关键词： Flood management   Integrated river basin management   Optimization   Flood risk trading   Expected value  

摘要： Although flood management is no longer exclusively a topic of engineering, flood mitigation continues to be associated with hard engineering options. Flood adaptation or the capacity to adapt to flood risk, as well as a demand for internalizing externalities caused by flood risk between regions, complicate flood management activities. Even though integrated river basin management has long been recommended to resolve the above issues, it has proven difficult to apply widely, and sometimes even to bring into existence. This article explores how internalization of externalities as well as the realization of integrated river basin management can be encouraged via the use of a market-based approach, namely a flood risk trading program. In addition to maintaining efficiency of optimal resource allocation, a flood risk trading program may also provide a more equitable distribution of benefits by facilitating decentralization. This article employs a graphical analysis to show how flood risk trading can be implemented to encourage mitigation measures that increase infiltration and storage capacity. A theoretical model is presented to demonstrate the economic conditions necessary for flood risk trading. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

关键词： 地方政府债务竞争   财政分权   空间计量经济模型  

摘要： 2008年全球金融危机以来,中国地方政府债务规模迅速膨胀,风险不断累积。地方政府债务是否可持续以及如何对其有效地进行治理已然成为国内外关注的重要问题。在理论上,本文构建了一个包含企业、家庭和地方政府三部门的地方政府竞争模型。研究发现,中国地方政府间存在债务竞争的策略性互动行为;同时,在给定地方政府间存在债务竞争的情况下,财政分权会降低地方政府债务竞争程度。在实证研究上,基于2009-2013年29个省级面板数据,本文使用空间计量经济模型进行了实证检验。结果表明,本地政府选择举债融资时会充分地考虑相邻地区的举债融资策略行为,即相邻地区的人均政府债务规模每增加1%,本地区的人均政府债务就会相应地增加0.264%。此外,进一步实证分析了财政分权与地方政府债务竞争行为的关系,结果与理论发现保持一致。本文的研究对合理地控制地方政府债务规模快速扩张和防范地方政府债务风险有着重要的政策意义。

关键词： 宏观经济模型   自治微分系统   稳定性   Hopf分支  

摘要： 本文主要研究宏观经济学中一类重要的模型,其本质为三维的自治微分系统。通过对它的平衡点稳定性以及产生的Hopf分支进行定性分析,揭示了经济学中的一些规律。

关键词： 人口老龄化   影响因素   空间溢出效应   空间面板计量模型  

摘要： 本文通过引入空间面板计量经济模型,对2005-2012年全国各省老龄化相关数据处理,着重分析了中国各省域人口老龄化的影响因素及其空间溢出效应。研究结果表明,各省人均GDP、出生率、死亡率、医疗卫生条件和城市化率对人口老龄化有显著的影响,其中出生率为显著的反向抑制影响,其他均为正向促进作用。分别使用空间滞后和空间误差面板计量经济模型对省域人口老龄化的空间溢出作用进行分析,结果表明:不能显著地认为邻近区域的人口老龄化影响到本省域的人口老龄化,但是本省域的一些被忽略的其他因子,如政府公共政策和户籍制度等对邻近省域的人口老龄化具有很强的空间溢出效应,实证结果高达47%。同时,本文研究结论也可以为我国人口老龄化理论与政策研究提供新兴的思路与方法。

关键词： 财政支出结构   经济增长   收入分配   GMM模型  

摘要： 选取广西14个地级市2007~2013年的面板数据,采用系统GMM计量经济模型对上述经济关系进行实证分析。研究表明,广西不同类别的财政支出对促进经济增长和缩小城乡差距有着不同的作用,在此基础上,对广西财政支出的规模和结构优化提出了相应的政策建议。

关键词： MARS (Planet)   ECONOMIC models   SUSTAINABILITY   MONTE Carlo method   MARTIAN exploration  

摘要： This paper reports on our effort to develop an ensemble of specialized models to explore the commercial potential of mining water/ice on Mars in support of a Mars Colony. This ensemble starts with a formal systems architecting framework to describe a Mars Colony and capture its artifacts' parameters and technical attributes. The resulting database is then linked to a variety of "downstream" analytic models. In particular, we integrated an extraction process (i.e., "mining") model, a simulation of the colony's environmental control and life support infrastructure known as HabNet, and a risk-based economics model. The mining model focuses on the technologies associated with in situ resource extraction, processing, storage and handling, and delivery. This model computes the production rate as a function of the systems' technical parameters and the local Mars environment. HabNet simulates the fundamental sustainability relationships associated with establishing and maintaining the colony's population. The economics model brings together market information, investment and operating costs, along with measures of market uncertainty and Monte Carlo techniques, with the objective of determining the profitability of commercial water/ice in situ mining operations. All told, over 50 market and technical parameters can be varied in order to address "what-if" questions, including colony location.

关键词： Canada   cost and cost analysis   doulas   models   economic  

摘要： Introduction: Spending on care in childbirth represents a sizable portion of health care budgets. This has engendered a growing interest in potential clinical tools that could be used to improve patient experience and population health at a lower cost. A possible such tool is continuous support in labor from a trained doula, as doula care can decrease the likelihood of cesarean birth, epidural analgesia, and assisted vaginal birth. In addition, there is some emerging evidence suggesting that involving doulas in prenatal care can reduce rates of preterm birth. Methods: We used data on the associations between doula care and these outcomes derived from a Cochrane review of continuous labor support to create an economic model of universal doula support in the Canadian province of British Columbia. These relative risks were used to estimate procedure reductions and the resulting cost savings using data on the number of relevant procedures performed from Perinatal Services BC coupled with cost information from the Canadian Institutes for Health Information. Results: For the calendar year 2013, we estimated savings inCanadian dollars (CaD) ofCaD$ 10,428,171 (95% confidence interval [ CI], $ 5,430,650$ 14,434,740) if every low-risk birth were attended by a professional doula, not including the cost of the doula's services. Including reduction in preterm birth increases total savings to CaD $ 17,847,370 (95% CI, $ 6,772,341-$ 27,054,610). A professional doula providing labor support would yield an estimated savings of CaD $ 269.55 (95% CI, $ 141.70-$ 374.14) per low-risk birth or CaD $ 418.67 (95% CI, $ 158.87-$ 634.65) if including reductions in preterm birth. Any cost savings disappear at a doula reimbursement rate above CaD $ 418.67 per birth. Discussion: There is potential to reduce health care costs while improving patient experience and population health by providing universal doula coverage. However, our results suggest that reimbursement rates for doulas would have

关键词： Inventory routing   Industrial gas distribution   Mathematical modelling   Inventory control   Mixed integer programming   Economic model predictive control  

摘要： The paper proposes an economic model predictive control (EMPC) strategy for the inventory routing problem under demand uncertainty. The strategy is illustrated using an application on industrial gas distribution systems, where the product is transported to customers in small tanks and the inventory levels at the customers' sites are monitored and controlled by the supplier following a vendor managed inventory approach. The objective is to produce balanced decisions for the joint routing and the inventory control problem over the planning horizon with respect to the decision maker's perspective against stock-out risk. The proposed EMPC strategy makes use of a mixed integer mathematical programming optimization model that describes the deterministic inventory routing problem with simultaneous pickups and deliveries over a specific planning horizon. A time series decomposition forecasting model is used for predicting future demand and an exact linearization of the quadratic term of the objective function guarantees optimality of the solutions. The proposed methodology is illustrated using two examples featuring a single distribution centre, and three customers with simple and complex demand profiles. It is shown that EMPC offers a useful tool for producing balanced decisions between transportation and inventory costs and tracking of the safety inventory levels.

关键词： decision making   health economics methods   statistics   validation  

摘要： Background: The validation of health economic (HE) model outcomes against empirical data is of key importance. Although statistical testing seems applicable, guidelines for the validation of HE models lack guidance on statistical validation, and actual validation efforts often present subjective judgment of graphs and point estimates. Objectives: To discuss the applicability of existing validation techniques and to present a new method for quantifying the degrees of validity statistically, which is useful for decision makers. Methods: A new Bayesian method is proposed to determine how well HE model outcomes compare with empirical data. Validity is based on a preestablished accuracy interval in which the model outcomes should fall. The method uses the outcomes of a probabilistic sensitivity analysis and results in a posterior distribution around the probability that HE model outcomes can be regarded as valid. Results: We use a published diabetes model (Modelling Integrated Care for Diabetes based on Observational data) to validate the outcome "number of patients who are on dialysis or with end-stage renal disease." Results indicate that a high probability of a valid outcome is associated with relatively wide accuracy intervals. In particular, 25% deviation from the observed outcome implied approximately 60% expected validity. Conclusions: Current practice in HE model validation can be improved by using an alternative method based on assessing whether the model outcomes fit to empirical data at a predefined level of accuracy. This method has the advantage of assessing both model bias and parameter uncertainty and resulting in a quantitative measure of the degree of validity that penalizes models predicting the mean of an outcome correctly but with overly wide credible intervals.