The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS): What's in it for Social Security?

This article explores the implications of the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) for social security. It examines what bearing the GATS has, or will have, on social security policy and administration and what the effects might be. These questions are explored through a review of legal, political and policy issues relating to the status of social security within the GATS and the consequences of applying the Agreement's provisions to social security. The discussion distinguishes between the supply of social security services on the one hand and access to and use of social security services on the other hand. It also distinguishes between substantive questions regarding the scope of the GATS and procedural issues regarding governments' scheduling practices. I argue that although the GATS does not yet have a direct material bearing on social security policy and provision, it may do so in the future. However, it is too early to ascertain what the nature or magnitude of the effects might be. More generally, the discussion highlights the difficulties of securing multilateral cooperation among countries with different levels of "development", strategic interests and priorities, and social security systems.     

A Bayesian approach to Markov modelling in cost-effectiveness analyses: application to taxane use in advanced breast cancer

Summary. The paper demonstrates how cost-effectiveness decision analysis may be implemented from a Bayesian perspective, using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation methods for both the synthesis of relevant evidence input into the model and the evaluation of the model itself. The desirable aspects of a Bayesian approach for this type of analysis include the incorporation of full parameter uncertainty, the ability to perform all the analysis, including each meta-analysis, in a single coherent model and the incorporation of expert opinion either directly or regarding the relative credibility of different data sources. The method is described, and its ease of implementation demonstrated, through a practical example to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of using taxanes for the second-line treatment of advanced breast cancer compared with conventional treatment. For completeness, the results from the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation model are compared and contrasted with those from a classical Monte Carlo simulation model.     

Bayesian measures of model complexity and fit

Summary. We consider the problem of comparing complex hierarchical models in which the number of parameters is not clearly defined. Using an information theoretic argument we derive a measure p _D for the effective number of parameters in a model as the difference between the posterior mean of the deviance and the deviance at the posterior means of the parameters of interest. In general p _D approximately corresponds to the trace of the product of Fisher's information and the posterior covariance, which in normal models is the trace of the 'hat' matrix projecting observations onto fitted values. Its properties in exponential families are explored. The posterior mean deviance is suggested as a Bayesian measure of fit or adequacy, and the contributions of individual observations to the fit and complexity can give rise to a diagnostic plot of deviance residuals against leverages. Adding p _D to the posterior mean deviance gives a deviance information criterion for comparing models, which is related to other information criteria and has an approximate decision theoretic justification. The procedure is illustrated in some examples, and comparisons are drawn with alternative Bayesian and classical proposals. Throughout it is emphasized that the quantities required are trivial to compute in a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis.     

Equal representation in two-tier voting systems

The paper investigates how voting weights should be assigned to differently sized constituencies of an assembly. The one-person, one-vote principle is interpreted as calling for a priori equal indirect influence on decisions. The latter are elements of a one-dimensional convex policy space and may result from strategic behavior consistent with the median voter theorem. Numerous artificial constituency configurations, the EU and the US are investigated by Monte–Carlo simulations. Penrose’s square root rule, which originally applies to preference-free dichotomous decision environments and holds only under very specific conditions, comes close to ensuring equal representation. It is thus more robust than previously suggested.     

The contribution of HIV to fertility decline in rural Zimbabwe, 1985-2000

HIV-related sub-fertility has been reported for those populations in sub-Saharan Africa in which contraceptive use is low. We use data from a retrospective survey in rural Zimbabwe and multivariate logistic regression models to show that recent birth rates and current pregnancy rates are also lower among HIV-positive women than among HIV-negative women in those African populations where contraceptive use is high. The fertility reduction is smaller than where contraceptive use is low because age at first sexual intercourse is later and birth rates at older ages are already low. Nevertheless, total fertility is approximately 8.5 per cent lower and HIV-associated sub-fertility may account for as much as one-quarter of fertility decline in Zimbabwe since the late 1980s. Mechanisms for HIV-associated sub-fertility in rural Zimbabwe include more frequent widowhood and divorce, reduced coital frequency, increased amenorrhoea, and possibly, pelvic inflammatory disease. Miscarriage appears to be a less important factor than elsewhere possibly because syphilis is rare.     

Some Relationships Between Skew-Normal Distributions and Order Statistics from Exchangeable Normal Random Vectors

The article explores the relationship between distributions of order statistics from random vectors with exchangeable normal distributions and several skewed generalizations of the normal distribution. In particular, we show that the order statistics of exchangeable normal observations have closed skew-normal distributions, and that the corresponding density function is log-concave when the order statistic is extreme. Special attention is given to the bivariate case, which is related to the univariate skew-normal distribution. The applications discussed focus on the lifetimes of coherent systems.     

A note on empirical likelihoods derived from pairwise score functions

Pairwise likelihood functions are convenient surrogates for the ordinary likelihood, useful when the latter is too difficult or even impractical to compute. One drawback of pairwise likelihood inference is that, for a multidimensional parameter of interest, the pairwise likelihood analogue of the likelihood ratio statistic does not have the standard chi-square asymptotic distribution. Invoking the theory of unbiased estimating functions, this paper proposes and discusses a computationally and theoretically attractive approach based on the derivation of empirical likelihood functions from the pairwise scores. This approach produces alternatives to the pairwise likelihood ratio statistic, which allow reference to the usual asymptotic chi-square distribution and which are useful when the elements of the Godambe information are troublesome to evaluate or in the presence of large data sets with relative small sample sizes. Two Monte Carlo studies are performed in order to assess the finite-sample performance of the proposed empirical pairwise likelihoods.     

Disaggregate-level estimates of indebtedness in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India: an application of small-area estimation technique

The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) surveys are the main source of official statistics in India, and generate a range of invaluable data at the macro level (e.g. state and national levels). However, the NSSO data cannot be used directly to produce reliable estimates at the micro level (e.g. district or further disaggregate level) due to small sample sizes. There is a rapidly growing demand of such micro-level statistics in India, as the country is moving from centralized to more decentralized planning system. In this article, we employ small-area estimation (SAE) techniques to derive model-based estimates of the proportion of indebted households at district or at other small-area levels in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India by linking data from the Debt–Investment Survey 2002–2003 of NSSO and the Population Census 2001 and the Agriculture Census 2003. Our results show that the model-based estimates are precise and representative. For many small areas, it is even not possible to produce estimates using sample data alone. The model-based estimates generated using SAE are still reliable for such areas. The estimates are expected to provide invaluable information to policy analysts and decision-makers.     

Fire and rescue operational effectiveness: the effect of alternative crewing patterns

Abstract

Decreasing demand and reduced budgets are driving changes to traditional crewing methods in the UK Fire and Rescue Service. Using an integration of two years' operational data within a novel framework, this paper assesses the impact of alternative crewing on operational effectiveness in one UK FRS. Changes in crewing patterns were implemented without substantial impact on overall operational effectiveness, but there may be a risk to wider operational resilience. The Overall Effectiveness of Fire Operations (OEFO) assessment tool can inform FRS decision making in an authentic way allowing stakeholder confidence in the outcomes, whilst being timely and not too complex or costly to evaluate. The OEFO approach is an important contribution to practice through its ability to assess public services at a time of challenging reform and demonstrates alterations can be made to crewing patterns to better match demand provided there is consideration of the potential wider impact.