Thesis advisor: Arthur Lewbel / This dissertation consists of three independent essays in applied microeconomics and econometrics. Essay 1 investigates the issue why individuals with health insurance use more health care. One obvious reason is that health care is cheaper for the insured. But additionally, having insurance can encourage unhealthy behavior via moral hazard. The effect of health insurance on medical utilization has been extensively studied; however, previous work has mostly ignored the effect of insurance on behavior and how that in turn affects medical utilization. This essay examines these distinct effects. The increased medical utilization due to reduced prices may help the insured maintain good health, while that due to increased unhealthy behavior does not, so distinguishing these two effects has important policy implications. A two-period dynamic forward-looking model is constructed to derive the structural causal relationships among the decision to buy insurance, health behaviors (drinking, smoking, and exercise), and medical utilization. The model shows how exogenous changes in insurance prices and past behaviors can identify the direct and indirect effects of insurance on medical utilization. An empirical analysis also distinguishes between intensive and extensive margins (e.g., changes in the number of drinkers vs. the amount of alcohol consumed) of the insurance effect, which turns out to be empirically important. Health insurance is found to encourage less healthy behavior, particularly heavy drinking, but this does not yield a short term perceptible increase in doctor or hospital visits. The effects of health insurance are primarily found at the intensive margin, e.g., health insurance may not cause a non-drinker to take up drinking, while it encourages a heavy drinker to drink even more. These results suggest that to counteract behavioral moral hazard, health insurance should be coupled with incentives that target individuals who currently engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as heavy drinkers. Essay 2 examines the effect of repeating kindergarten on the retained children's academic performance. Although most existing research concludes that grade retention generates no benefits for retainees' later academic performance, holding low achieving children back has been a popular practice for decades. Drawing on a recently collected nationally representative data set in the US, this paper estimates the causal effect of kindergarten retention on the retained children's later academic performance. Since children are observed being held back only when they enroll in schools that permit retention, this paper jointly models 1) the decision of entering a school allowing for kindergarten retention, 2) the decision of undergoing a retention treatment in kindergarten, and 3) children's academic performance in higher grades. The retention treatment is modeled as a binary choice with sample selection. The outcome equations are linear regressions including the kindergarten retention dummy as an endogenous regressor with a correlated random coefficient. A control function estimator is developed for estimating the resulting double-hurdle treatment model, which allows for unobserved heterogeneity in the retention effect. As a comparison, a nonparametric bias-corrected nearest neighbor matching estimator is also implemented. Holding children back in kindergarten is found to have positive but diminishing effects on their academic performance up to the third grade. Essay 3 proves the semiparametric identification of a binary choice model having an endogenous regressor without relying on outside instruments. A simple estimator and a test for endogeneity are provided based on this identification. These results are applied to analyze working age male's migration within the US, where labor income is potentially endogenous. Identification relies on the fact that the migration probability among workers is close to linear in age while labor income is nonlinear in age(when both are nonparametrically estimated). Using data from the PSID, this study finds that labor income is endogenous and that ignoring this endogeneity leads to downward bias in the estimated effect of labor income on the migration probability. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

A Lei de Licitações e Contratos, em seu artigo 113, instituiu regra garantidora do controle das despesas e demais instrumentos insertos na mencionada lei ordinária federal aos Tribunais de Contas. O mesmo diploma confere, outrossim, a faculdade aos Tribunais de Contas de solicitar editais de licitação antes da fase de abertura das propostas. Fruto desta lei de licitações em vigor, com vistas a assegurar o amplo direito de petição, foi admitida a possibilidade que todo licitante, ou pessoa física ou jurídica, que observe irregularidade em algum item de edital formulado pela Administração Pública, pudesse representar ao Tribunal de Contas, contra o que entender de ilegal ou irregular, podendo até pleitear a suspensão do procedimento licitatório. Desde que formulada tal petição apresentando indícios de irregularidades no edital, a Corte de Contas pode, com fulcro no artigo 113 da Lei 8.666/93, até o dia anterior à data prevista para a abertura dos envelopes, requisitá-lo, com outros elementos completos, para proceder ao seu exame prévio. Nesta hipótese, o Tribunal, à vista dos elementos processuais poderá determinar a suspensão do procedimento licitatório, até que decida o processo, concluindo por determinar retificação nos itens em que houver irregularidade ou, em não havendo, cancelar a suspensão, podendo o Órgão continuar o normal procedimento. Esta inovação legal implicou na mudança do modelo de fiscalização do Tribunal, que, via de regra, só controla posteriormente. Neste caso, como o próprio nome indica, o exame é prévio. Ocorre que tal inovação gerou críticas formuladas por certas correntes doutrinárias (1) e por administradores públicos, no sentido de afirmarem que tal controle externo não poderia implicar na direta interferência na gestão dos órgãos ou entidades a ele submetidos nem ingerência no exercício de suas competências. O presente trabalho se propôs a analisar esta competência atribuída pelo legislador constituinte ao Tribunal de Contas, no exercício da função de controle prévio no tocante aos certames licitatórios e contratos da Administração, além de seus reflexos na gestão dos órgãos ou entidades submetidos a este controle. / The Procurement and Contracts Law, in Article 113, guaranteeing the rule instituted cost control and inserts other instruments mentioned in the federal common law Courts of Auditors. The same law provides, moreover, the right to audit courts to request the bidding stage before the opening of tenders. Result of this bidding law in force, with a view to ensuring full right of petition, admitted the possibility that any bidder or person or entity who observes any irregularity in item announcement made by the Administration, could represent to the Court of Auditors, to understand against the illegal or irregular, and may even demand the suspension of the bidding process. Since such a request formulated by presenting evidence of irregularities in the notice, the Court of Auditors may, with the fulcrum in Article 113 of Law 8666/93, until the day before the date scheduled for the opening of the envelopes, order it, complete with other elements to proceed to the preliminary examination. In this case, the Court, in view of the procedural elements may decide to suspend the bidding process, until you decide the process for determining correction in concluding that there are items or irregularity in the absence thereof, cancel the suspension, the Board may continue normal procedure. This legal innovation resulted in changing the model of the Court ruled that, as a rule, only judges later. In this case, as its name indicates, the exam in advance. It happens that this innovation has generated criticism by certain doctrinal trends as well as public administrators, to assert that such external control could not involve the direct interference in the management of the agencies or entities to the subject or interference with the exercise of its powers. This study proposes to examine this constitutional power granted by the legislature to the Court, in exercising control with respect to the previous exhibitions of the bidding and contract administration as well as your reflexes in the management of agencies or entities subject to this control.

Pris en étau entre une hausse continue de leurs dépenses et une stagnation de leurs ressources financières, les établissements publics de santé sont depuis longtemps confrontés à un problème de gestion de la rareté. Pour faire face à ce problème, beaucoup d'entre eux ont mis en œuvre un contrôle de gestion, avec les difficultés que représente une telle démarche dans une organisation traditionnellement qualifiée de « professionnelle ». Dès l'origine principalement orienté vers la maîtrise des dépenses, le contrôle de gestion hospitalier est en train de subir une profonde remise en question avec l'arrivée de la tarification à l'activité et de la mise en place de pôles d'activité médicale. Désormais, la fonction contrôle de gestion ne doit plus se cantonner à ce rôle qui lui était traditionnellement reconnu mais doit contribuer activement à l'augmentation des recettes de l'hôpital. Cette dynamique nouvelle - qui accorde une place beaucoup plus marquée aux concepts fondamentaux du contrôle de gestion - est aussi novatrice en raison de l'importance qu'elle confère aux producteurs de l'activité médicale. La mutation de la fonction contrôle de gestion dans le domaine hospitalier est un phénomène majeur pour les praticiens mais aussi un sujet particulièrement riche sur le plan théorique. Elle remet en cause les représentations traditionnellement admises du contrôle de gestion dans l'organisation professionnelle qu'est l'hôpital et donne l'occasion aux chercheurs d'utiliser de nouvelles grilles de lecture théorique. / Caught between a continuous rise in spending and a stagnation of their financial resources, public hospitals have long been faced with a problem of managing scarcity. To address this problem, many of them have implemented management control, with the difficulties of such an approach in an organization traditionally described as "professional." From the beginning mainly oriented toward expenditure control, management control in hospitals is undergoing a deep challenge with the advent of prospective payment system and the implementation of clinical directorates. Now the management control function should no longer be confined to this role which was traditionally recognized, but must actively contribute to the enhancement of the hospital's revenue. This new dynamics - which gives greater importance to fundamental concepts of management control - is innovative because of the importance it gives to producers of medical activity. The mutation of the management control function in the hospital sector is a major phenomenon for practitioners but is also particularly from a theoretical point of view. It challenges the traditionally accepted representations of management control in the hospital organization and gives an opportunity for researchers to use new theoretical frames.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The general potential outcomes framework (GPOF) is an essential structure that facilitates clear and coherent specification, identification, and estimation of causal effects. This dissertation utilizes and extends the GPOF, to specify, identify, and estimate causally interpretable (CI) effect parameter (EP) for an outcome of interest that manifests as either a value in a specified subset of the real line or a qualitative event -- a partially qualitative outcome (PQO). The limitations of the conventional GPOF for casting a regression model for a PQO is discussed. The GPOF is only capable of delivering an EP that is subject to a bias due to bad control. The dissertation proposes an outcome measure that maintains all of the essential features of a PQO that is entirely real-valued and is not subject to the bad control critique; the P-weighted outcome – the outcome weighted by the probability that it manifests as a quantitative (real) value. I detail a regression-based estimation method for such EP and, using simulated data, demonstrate its implementation and validate its consistency for the targeted EP. The practicality of the proposed approach is demonstrated by estimating the causal effect of a fully effective policy that bans pregnant women from smoking during pregnancy on a new measure of birth weight. The dissertation also proposes a Generalized Control Function (GCF) approach for modeling and estimating a CI parameter in the context of a fully parametric two-part model (2PM) for a continuous outcome in which the causal variable of interest is continuous and endogenous. The proposed approach is cast within the GPOF. Given a fully parametric specification for the causal variable and under regular Instrumental Variables (IV) assumptions, the approach is shown to satisfy the conditional independence assumption that is often difficult to hold under alternative approaches. Using simulated data, a full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estimator is derived for estimating the “deep” parameters of the model. The Average Incremental Effect (AIE) estimator based on these deep parameter estimates is shown to outperform other conventional estimators. I apply the method for estimating the medical care cost of obesity in youth in the US.

Experiencing maltreatment during childhood has been implicated in numerous and diverse developmental impairments, including problematic alcohol use and alcohol use disorders. However, little research examines the processes by which childhood maltreatment confers risk for alcohol use problems, or potential risk or protective factors in the emergence of problematic alcohol use among individuals experiencing childhood maltreatment. To address this gap, the current study investigated executive cognitive functions and emotion regulation as probable risk or protective factors linking childhood maltreatment and subsequent problematic alcohol use, given that deficits in both executive cognitive functions and emotion regulation are associated with maltreatment and problematic alcohol use. Participants were drawn from a longitudinal sample of children at both high and low risk for substance dependence, based on their paternal history of psychiatric or substance use disorder (N = 475; 70% male; 74% Caucasian, 23% African American, 3% multiracial; M = 11.38±.93 years at Time 1). Analyses involved both person- and variable-centered approaches. The person-centered approach identified groups of individuals based on maltreatment experiences, executive cognitive functions, and emotion regulation, and then examined whether and to what extent these classes differed on concurrent and longitudinal problematic alcohol use. Findings suggested that there are distinct risk groups consisting of abuse/neglect, neglect only, executive control function deficits, and emotion regulation deficits. These groups did not differ on levels of alcohol use, counter to prediction. Variable-centered approaches involved a longitudinal examination of pathways from childhood maltreatment to alcohol use frequency and symptoms of alcohol use disorder that included executive cognitive functioning and emotion regulation. Results of these variable-centered structural equation modeling analyses indicated that maltreatment, executive control function, and emotion regulation concurrently predicted problematic alcohol use. Investigating the current models allows for a better understanding of pathways to alcohol use in both adolescence and adulthood, which has implications for prevention and intervention, particularly in identifying groups at highest risk for problematic alcohol use outcomes and in treatment selection or modification. / Psychology

Both literature and practice have investigated how the vast amount of ever increasing customer information can inform marketing strategy and decision making. However, the customer data is often susceptible to modeling bias and misleading findings due to various factors including sample selection and unobservable variables. The available analytics toolkit has continued to develop but in the age of nearly perfect information, the customer decision making has also evolved. The dissertation addresses some of the challenges in deriving valid and useful consumer insights from customer data in the digital age. The first study addresses the limitations of traditional customer purchase measures to account of dynamic temporal variations in the customer purchase history. The study proposes a new approach for representation and summarization of customer purchases to improve promotion forecasts. The method also accounts for sample selection bias that arises due to biased selection of customers for the promotion. The second study investigates the impact of increasing internet penetration on the consumer choices and their response to marketing actions. Using the case study of physician’s drug prescribing, the study identifies how marketers can misallocate resources at the regional level by not accounting for variations in internet penetration. The third paper develops a data driven metric for measuring temporal variations in the brand loyalty. Using a network representation of brand and customer the study also investigates the spillover effects of manufacturer related information shocks on the brand’s loyalty.

Très peu d'études empiriques ont analysé les déterminants qui influencent les modes d'organisation de la fonction contrôle de gestion dans les grandes entreprises industrielles marocaines. La présente recherche, qui prend pour cadre le Maroc, explore les déterminants qui influencent les différentes configurations de la fonction contrôle de gestion dans les grandes entreprises industrielles marocaines. Il convient de ce fait de s'interroger sur la nature des facteurs : s'agit-il de pressions institutionnelles ? Pour ce faire, nous avons développé quatre chapitres complémentaires articulés en deux parties, afin de répondre à la problématique suivante : « Quelle est l'influence des facteurs institutionnels sur les configurations de la fonction contrôle de gestion au sein des grandes entreprises industrielles marocaines ? ». Dans une première partie et conformément à une structure de recherche classique, nous avons fait l'exposition d'une revue de la littérature, suivie d'une étude exploratoire du terrain exploitant qualitativement des entretiens réalisés auprès des professionnels marocains à travers cinq études de cas, pour aboutir enfin à un modèle conceptuel. Ce modèle conceptuel présente les modes d'organisation de la fonction contrôle de gestion et les déterminants institutionnels susceptibles d'influencer les différentes configurations de cette fonction. Notre recherche se fonde essentiellement sur l'approche néo-institutionnelle. Dans la deuxième partie, nous avons mené une étude empirique quantitative-hypothético-déductive, à base de 113 grandes entreprises industrielles marocaines. Dans cette partie, nous avons présenté d'abord les caractéristiques des 4 types de la FCG. Ensuite, nous avons approfondi notre analyse quantitative pour mesurer le degré d'influence de chaque déterminant sur la FCG. Enfin, la recherche s'achève en dégageant les principales implications de notre modélisation sur l'introduction la typologie de Lambert et Sponem de la fonction contrôle de gestion au Maroc. / Very few empirical studies have analyzed the determinants that influence patterns of organization of management control function in Moroccan large industrial firms. This research, which takes Morocco as a context, explores the determinants that influence the different configurations of management control function in Moroccan large industrial firms .It should thereby question the nature of these determinants : are there institutional pressures? To do this, we have developed four additional chapters articulated in two parts, in order to answer the following question: “What is the influence of institutional factors on patterns of management control function within large Moroccan industrial firms?” In the first part and in accordance with a traditional research structure, we have presented our literature review, followed by an exploratory field research that analyses qualitatively interviews conducted with Moroccan professionals through five case studies to finally arrive to a conceptual model. This conceptual model shows the modes of organization of management control function and the institutional determinants that may influence the different configurations of this function. Our research is mainly based on the neo-institutional approach. In the second part, we conducted a quantitative-hypothetical-deductive empirical study, based on 113 large Moroccan industrial firms. In this section, we firstly presented the characteristics of the 4 Management Control Function types. Then we have deepened our quantitative analysis to measure the degree of influence of each determinant on the MCF. Finally, we concluded our research by identifying the main implications of our model to the introduction of Sponem Lambert typology on the management control function in Morocco.

This Master’s thesis deals with IMS architecture problems. This thesis describes its creation and progress, also structure of this architecture is mentioned. Text of this thesis describes function of the most important parts of the architecture, such as Proxy-CSCF, Interrogating-CSCF, Serving-CSCF and HSS. IMS architecture uses SIP protocol for establishment, maintenance and closing session and Diameter protocol for network management functions. That is why this thesis also describes characteristics of these two protocols. Next part of the thesis is focused on Open-source platform Open IMS Core and its installation. Open IMS Core platform was developed for testing IMS technologies within an internal project at the Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS in Berlin. Nowadays it is used by major part of vendors and providers for testing their products and services. As a main theme of this thesis, there was made a simple network, which consists of three users. This network is established on fundamentals of IMS and it was made in Open IMS Core. So in one chapter is outlined a process of its creation. There is described a process of adding a user list to database server HSS. In the next part there are mentioned some information about setup of virtual IMS terminal. Eventually there are shown some possibilities of how to catch traffic in the network. In this chapter there are also state diagrams, which describe a process of registration of IMS terminal and also a process of establishment, maintenance and closing session.

Dizertační práce se zabývá procesy, které jsou řízeny systémy zpožděných diferenciálních rovnic $$x'(t) =f(t,x_t,u),\,\,\,\, t\ge t_{0}$$ kde $t_0 \in \mathbb{R}$, funkce $f$ je definována v jistém podprostoru množiny $[t_0,\infty)\times {C}_{\tau}^{m}\times {\mathbb{R}}^r$, $m,r \in \mathbb{N}$, ${C}_{\tau}^{m}=C([-\tau,0],{\mathbb{R}}^{m})$, $\tau>0$, $x_t(\theta):=x(t+\theta)$, $\theta\in[-\tau,0]$, $x\colon [t_0-\tau,\infty)\to \mathbb{R}^{m}$. Za předpokladu $f(t,\theta_m^*,\theta_r)=\theta_m$, kde ${\theta}_m^*\in {C}_{\tau}^{m}$ je nulová vektorová funkce, $\theta_r$ a $\theta_m$ jsou $r$ a $m$-dimenzionální nulové vektory, je říd\'cí funkce $u=u(t,x_t)$, $u\colon[t_0,\infty)\times _^\to \mathbb^$, $u(t,_m^*)=\theta_r$ určena tak, že nulové řešení $x(t)=\theta_m$, $t\ge t_-\tau$ systému je asymptoticky stabilní a pro libovolné řešení $x=x(t)$ integrál $$\int _{t_}^\omega \left(t,x_t,u(t,x_t)\right)\diff t,$$ kde $\omega$ je pozitivně definitní funkcionál, existuje a nabývá své minimální hodnoty v daném smyslu. Pro řešení tohoto problému byla Malkinova metoda pro obyčejné diferenciální systémy rozšířena na zpožděné funkcionální diferenciální rovnice a byla použita druhá metoda Lyapunova. Výsledky jsou ilustrovány příklady a aplikovány na některé třídy zpožděných lineárních diferenciálních rovnic.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:28:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcia Pelegrini.pdf: 1004190 bytes, checksum: 26daaa45de58a2c587839433123a8662 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-31 / The present paper s objective is to analyse sanction competence given by constituent legislator to Court of Accounts as its function as controller. The legal dispositive analyses consubstantiated with VIII point, article 71 of Federal Constitution, resulted on observation that the mentioned punitive competence finds boundaries consubstantiated on the bills irregularities aspects and expenses illegalities, such points must orient the infraconstitutional legislator on illicit conducts determination and controlling organ on sanction application, in a way which some infractions prior in Federal Law 8.443/ 92 are in disagreement with the constitutional orientation. It is also approached on the aspect related to sanction legal nature applied by Court of Accounts, although it is of administrative nature, comes from his control function. The sanctioned norms named by the doctrine as open and elastic can be allowed, when the censored conduct discretion and respective sanction can make feasible the advance science of the individual, because such norms, themselves, cannot remove the incidence of typicity s principle. Besides that, the existence of the sanction norms linked by generic clauses leads to comprehension of regulament must be taken as relevant instruments to accomplish the mission of, without innovation, describe in a detailed way on conducts generically foresight in the law as illicit, even though in a exhaustive way, but through the exemplar roll to orient the individuals and limit the action of the norm applicant, as well as similar situations. The sanction appliance will only be validated if realised through legal procedures that assures the opportunity of defence in its plenitude, through clause observance of the due process of law and its resulting principles, situation in which some of Penal Law s own principles will be incided. At last, the cited procedure must be subjected to a reasonable deadline, analogically inciding, faced with Court of Accounts Organic s Law silence, the punitive pretension prescription deadline established by Federal Law 9.873/ 99 / O presente trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a competência sancionatória conferida pelo legislador constituinte ao Tribunal de Contas da União, no exercício da função de controle. A análise do inciso VIII do artigo 71 da Constituição Federal resultou na constatação de que a referida competência punitiva encontra limites consubstanciados nos aspectos da irregularidade de contas e ilegalidade de despesas, vetores estes que devem orientar o legislador infraconstitucional na determinação das condutas ilícitas, e o órgão controlador na aplicação das sanções, de forma que algumas infrações previstas na Lei Federal nº 8.443/92 estão em desacordo com a orientação constitucional. Aborda-se também o aspecto relacionado à natureza jurídica da sanção aplicada pela Corte de Contas, que embora seja de natureza administrativa, decorre do exercício da função de controle. Assim, conquanto o legislador deva adotar cautelas para não criar situações de conflito na aplicação das mesmas sanções cujas competências estejam conferidas a autoridades integrantes dos órgãos controlados, os influxos decorrentes da função fiscalizatória afastam a caracterização do bis in idem não tolerado pelo direito pátrio, diante das diferentes áreas de atuação. As normas sancionadoras denominadas pela doutrina de abertas ou elásticas podem ser admitidas, quando a descrição das condutas censuradas e das respectivas sanções possa viabilizar a antecipada ciência dos indivíduos, porque tais normas, por si sós, não afastam a incidência do princípio da tipicidade. Além disso, a existência de normas sancionatórias veiculadas por cláusulas genéricas leva ao entendimento de que os regulamentos devem ser tidos como instrumentos relevantes para cumprimento da missão de, sem inovar, descrever de forma mais detalhada as condutas genericamente previstas na lei como ilícitas, ainda que não o façam de forma exaustiva, mas exemplificativa a orientar os indivíduos e limitar o âmbito de atuação do aplicador da norma, inclusive acerca de situações assemelhadas. A aplicação da sanção só será válida se realizada por meio de procedimento legal que assegure a oportunidade de defesa em sua plenitude, mediante a observância da clausula do devido processo legal e dos princípios dela decorrentes, situação em que incidirão alguns princípios próprios do direito penal. Por fim, referido procedimento deve se sujeitar a um prazo razoável de duração, incidindo analogicamente, diante do silêncio da Lei Orgânica do Tribunal de Contas da União, o prazo prescricional da pretensão punitiva estabelecido na Lei Federal nº 9.873/99