telephone encounters are associated with significantly higher health care utilization and financial expenditures. Increased call frequency is predictive of future health care spending. Telephone encounters are a useful tool to identify patients at risk of clinical deterioration and large financial expense.

A register-based case-control study of health care utilization and costs in binge-eating disorder

ObjectiveCapturing trends in healthcare utilization may help to improve efficiencies in the detection and diagnosis of illness, to plan service delivery, and to forecast future health expenditures. For binge-eating disorder (BED), issues include lengthy delays in detection and diagnosis, missed opportunities for recognition and treatment, and morbidity. The study objective was to compare healthcare utilization and expenditure in people with and without BED. MethodsA case-control design and nationwide registers were used. All individuals diagnosed with BED at eating disorder clinics in Sweden between 2005 and 2009 were included (N = 319, 97% female, M age = 22 years). Ten controls (N = 3190) were matched to each case on age-, sex-, and location of birth. Inpatient, hospital-based outpatient, and prescription medication utilization and expenditure were analyzed up to eight years before and four years after the index date (i.e., date of diagnosis of the BED case). ResultsCases had significantly higher inpatient, hospital-based outpatient, and prescription medication utilization and expenditure compared with controls many years prior to and after diagnosis of BED. Utilization and expenditure for controls was relatively stable over time, but for cases followed an inverted U-shape and peaked at the index year. Care for somatic conditions normalized after the index year, but care for psychiatric conditions remained significantly higher. ConclusionIndividuals with BED had substantially higher healthcare utilization and costs in the years prior to and after diagnosis of BED. Since previous research shows a delay in diagnosis, findings indicate clear opportunities for earlier detection and clinical management. Training of providers in detection, diagnosis, and management may help curtail morbidity. A reduction in healthcare utilization was observed after BED diagnosis. This suggests that earlier diagnosis and treatment could improve long-term health outcomes and reduce the economic burden associated with BED.

The Impact of Media Sentiment on Firm Risk, Corporate Investment and Financial Policies

This study investigates the association between media sentiment and a comprehensive set of corporate decision making measures that capture firm, corporate investment, and financial policy risk. This study predicts that CEOs who achieve greater media coverage are more risk-seeking. We find a positive association between media sentiment and the volatility of future firm stock returns, research and development expenditures and cash holdings. CEOs are more overconfident when estimating returns and risk when media sentiment is strong and positive. CEOs are more risk-seeking when sentiment is negative in an attempt to salvage firm reputation and increase personal wealth. Liquidity is used to hedge risk when firms and CEOs face increased media coverage. Our findings support the role of media sentiment as an external mechanism monitoring firm risk and policies.

Section 24C: Indicators regarding the certainty of the incurral of future expenditure

Section 24C of the Income Tax Act No. 58 of 1962 provides for a deduction of future expenditure that will be incurred by the taxpayer in the performance of his obligations under a contract from which the taxpayer derived income. The objective of this article is to compile a list of indicators demonstrating when there will be certainty that future expenditure will be incurred as aforementioned. The conclusion reached is that a definite connection must exist between the incurral of the future expenditure and the obligation to perform under the contract. Further, conditions and warranties are contractual terms that indicate that there is uncertainty regarding the taxpayer’s obligations to perform under the contract. A time clause in a contract and a high probability that the taxpayer will perform an unconditional obligation under a contract, however, both indicate that there is certainty regarding the incurral of future expenditure. A contingent liability to pay for future expenditure or if the future expenditure is unquantified are not indicators as to whether there is certainty that the future expenditure will be incurred.

The Impact of WIC on Infant Immunizations and Health Care Utilization.

To test how prenatal participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) impacts health care utilization and immunizations within the first year of an infant's life. We utilize comprehensive South Carolina Medicaid claims data from 2004 to 2013 linked with birth certificates data from 2004 to 2012. These data contain information on WIC participation and all health care utilization within the first year of an infant's life. We employ a maternal fixed-effects empirical design to control for unobserved factors that influence WIC participation and health care utilization. We estimate that WIC participation increases infant health care utilization within the first year of life by 0.20 well-child visits (95 percent CI 0.16-0.23), by 0.22 vaccinations (95 percent CI 0.17-0.27), and by increasing the probability of receiving care in an emergency room by 2.9 percentage points (95 percent CI 2.0-3.8). Additionally, our results show that WIC participation decreases the average number of days an infant spends in the hospital within his or her first year of life by 0.41days (95 percent CI 0.22-0.60). These findings suggest that WIC may increase health care costs in some dimensions while reducing it in others, and more work is needed to fully evaluate the impact of the program on future expenditures.

The influence of other comprehensive income on discretionary expenditures

AbstractOther comprehensive income items (OCI) increase and decrease book value and therefore indicate more or less firm value. It follows that OCI items, albeit transitory, may contribute to a wealth effect that influences expenditure decisions. In support, our regression results indicate an association between current year OCI and future discretionary financing, investing, and operating expenditures. However, we also find that OCI‐influenced expenditures are not associated with future profitability, suggesting such expenditures are not value creating. In further tests, we find that future discretionary expenditures are associated with both positive OCI and negative OCI for higher leveraged firms but only associated with positive OCI for lower leveraged firms. These results suggest that, for highly leveraged firms, positive OCI loosens debt constraints on future expenditures while negative OCI tightens debt constraints on future expenditures. For firms without debt constraints the results are suggestive of possible wealth transfers from debtholders to shareholders.

Conducting Comparative Research into Defence Capability Formation

The world appears to be searching for a new, multipolar model of global security. In this context, the provision of impartial data on military capability formation to be used in disarmament proposals and balance of power negotiations will be critical to effective security management in the prevailing uncertain international environment. In their recent research paper on the relationship between military expenditure (milex), government spending and economic growth in the Indo-Pacific Asia region the authors argued that milex’ high level of aggregation often masked important changes in national military capabilities and proposed limited disaggregation of military expenditure data to highlight national spending on military force structure and preparedness so as to facilitate better understanding of military capability formation. In this paper the authors develop this perspective a step further by reviewing alternative approaches to the production of data on military capability formation. It is suggested that the milex data are disaggregated one level down to differentiate between investments in the future force and expenditure on the readiness and sustainment of the force in being.

Prevalence and predictors of food insecurity among people living with HIV affiliated with AIDS service organizations in Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACTUp to half of people living with HIV in resource-rich settings experience moderate to severe food insecurity. Food insecurity, in turn, has been linked to adverse health outcomes including poor antiretroviral adherence, poor HIV viral suppression, frailty, and mortality. We estimated the prevalence of food insecurity among 649 adults living with HIV and recruited from community-based AIDS service organizations in Ontario, Canada. Food security was assessed using the Canadian Household Food Security module. We used logistic regression modeling to identify demographic, socioeconomic, and psychosocial factors independently associated with food insecurity. Almost three-fourths of participants (70.3%) were food insecure and a third (31%) reported experiencing hunger. The prevalence of food insecurity in this sample is approximately six times higher than that of the general population. Factors independently associated with food insecurity were: having dependent children at home, residing in large urban areas, low annual household income (<$40,000), difficulty meeting housing-related expenses, cigarette smoking, harmful drug use, and depression. Broad, multisector interventions that address income, housing affordability, substance use and mental health issues are needed and could offset future public health expenditures.

Replacing income taxation with consumption taxation in Japan

Over the past two decades, Japan has suffered from low economic growth and a large and growing debt to output ratio. Furthermore, Japan anticipates significant increases in future government expenditures due to an aging population. These problems have led Japan to introduce a consumption tax rate in an attempt to raise revenues, and, more recently, to reduce the statutory corporate income tax rate to raise investment and output growth. In this paper we study the growth and welfare consequences of a reduction in income taxation in Japan along with increases in consumption taxation to stabilize the debt to output ratio. In particular, we consider various unanticipated tax reforms using the model described in Hansen and İmrohoroğlu (2016). We find that while output per working age population is projected to be roughly constant between 2015 and 2021 in the benchmark equilibrium representing the status quo, under alternative policies considered, output could be as much as 15% higher by 2021.

The ERC: from before then to anniversary celebrations.

The European Research Council (ERC) is now 10 years old. This beautiful child has grown and thrived, and its many parents should look at it with pride. I first wrote about the ERC in 2000 [1], because it was a conversation piece among European scientists. At the turn of the millennium, many scientists had given up hope that such a structure could come into being after many barren years of aligning the right arguments for it. That collective expert negative view turned out to be wrong, because of an unusual persistence by scientists and the organisations that represent them, and a change in the rhetoric of the European Commission (EC), which eventually became the ERC's surrogate mother. Ever since, the EU has nurtured and supported, often in inventive ways, the council, which it now rightfully presents as one of its major successes. Julio Celis and the late Jose Mariano Gago have written an excellent commentary on the history and the barriers that had to be overcome before the ERC's launch in 2007 [2]. Julio was Secretary General of the Federation of Biochemical Societies (FEBS) during that period and the Danish representative in the intergovernmental group that supported the activities of EMBO and EMBL. Jose Mariano was Minister of Science in Portugal for most of that period. I will not do a disservice to their article by paraphrasing it. Rather I will present some of the story behind the series of meetings before the ERC became “an idea whose time has come”, which was an often‐repeated phrase during those discussions. The idea of EU funding agency for basic research seems to have moved from the agenda of scientists to that of decision makers at a meeting of the Royal Academy in Sweden in 2001 to discuss future expenditures …

US state and local oil and gas revenue sources and uses

US state and local governments generate revenues from oil and gas production through a variety of mechanisms. In this paper, we quantify four leading sources: (1) state taxes levied on the value or volume of oil and gas produced; (2) local property taxes levied on the value of oil and gas property; (3) oil and gas lease revenues from state lands; and (4) oil and gas lease revenues from federal lands. We measure these revenues against the total value of oil and gas produced in the top 16 oil- and gas-producing states using fiscal year 2013 as a benchmark. On average, state and local governments collect roughly 10% of oil and gas revenue, ranging from a low of roughly 1% to a high of nearly 40% (not including income taxes). We also assess the use of these revenues, finding that there is substantial variation among states. The largest shares of revenue flow to state governments’ current expenditures and education, followed by local governments. Some states also allocate a portion of oil and gas revenues to trust funds endowing future government operations and/or education expenditures.

レシートログと消費行動に関する未来予測(ライフログ,人工現実感)

レシートログと消費行動に関する未来予測(ライフログ,人工現実感)