To ensure that the resources of the health care sector are used effectively, new technologies need to be evaluated before implementation to examine if they generate health outcomes at an acceptable cost. This information can be collected by performing health economic evaluations in which the costs and health outcomes of different technologies are compared. To estimate the effect on health care budgets, there is also a need for information about the prevalence of the specific disease. Health outcomes in health economic evaluations are often measured in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), which are calculated by multiplying the remaining life years after an intervention by a weight representing the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) during those years. This thesis aims to provide deeper knowledge of the health economic aspects of diabetic retinopathy (DR), an eye complication that affects patients with diabetes and may in the worst case lead to blindness. The focus is on three empirical and two methodological health economic research questions. The empirical research areas cover prevalence, costs, and HRQoL related to patients with DR. The methodological research questions explore the performance of different methods for estimation of QALY weights. This is of interest since it has been argued that the most common methods for estimating QALY weights may not capture all relevant vision-related aspects of quality of life. The analyses comprehend the validity of different methods for estimating QALY weights among patients with DR and if the results of one of the specific methods for estimating QALY weights, the time trade-off (TTO) exercise, are affected by patients’ subjective life expectancy (SLE). The empirical results demonstrate that DR is seen in approximately 40% and 30% of patients with type I and type II diabetes respectively, indicating that the prevalence of DR has decreased in both of these patient groups. Healthcare costs vary considerably between different severity levels of the disease, being estimated at €26, €257, €216, and €433 per patient per year for background retinopathy, proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), diabetic macular oedema (DMO), and PDR combined with DMO respectively. Blindness due to DR is associated with an increased use of transportation services, caregiving services, and assistive technologies as well as productivity losses. This suggests that preventing the progression of DR may lower healthcare costs. Patients with vision impairment due to DR have lowered HRQoL in various dimensions, but the diagnosis of DR in itself has only a limited effect on HRQoL. The results on the methodological research questions show that different methods for estimating QALY weights seem to give different results. In comparison to EQ-5D, the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI-3) is the most sensitive method for detecting differences in QALY weights due to DR, and if decisions are to be made based on values from the general public, it can be recommended for use in cost-utility analyses of interventions directed at DR. Neither of the direct methods, TTO and the visual analogue scale, seems to be sensitive to differences in visual function, and more research is needed concerning the role of vision in people’s responses to the TTO exercises. In TTO exercises with time frames based on actuarial life expectancy, the patients’ SLE has an effect on their willingness to trade off years for full health. Thus, applying time frames deviating from patients’ SLE may result in biased QALY weights. Such bias may appear stronger within patient populations than within the general public. In conclusion, this thesis offers estimates for prevalence, costs, and QALY weights that can be used in economic evaluations of interventions directed at DR and as benchmarks for future DR research in order to follow up consequences of changes in diabetes care. In addition, it demonstrates that the choice of method for estimating QALY weights may have an impact on whether an intervention is considered cost-effective.

No description available.

The review of the ethical funds literature shows the significant growth of the Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) in the last few decades. The increase of the interest towards SRI indicates that ethical issues have become more essential for the investors. However the number of surveys reveals that financial performance remains of an important concern for the socially responsible investors. Therefore the benchmark analysis of the expected returns and management fees of the ethical mutual funds is chosen as a topic for this thesis research. The risk-adjusted measures are used to analyze and compare the performance of the ethical and non-ethical mutual funds in United Kingdom. The analysis does not indicate the significant difference in the expected returns between the two groups of funds. However this study concludes that on average ethical funds charge higher management fees. Thus investing in ethical funds is more costly but gives about the same returns as investing in conventional funds.

The supply of ethical funds has increased greatly in Sweden during recent years. The purpose of the thesis is to examine how ethical these funds really are and further-more investigate their financial development. The investment criteria’s for ethical mutual funds that are managed by Swedish companies and institutes are analysed and compared. A content analysis over every fund’s holdings has been done in order to see to what extent they live up to their own ethical standards and to what degree they differ from other mutual funds. The analysis of the ethical funds financial development have been done over the pe-riod 2003-03-31 – 2006-03-31 and financial measures such as Sharpe, M2 RAP and Jensen’s alpha are used. In addition, the fees of the funds are compared, both with each other and with other funds of similar character. The results of the analysis show that the majority of the ethical funds cannot be treated as more ethical than other funds. Regardless of their similarity to other funds they have a slightly worse risk ad-justed performance development than index. So despite the fact that the funds are more or less identical to other funds from an investment perspective the outcome will be higher risk exposing and/or lower returns than their inner indexes. / Utbudet av etiska fonder har ökat kraftigt i Sverige under de senaste åren. Uppsatsens mål är att kartlägga hur etiska dessa fonder verkligen är samt att undersöka deras finansiella utveckling. Investeringskriterierna för de etiska ak-tiefonder som är förvaltade av svenska företag och institut är analyserade och jämförda. En innehavsanalys av varje fonds aktieinnehav är gjord för att se i vilken utsträckning de lever upp till de etiska krav de själva satt upp och till vil-ken grad de skiljer sig från övriga aktiefonder. Analysen av de etiska fondernas finansiella utveckling är gjord över perioden 2003-03-31 – 2006-03-31 och finansiella mått såsom Sharpe, M2 RAP och Jensen’s alpha har använts. Dessutom har fondavgifterna jämförts, både med var-andra och med andra fonder av liknande karaktär. Resultaten av analyserna vi-sar att majoriteten av de etiska fonderna knappast kan betraktas som mer etiska än andra fonder, samtidigt som de har en något sämre riskkorrigerad utveckling än index. Det vill säga, trots att de till största del är identiska med vanliga aktie-fonder rent innehållsmässigt, så blir utfallet högre riskexponering och/eller läg-re avkastning än deras inbördes index.

To date there is little evidence on the relationship between property-liability (P/L) insurer’s frontier efficiency measures and the market. The establishment of a connection is important since there are a number of difficulties associated with measuring P/L insurer efficiency—there is uncertainty regarding the firm’s primary objective, the main services produced, and the measurement of these services. The main goal of the dissertation is to assess the robustness of two approaches to measuring P/L insurer efficiency —the production approach (Cummins and Weiss, 2001) and the flow approach (Brockett, et al, 2004). A secondary objective is to evaluate the performance of two proxies for the production approach’s risk-bearing and “real” loss-services output to observe whether unexpected losses leads to a distortion of efficiency. A third purpose is to determine the sensitivity of the use of the policyholder supplied debt capital input in the production approach. A fourth aim is to evaluate the performance of the range adjusted measure (RAM) of efficiency compared to the traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) method. A final objective is to assess the connection of accounting-based efficiency to market performance measures. The empirical evidence suggests that unexpected losses do not appear to overly distort the efficiency analysis. The production approach is not extraordinarily sensitive to the inclusion (or exclusion) of the policyholder supplied debt capital input. Traditional DEA measures of efficiency, in comparison to RAM, are more accurate predictors of insolvency and are more highly related to traditional measures of firm performance. Overall, the flow approach is not consistent with the production approach. Firms identified as highly efficient by the production approach are found to be significantly less likely to fail, indicating that the production approach is consistent with the economic reality of P/L insurance market. In contrast, high flow efficient firms are often found to have a higher proclivity to fail. Production approach efficiency is also more highly correlated to traditional measures of firm performance than flow measures of efficiency. The accounting-based production approach is directly related to market measures of firm performance, while flow efficiency is inversely related or unrelated to these measures.

No description available.

<p>The supply of ethical funds has increased greatly in Sweden during recent years. The purpose of the thesis is to examine how ethical these funds really are and further-more investigate their financial development. The investment criteria’s for ethical mutual funds that are managed by Swedish companies and institutes are analysed and compared. A content analysis over every fund’s holdings has been done in order to see to what extent they live up to their own ethical standards and to what degree they differ from other mutual funds.</p><p>The analysis of the ethical funds financial development have been done over the pe-riod 2003-03-31 – 2006-03-31 and financial measures such as Sharpe, M2 RAP and Jensen’s alpha are used. In addition, the fees of the funds are compared, both with each other and with other funds of similar character. The results of the analysis show that the majority of the ethical funds cannot be treated as more ethical than other funds. Regardless of their similarity to other funds they have a slightly worse risk ad-justed performance development than index. So despite the fact that the funds are more or less identical to other funds from an investment perspective the outcome will be higher risk exposing and/or lower returns than their inner indexes.</p> / <p>Utbudet av etiska fonder har ökat kraftigt i Sverige under de senaste åren. Uppsatsens mål är att kartlägga hur etiska dessa fonder verkligen är samt att undersöka deras finansiella utveckling. Investeringskriterierna för de etiska ak-tiefonder som är förvaltade av svenska företag och institut är analyserade och jämförda. En innehavsanalys av varje fonds aktieinnehav är gjord för att se i vilken utsträckning de lever upp till de etiska krav de själva satt upp och till vil-ken grad de skiljer sig från övriga aktiefonder.</p><p>Analysen av de etiska fondernas finansiella utveckling är gjord över perioden 2003-03-31 – 2006-03-31 och finansiella mått såsom Sharpe, M2 RAP och Jensen’s alpha har använts. Dessutom har fondavgifterna jämförts, både med var-andra och med andra fonder av liknande karaktär. Resultaten av analyserna vi-sar att majoriteten av de etiska fonderna knappast kan betraktas som mer etiska än andra fonder, samtidigt som de har en något sämre riskkorrigerad utveckling än index. Det vill säga, trots att de till största del är identiska med vanliga aktie-fonder rent innehållsmässigt, så blir utfallet högre riskexponering och/eller läg-re avkastning än deras inbördes index.</p>

Syfte: Syftet med studien är att öka investerares förståelse angående hur olika finansiella instrument som emitterats av samma bolag skiljer sig åt. Inledning: Den ökade utvecklingen av de finansiella marknaderna har skapat ett ökat utbud av finansiella instrument. Flera företag har även emitterat flera olika finansiella instrument, vilket innebär att investerare står inför ett val av vilket instrument de vill exponera sig emot. Tidigare forskning är oense angående hur dessa instrument skiljer sig åt, då resultaten från tidigare studier har visat sig vara beroende på var studierna genomförs. Metod: Tidigare studier har använts som grund vid skapandet av studiens hypoteser, vilket innebär att studien är av en deduktiv karaktär. Studiens syfte innebär att stora mängder data analyseras vilket medför att studien är kvantitativ. Studien genomfördes på svenska bolag som emitterat minst två stycken finansiella instrument. Genom att skapa olika jämförelseportföljer som innehåller respektive tillgångsslag kunde vi analysera skillnaderna mellan portföljerna och därmed svara på studiens frågeställning. Resultat: Resultatet visar att det existerar skillnader mellan olika finansiella instrument som emitterats av samma bolag. Vilket innebär att investerare måste noggrant utvärdera sina valmöjligheter innan de genomför en investering, då risken är högre för finansiella instrument som har en högre rösträtt.  Nyckelord: Risk, avkastning, riskjusterad avkastning, finansiella instrument, investerare / Purpose: The purpose of this dissertation is to enhance investor’s understanding about the differences between various financial securities that are issued by the same company. Introduction: The development of the financial markets has created an increased range of financial securities. Same companies have also issued various financial securities, which means that the investors face the dilemma of choosing between the options. Previous researches disagree on how these various securities differ from each other, because their results have shown to be dependent on the location of investigation. Method: Previous studies have been used as the basis for the formulation of this study’s hypothesis, which means that it has a deductive character. The purpose of the study requires large amounts of data to be analyzed, which entails that a quantitative method has been used. The study has analyzed Swedish companies that have issued at least two different securities. By creating various portfolios that contain each security class we have been able to analyze the differences and to answer our research question. Conclusion: The result shows that there are some differences between various financial securities issued by the same company. This means that investor must carefully evaluate their options before implementing an investment, since the risk is greater for securities with superior voting power.  Key Words: Risk, return, risk-adjusted return, financial securities, investors

Cox Proportional Hazard Model is one of the most popular tools used in the study of Survival Analysis. Empirical Likelihood (EL) method has been used to study the Cox Proportional Hazard Model. In recent work by Qin and Jing (2001), empirical likelihood based confidence region is constructed with the assumption that the baseline hazard function is known. However, in Cox’s regression model the baseline hazard function is unspecified. In this thesis, we re-formulate empirical likelihood for the vector of regression parameters by estimating the baseline hazard function. The EL confidence regions are obtained accordingly. In addition, Adjusted Empirical Likelihood (AEL) method is proposed. Furthermore, we conduct extensive simulation studies to evaluate the performance of the proposed empirical likelihood methods in terms of coverage probabilities by comparing with the Normal Approximation based method. The simulation studies show that all the three methods produce similar coverage probabilities.

As a consequence of a turbulent financial market with recurring recessions, the Basel regime was developed, an institutional change with the purpose to create enhanced financial stability through increased capital requirements and increased scrutiny of internal procedures. The Basel regime is an often recurring element in social debates where various aspects are discussed, one of which is whether it maintains its purpose to secure financial stability or whether it is cost effective, and if not, who gets affected by these potential costs. The majority of previously conducted research within this area agrees with the opinion that changes in the regulatory framework within the financial markets, such as the Basel regime, has led to reduced risk of bankruptcy for the banks which has contributed to increased global financial stability. However, research illustrates that these types of changes in the regulatory framework impose a financial burden leading to contradictions in the division of these costs between costumers and shareholders. This dissertation has been conducted from a shareholders perspective, out of which the study ́s three hypothesis has been created from. The data in this study is built upon the stock price from the three largest available banks’ shares (based on total assets), in the 26 countries which are represented in the Basel committee from (2007) to (2013). Calculations of the shares’ systematic risk (beta-value), return, and risk-adjusted return (Treynors ratio) throughout a period of time have been conducted in order to later be tested and lead to statistically significant results and thereby display whether the hypotheses were valid or not. The result of the study indicated that the systematic risk of these shares have declined from (2007) to (2013), which is a confirmation that the Basel regime has fulfilled its purpose in reducing the risk within the banks. However, the study has not been able to show that the return or risk-adjusted return had been condensed, a result which suggests that it is not the banks’ shareholders who carries the costs for alterations of the regulations within financial markets. / Till följd av en turbulent finansiell marknad med återkommande finanskriser utvecklades Baselregimen, en institutionell förändring med syftet att skapa ökad finansiell stabilitet genom bland annat ökade kapitalkrav och skärpta tillsynskrav av interna processer. Baselregimen är ofta förekommande i samhälleliga debatter där olika aspekter diskuteras, så som huruvida den lyckas uppfylla sitt syfte om att skapa ökad finansiell stabilitet eller om huruvida den är kostsam och vem som i så fall drabbas av eventuella kostnader. Majoriteten av tidigare forskning är överens om att regelförändringar inom finansiella marknader, så som Baselregimen, lett till minskad konkursrisk i banker vilket bidragit till ökad global finansiell stabilitet. Dock påvisar forskningen att denna typ av regeländringar är kostsamma, vilket leder till motsägelser kring hur kostnadsfördelningen mellan kunder och aktieägare ser ut. Valet föll i denna uppsats på att studera aktieägarnas perspektiv, vilket studiens tre hypoteser skapats utifrån. Datan har i denna studie utgjorts av aktiekurser från tre av de tillgängliga största bankernas aktier (baserat på totala tillgångar), i de 26 länder som finns representerade i Baselkommittén från år (2007) till år (2013). Beräkningar av bankaktiernas systematiska risk (betavärde), avkastning och riskjusterade avkastning (Treynors kvot) över tiden har genomförts för att sedan testats och leda fram till statistiskt signifikant påvisbara resultat och därmed huruvida hypoteserna förkastas eller inte. Studiens resultat påvisar att den systematiska risken i bankaktierna har sjunkit från år (2007) till år (2013), vilket är en bekräftelse på att Baselregimen uppnått sitt syfte om att sänka risken i bankerna. Dock har inte studiens resultat kunnat påvisa att bankaktiernas avkastning eller riskjusterade avkastning sjunkit, ett resultat som tyder på att det inte är bankernas aktieägare som får bära kostnaden för regelförändringar inom finansiella marknader.