Papers Containing Keywords(s): 'expense'
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Authors
Randy Becker - 4
Alice Zawacki - 4
Viewing papers 11 through 20 of 22
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Working PaperContributions to Health Insurance Premiums: When Does the Employer Pay 100 Percent?
December 2005
Working Paper Number:
CES-05-27
We identify the characteristics of establishments that paid 100 percent of health insurance premiums and the policies they offered from 1997-2001, despite increased premium costs. Analyzing data from the MEPS-IC, we see little change in the percent of establishments that paid the full cost of premiums for employees. Most of these establishments were young, small, singleunits, with a relatively high paid workforce. Plans that were fully paid generally required referrals to see specialists, did not cover pre-existing conditions or outpatient prescriptions, and had the highest out-of-pocket expense limits. These plans also were more likely than plans not fully paid by employers to have had a fee-for-service or exclusive provider arrangement, had the highest premiums, and were less likely to be self-insured.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperUsing Census Business Data to Augment the MEPS-IC
December 2005
Working Paper Number:
CES-05-26
This paper has two aims: first to describe methods, issues, and outcomes involved in matching data from the Insurance Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPSIC) to other business microdata collected by the U.S. Census Bureau, and second to present some simple results that illustrate the usefulness of such combined data. We present the results of linking the MEPS-IC with data from the 1997 Economic Censuses (EC), but also discuss other possible sources of business data. An issue in any linkage is whether the linked sample remains representative and large enough to be useful. The EC data are attractive because, given the survey's broad coverage and large sample, most of the MEPS-IC sample can be matched to it. We use the combined EC/MEPS-IC data to construct productivity measures that are useful auxiliary data in examining employers' health insurance offering decisions.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperA Change of PACE: Comparing the 1994 and 1999 Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures Surveys
July 2004
Working Paper Number:
CES-04-09
Since 1973, the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE) survey has been the principle source of information on U.S. industries' capital expenditure and operating costs associated with pollution abatement efforts. The PACE survey was discontinued after 1994 and then revived in 1999 for one year ' in a substantially different form than the preceding surveys however, making longitudinal analysis quite difficult. Conceptual differences include matters as fundamental as the scope and meaning of pollution abatement as well as the definition of operating costs. A number of other critical changes also exist, including ones of industrial coverage and sample selection. This paper is the first comprehensive effort to document the many changes in the PACE survey across these years and to provide a detailed guide for researchers and policymakers who wish to compare the 1994 and 1999 data. Overall, we find a 27% decline in environmental spending by the manufacturing sector between these two years, though there appears to be significant heterogeneity across industries. We discuss potential reasons for this dramatic decline, focusing mainly on issues of survey methodology and design. This paper should help inform current efforts to redevelop the PACE survey and re-establish it as a regular, annual survey.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperManufacturing Firms' Decisions Regarding Retiree Health Insurance
June 2003
Working Paper Number:
CES-03-14
This study analyzes the firm's decision to offer and contribute to retiree health insurance. We apply a binomial probit model and an interval regression model to analyze the likelihood of offering and the proportion of costs contributed by the firm. Our findings indicate that while firm characteristics affect the probability that a firm offers retiree health insurance, financial performance and alternative insurance options significantly affect the firm's generosity towards its cost. This study expands on previous research by including potentially important policy-related measures to the more limited set of firm and workforce characteristics that have been typically employed.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperParent-Child Bargaining, Parental Transfers, and the Postsecondary Education Decision
May 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-13
Economic models of schooling decisions are largely unitary preference in nature. They ignore parent-child conflict, with parents often acting as the sole decisionmaker. In this paper, a theoretical model is formulated in which parents and child participate in cooperative bargaining as a means of resolving disagreements. The model's implications are compared to those of the unitary preference model, motivating tests of parental altruism and income pooling. Reduced form equations for years of postsecondary schooling and transfers are estimated, both for the full sample and for subsamples defined by type of disagreement, using student-level data from the National Center for Education Statistics' High School and Beyond Surveys. While income pooling is rejected only for the group of students who prefer more schooling than their parents, parental altruism is rejected for all groups. A major finding is that parent-child disagreement is an important determinant of the level of financial support parents provide.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperEstimating the Hidden Costs of Environmental Regulation
May 2002
Working Paper Number:
CES-02-10
This paper examines whether accounting systems identify all the costs of environmental regulation. We estimate the relation between the 'visible' cost of regulatory compliance, i.e., costs that are correctly classified in firms' accounting systems, and 'hidden' costs i.e., costs that are embedded in other accounts. We use plant-level data from 55 steel mills to estimate hidden costs, and we follow up with structured interviews of corporate-level managers and plant-level accountants. Empirical results show that a $1 increase in the visible cost of environmental regulation is associated with an increase in total cost (at the margin) of $10-11, of which $9-10 are hidden in other accounts. The findings suggest that inappropriate identification and accumulation of the costs of environmental compliance are likely to lead to distorted costs in firms subject to environmental regulation.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperAir Pollution Abatement Costs Under the Clean Air Act: Evidence from the PACE Survey
December 2001
Working Paper Number:
CES-01-12
This paper uses establishment-level data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE) survey to investigate the effects of air quality regulation on the air pollution abatement capital expenditures and operating costs of manufacturing plants from 1979-1988. Results, based on some 90,000 observations, show that heavy emitters of the 'criteria' air pollutants (covered under the Clean Air Act) had significantly larger APA costs, and those subject to greater 'local' regulation (due to county NAAQS non-attainment) had expenditures that were greater still. The local regulation of a particular air pollutant generally resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) of additional costs, with larger establishments and capital expenditures disproportionately affected. Federal and state environmental standards appear to have played a notable role, particularly in industries producing chemicals, petroleum, primary metals, and nonmetallic minerals. The findings of this paper support those of several recent studies.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperAre Some Firms Better at IT? Differing Relationships between Productivity and IT Spending
October 1999
Working Paper Number:
CES-99-13
Although recent studies have found a positive relationship between spending on information technology and firm productivity, the magnitude of this relationship has not been as dramatic as one would expect given the anecdotal evidence. Data collected by the Bureau of the Census is analyzed to investigate the relationship between plant-level productivity and spending on IT. This relationship is investigated by separating the manufacturing plants in the sample along two dimensions, total factor productivity and IT spending. Analysis along these dimensions reveals that there are significant differences between the highest and lowest productivity plants. The highest productivity plants tend to spend less on IT while the lowest productivity plants tend to spend more on IT. Although there is support for the idea that lower productivity plants are spending more on IT to compensate for their productivity shortcomings, the results indicate that this is not the only difference. The robustness of this finding is strengthened by investigating changes in productivity and IT spending over time. High productivity plants with the lowest amounts of IT spending tend to remain high productivity plants with low IT spending while low productivity plants with high IT spending tend to remain low productivity plants with high IT spending. The results show that management skill, as measured by the overall productivity level of a firm, is an additional factor that must be taken into consideration when investigating the IT "productivity paradox."View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperIT Spending and Firm Productivity: Additional Evidence from the Manufacturing Sector
October 1999
Working Paper Number:
CES-99-10
The information systems (IS) "productivity paradox" is based on those studies that found little or no positive relationship between firm productivity and spending on IS. However, some earlier studies and one more recent study have found a positive relationship. Given the large amounts spent by organizations on information systems, it is important to understand the relationship between spending on IS and productivity. Beyond replicating positive results, an explanation is needed for the conflicting conclusions reached by these earlier studies. Data collected by the Bureau of the Census is analyzed to investigate the relationship between plant-level productivity and spending on IS. The relationship between productivity and spending on IS is investigated using assumptions and models similar to both studies with positive findings and studies with negative findings. First, the overall relationship is investigated across all manufacturing industries. Next, the relationship is investigated industry by industry. The analysis finds a positive relationship between plant-level productivity and spending on IS. The relationship is also shown to vary across industries. The conflicting results from earlier studies are explained by understanding the characteristics of the data analyzed in each study. A large enough sample size is needed to find the relatively smaller effect from IS spending as compared to other input spending included in the models. Because the relationship between productivity and IS spending varies across industries, industry mix is shown to be an important data characteristic that may have influenced prior results.View Full Paper PDF
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Working PaperCosts of Air Quality Regulation
July 1999
Working Paper Number:
CES-99-09
This paper explores some costs associated with environmental regulation. We focus on regulation pertaining to ground-level- ozone (O) and its effects on two manufacturing industries - industrial organic chemicals (SIC 2865-9) and miscellaneous plastic products (SIC 308). Both are major emitters of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and nitrogen oxides (NO), the chemical precursors to ozone. Using plant-level data from the Census Bureau's Longitudinal Research Database (LRD), we examine the effects of regulation on the timing and magnitudes of investments by firms and on the impact it has had on their operating costs. As an alternative way to assess costs, we also employ plant-level data from the Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE) survey. Analyses employing average total costs functions reveal that plants' production costs are indeed higher in (heavily-regulated) non-attainment areas relative to (less-regulated) attainment areas. This is particularly true for younger plants, consistent with the notion that regulation is most burdensome for new (rather existing) plants. Cost estimates using PACE data generally reveal lower costs. We also find that new heavily-regulated plants start out much larger than less-regulated plants, but then do not invest as much. Among other things, this highlights the substantial fixed costs involved in obtaining expansion permits. We also discuss reasons why plants may restrict their size.View Full Paper PDF
