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Understanding electric utilities and de-regulation
\"Power interruptions of the scale of the North American Blackout of 2003 are rare, but they still loom as a possibility. Will the aging infrastructure fail because de-regulated monopolies have no financial incentives to upgrade? Is centralized planning becoming subordinate to market forces? Understanding Electric Utilities and De-Regulation, Second Edition provides an updated, non-technical description that sheds light on the nature of the industry and the issues involved in its transition away from a regulated environment.\"--Jacket.
Book
Measurement properties of the EQ-5D-5L compared to the EQ5D-3L in psoriasis patients
The purpose of this study is to assess the measurement properties of EQ-5D-5L compared to EQ-5D-3L in psoriasis patients. Methods A cross-sectional survey was carried out at an academic dermatology clinic in Hungary. Psoriasis patients completed the EQ-5D-3L, EQ-5D-5L and Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) questionnaires, and Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) was assessed. The UK value sets were used to calculate the 3L and 5L index scores. We tested the feasibility, ceiling effect, redistribution properties, the level of inconsistency and informativity (Shannon and Shannon Evenness indices). Spearman's rank-order correlations were performed between EQ-5D, EQ VAS, DLQI and PASI scores. Known-groups validity was evaluated by comparing age groups, clinical subtypes and treatment groups. Results Mean age of the 238 patients was 47 years, and 36.6% of them received biological therapy. Mean EQ-5D index score was 0.77 (SD: 0.26) with the 3L and 0.84 (SD: 0.19) with the 5L. The overall ceiling effect decreased from 37.1 (3L) to 32.9% (5L). Shannon index improved significantly for most dimensions, but Shannon Evenness index improved only in three dimensions. Compared to the 3L, the 5L version confirmed a better convergent validity with PASI, but not with the DLQI. Known-groups validity was equally demonstrated both for the 5L and 3L. Conclusions The EQ-5D-5L seems to improve measurement properties by reducing ceiling effects, strengthening correlations with PASI and improving informativity. Follow-up studies are needed to test responsiveness and reliability in psoriasis.
Journal Article
Uncovering the drivers of utility performance
This book provides insights into infrastructure sector performance by focusing on the links between key indicators for utilities, and changes in ownership, regulatory agency governance, and corporate governance, among other dimensions. By linking inputs and outputs over the last 15 years, the analysis is able to uncover key determinants that have impacted performance and address why the effects of such dimensions resulted in significant changes in the performance of infrastructure service provision.
eBook
CAUTIOUS EXPECTED UTILITY AND THE CERTAINTY EFFECT
Many violations of the independence axiom of expected utility can be traced to subjects' attraction to risk-free prospects. The key axiom in this paper, negative certainty independence (Dillenberger (2010)), formalizes this tendency. Our main result is a utility representation of all preferences over monetary lotteries that satisfy negative certainty independence together with basic rationality postulates. Such preferences can be represented as if the agent were unsure of how to evaluate a given lottery p; instead, she has in mind a set of possible utility functions over outcomes and displays a cautious behavior: she computes the certainty equivalent of p with respect to each possible function in the set and picks the smallest one. The set of utilities is unique in a well defined sense. We show that our representation can also be derived from a \"cautious\" completion of an incomplete preference relation.
Journal Article
Ellsberg Revisited: An Experimental Study
An extension to Ellsberg's experiment demonstrates that attitudes to ambiguity and compound objective lotteries are tightly associated. The sample is decomposed into three main groups: subjective expected utility subjects, who reduce compound objective lotteries and are ambiguity neutral, and two groups that exhibit different forms of association between preferences over compound lotteries and ambiguity, corresponding to alternative theoretical models that account for ambiguity averse or seeking behavior.
Journal Article
Africa's water and sanitation infrastructure : access, affordability, and alternatives
The Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) has produced continent-wide analysis of many aspects of Africa's infrastructure challenge. The main findings were synthesized in a flagship report titled Africa's Infrastructure: a time for transformation, published in November 2009. Meant for policy makers, that report necessarily focused on the high-level conclusions. It attracted widespread media coverage feeding directly into discussions at the 2009 African Union Commission Heads of State Summit on Infrastructure. Although the flagship report served a valuable role in highlighting the main findings of the project, it could not do full justice to the richness of the data collected and technical analysis undertaken. There was clearly a need to make this more detailed material available to a wider audience of infrastructure practitioners. Hence the idea of producing four technical monographs, such as this one, to provide detailed results on each of the major infrastructure sectors, information and communication technologies (ICT), power, transport, and water, as companions to the flagship report. These technical volumes are intended as reference books on each of the infrastructure sectors. They cover all aspects of the AICD project relevant to each sector, including sector performance, gaps in financing and efficiency, and estimates of the need for additional spending on investment, operations, and maintenance. Each volume also comes with a detailed data appendix, providing easy access to all the relevant infrastructure indicators at the country level, which is a resource in and of itself.
eBook