Total Public Costs Research Articles

МЕТОД ЕКСПЕРТНОЇ ОЦІНКИ КОНТРОЛЮ ЯКОСТІ ПРОДУКЦІЇ НА ПІДПРИЄМСТВАХ МАШИНОБУДІВНОЇ ГАЛУЗІ

У статті запропоновано підходи до моделювання процесу контролю якості продукції на підприємствах машинобудівної галузі з метою оптимізації його результативності. Отримані результати дають можливість визначити профілі та тенденції стосовно якості продукції машинобудування, виявити пріоритети поліпшення її якості. Машинобудівному підприємству необхідно проводити моніторинг щодо задоволення споживачів, визначивши способи одержання цієї інформації, вчасно розробляти методи оцінювання та проводити аналіз отриманої інформації з метою задоволення потреб споживачів. Моделювання дає змогу вчасно виявити виникнення кризових явищ для кваліметричного оцінювання контролю якості виготовлення продукції машинобудівної галузі, відстежувати динаміку і тенденції змін, що відбуваються.

Identification of Cross-sector Service Utilization Patterns Among Urban Medicaid Expansion Enrollees.

The expansion of Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act opened new opportunities to provide health coverage to low-income adults who may be involved in other public sectors. The main objective of this study was to describe cross-sector utilization patterns among urban Medicaid expansion enrollees. We merged data from 4 public sectors (health care, human services, housing, and criminal justice) for 98,282 Medicaid expansion enrollees in Hennepin County, MN. We fit a latent class model to indicators of cross-sector involvement. Indicator variables described involvement levels within each sector from March 2011 through December 2014. Demographic and chronic condition indicators were included post hoc to characterize classes. We found 6 archetypes of cross-sector involvement: The "Low Contact" class (33.9%) had little involvement in any public sector; "Primary Care" (26.3%) had moderate, stable health care utilization; "Health and Human Services" (15.3%) had high rates of health care and cash assistance utilization; "Minimal Criminal History" (11.0%) had less serious criminal justice involvement; "Cross-sector" (7.8%) had elevated emergency department use, involvement in all 4 sectors, and the highest prevalence of behavioral health conditions; "Extensive Criminal History" (5.7%) had serious criminal justice involvement. The 3 most expensive classes (Health and Human Services, Cross-sector, and Extensive Criminal History) had the highest rates of behavioral health conditions. Together, they comprised 29% of enrollees and 70% of total public costs. Medicaid expansion enrollees with behavioral health conditions deserve focus due to the high cost-reduction potential across public sectors. Cross-sector collaboration is a plausible path to reduce costs and improve outcomes.

Benefits of Returning to Work After ECT

Severe unipolar or bipolar depression is often not helped by pharmacotherapy and/or psychotherapeutic treatment alone, whereas more than 80% of these patients remit after sessions of electroconvulsive treatment (ECT). Getting patients back to work after a severe depression may be important for maintaining the effect of ECT. Twenty consecutive patients remitted to an acute psychiatric hospital for depression underwent ECT. None of the patients had been working before the inpatient stay. Four patients were living on a permanent sickness allowance from the State (invalidity pension) before ECT, and thus were not expected to start work thereafter. Ten of the patients returned to work. Hospital treatment in Norway (including ECT) is provided free of charge with no copayments from the patient. The mean length of sick leave before ECT was 14.7 months. The 10 patients who returned to work had accrued public costs before their inpatient stays totalling NOK (Norwegian krone) 2,994,635 or a mean of NOK 299,463 per patient (&OV0556;1 = 9 NOK or $1 = 6 NOK ). The total public cost of their inpatient stays was NOK 1,680,000. During the first year after ECT, these 10 patients received NOK 2,680,000 in wages (NOK 3,238,300 during the mean number of months they were observed). Most of the patients (10 of 16) receiving ECT returned to work and within 2 years had earned more than the total cost both of their sick leave before admittance to hospital and the public cost of their 4 weeks' inpatient treatment. It is a pity that many countries, including Norway, only allow ECT as a treatment of last resort after failed psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. Higher public spending is an inadvertent result of such a policy toward ECT.

The Quasi-normative Approach to Housing Affordability: The Case of the Czech Republic

The article attempts to contribute to the discussion on housing affordability and the use of affordability measures for normative purposes. The approach applied in this article is based on the estimation of economic quasi-norms on rent levels in rent-controlled (social) housing by looking at total public costs at different rent levels. The quasi-norms determining rents could be used for estimation of quasi-norms determining 'optimal' housing affordability ratios. As quasi-norms are set according to an econometric simulation output, they are less subjective than the usual normative decisions of policy-makers. This approach may have a significant relevance for some transitional countries and therefore the Czech Republic is used as a case study. The results show that there is a relatively large scope for further increases in rents in the Czech rent-controlled housing sector and scientific research can be thus employed to inform rent-setting and, via that, 'optimal' levels of housing affordability.

Economic implications of brush treatments to improve water yield

One possible method of increasing water yield in some water-poor areas is through brush management. Economic modeling of brush control programs designed to improve water yield has been performed for numerous Texas watersheds. These studies assumed a single criteria brush control program. This single criteria program may have negative impacts on certain wildlife habitats, is likely unacceptable to landowners, and does not incorporate additional restoration practices. Our study analyzed the economic consequences of 3 brush management/restoration scenarios for the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone and Twin Buttes watersheds and the drainage basins contained within. Economic measures included total public cost ($) and public cost of producing additional water ($/1000 m3 of added water). Because of its larger size, estimated total public cost was higher for the Twin Buttes watershed than for the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone watershed, despite the fact that the Twin Buttes had lower cost per ha of treated brush. Public cost of additional water is lower for basins within the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone watershed (ranging from $26 to $44 per 1000 m3 of added water) than in the Twin Buttes watershed (ranging from $51 to $129) which suggests that public investment in brush management efforts are likely to be more economically efficient in the Edwards Aquifer area. Within individual basins, public cost of additional water were similar for all 3 brush management/restoration scenarios.

Economic implications of brush treatments to improve water yield

One possible method of increasing water yield in some water-poor areas is through brush management. Economic modeling of brush control programs designed to improve water yield has been performed for numerous Texas watersheds. These studies assumed a single criteria brush control program. This single criteria program may have negative impacts on certain wildlife habitats, is likely unacceptable to landowners, and does not incorporate additional restoration practices. Our study analyzed the economic consequences of 3 brush management/restoration scenarios for the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone and Twin Buttes watersheds and the drainage basins contained within. Economic measures included total public cost () and public cost of producing additional water (/1000 m3 of added water). Because of its larger size, estimated total public cost was higher for the Twin Buttes watershed than for the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone watershed, despite the fact that the Twin Buttes had lower cost per ha of treated brush. Public cost of additional water is lower for basins within the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone watershed (ranging from 26 to 44 per 1000 m3 of added water) than in the Twin Buttes watershed (ranging from 51 to 129) which suggests that public investment in brush management efforts are likely to be more economically efficient in the Edwards Aquifer area. Within individual basins, public cost of additional water were similar for all 3 brush management/restoration scenarios.

Incorporating Toll-Lane and High-Occupancy Toll-Lane Effects into the Dallas System Planning Methodology

The Dallas System Planning Methodology (SPM) was developed jointly by the Texas Department of Transportation, the North Central Texas Council of Governments, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and the Texas Transportation Institute as a transportation-corridor and system-analysis tool to bridge the gap between regional planning and detailed corridor design. SPM allows for the examination of peak-hour person movement for different types of facilities within a corridor and estimates the associated public costs (e.g., right-of-way, construction, operation, congestion, and environmental costs). The objective of SPM is to find the alternative with the lowest total public cost. It was decided to enhance SPM by adding toll lanes and high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes as alternatives for evaluation against other combinations of general-purpose lanes, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, and express lanes. The results of this project confirmed previous findings that low- and moderate-demand facilities are best served by improving general-purpose lanes in the corridor and, in some cases, by adding express lanes. Using the criteria of lowest total public cost, the evaluation of toll lanes in the test corridors showed that congested corridors with all toll lanes or with combinations of general-purpose and toll lanes did not perform as well as the alternatives, which included a combination of general-purpose and HOV lanes. However, the alternatives that combined general-purpose lanes with HOT lanes tended to perform as well as—and in some cases, slightly better than—HOV lanes.

Product Liability and Consumer Risk TakingߞEconomic Tradeoffs

The following 4 propositions are discussed. 1) Since every action by a producer relevant to whether the use of his product is attended by injuries has some cost and benefit consequences, a producer has numerous safety-related options available to him. 2) The degree of safety in the use of a product is an element of product quality. 3) If one focuses on the causes for some inevitable product safety costs, one may be able to anticipate and reduce the total public costs as well as private costs. 4) Liability for products is a kind of insurance device.

Cost and Effectiveness of Recent Government Land Retirement Programs in the United States

Recent land-retirement programs have succeeded in achieving their major objective, which was to reduce existing or potential surpluses of grains, but the cost has been relatively high per unit of production. By altering land-retirement programs so as to pay only for land retired, and not for idle equipment and labor as well, and by concentrating payments in those areas where land costs are low relative to annual output per acre, measured in terms of grain equivalent, the government might reduce total public costs substantially. Relatively simple administrative criteria are suggested to aid in deciding where land should be withdrawn if the primary objective is to minimize the public cost of achieving a given adjustment in grain production.