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Not much to round-up today (well, actually, I am not in a position to round-up much), and some is sobering. Try this one:

  1. “We find that poor economic conditions do not drive participation in ISIS. ” Paper here. Read the abstract, intro and conclusion, you will be depressed. I think Trumpists will use this one fiercely in the Presidential campaign, forcing Hillary even further into Hawklike territory. Say what you will about President Obama, I would argue that on net he has been a net plus on the “let’s not fight lots of wars” side of things, my bias is that he is underappreciated in this role, and overappreciated for his role(s) domestically.
  2. Not research about well-crafted fictional stories … but scientifically novel research. Long-story short – it is underappreciated, risky, and we should be be careful about how we fund this. Is this evidence for, or against, my view that output standards are superior methods of regulatory and subsidy approaches should we choose to go that way?
  3. Delivering high-quality medical outcomes is, in my view, NOT the primary goal of hospital units. I do not get invited to dinner parties for sharing that view.
  4. How much did the Affordable Care Act increase insurance coverage? See here. I liked this part, “The coverage gains from the full ACA were largest for those with incomes below the Medicaid
    eligibility threshold, non-whites, young adults, and unmarried individuals.” It would have been cheaper and easier to just offer means-tested subsidies for insurance rather than this big mess of a law. Expand Medicaid, reduce spending on other BS, and so on. By the way, does anyone have data/research on what has happened to ER admissions since the ACA was implemented? That was one of the major reasons the law was passed, or at least justified, and we know in Massachusetts (at least I remember reading about it) that after RomneyCare, ER admissions/uncompensated care costs did not fall. If the national study has not been done yet, young researchers, chop-chop!
  5. How property rights evolve … they evolve when the costs of internalizing externalities are lower than the benefits – in other words, when it makes economic sense to do so. Here is a neat paper showing how much value was created from the movement to the Colorado Doctrine of rights rather than applying the British tradition out west.  Believe it or not, THIS really exciting development is very germane to the topic!
  6. How I plan to spend some of my summer. Jealous yet?

One Response to “Monday Morning Roundup”

  1. jb says:

    regarding ER visits, I found this,
    http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/emergency-department.htm but it is a bit stale. Maybe they aren’t measuring it anymore, though they describe an annual survey.

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