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Background There are few comprehensive estimates of the cost of psoriasis in the United States. Objective We sought to quantify the incremental direct medical and indirect work loss costs associated with psoriasis. Methods A de-identified claims database from 31 self-insured employers during the period 1998 to 2005 was used. Patients with at least two psoriasis diagnosis claims (N = 12,280) were compared with 3 control subjects (matched on year of birth and sex) without psoriasis. Multivariate two-part regression analysis was used to isolate the incremental cost of psoriasis by controlling for comorbidities and other confounding factors. Results After multivariate adjustment, the incremental direct and indirect costs of psoriasis were approximately $900 and $600 ( P Limitations The database used in this study does not contain information on patient out-of-pocket costs or loss of productivity costs at work. Conclusion The incremental cost of psoriasis is approximately $1500 per patient per year, with work loss costs accounting for 40% of the cost burden.

This article presents a framework for thinking about the different types of spreadsheet modeling applications available for teaching economics. Spreadsheet applications are categorized by the degree to which students are involved in the spreadsheet’s construction and the degree to which students are involved in the mathematics of the model. Examples of applications from each category call attention to the high degree of flexibility that instructors have in designing spreadsheet applications and suggest alternative ways that the instructor can tailor applications to fit his or her specific instructional style and setting. Although the costs associated with developing spreadsheet applications are significant, the authors believe that the costs are manageable, even for instructors who are new to spreadsheets. They conclude that the advantages imparted to students by carefully tailored spreadsheet applications are significant, and they hope to encourage the development and use of such applications.

If interpersonal consumption or leisure comparisons affect utility, the labor supply of individuals with equal levels of non-labor income should be more similar when classified by wage rank than by the level of wages. Also, if concern for relative leisure dominates the concern for relative consumption, then at a given wage level, wage rank should be positively related to hours supplied. Evidence of a relationship between hours supplied and wage rank is found, but conflicting evidence exists on the direction of the relationship. The most recent data suggest that concern for relative leisure dominates the concern for relative consumption.

This article advocates that instructors of introductory economics treat the supply curve as a plot of the slope of the production possibilities curve.

The goal of this study was to quantify the incremental direct medical and indirect work-loss costs associated with patients diagnosed with atopic dermatitis (AD). A de-identified administrative claims database was used comprising 5.1 million covered beneficiaries from 31 Fortune 500 self-insured employers between 1998 and 2005. Patients with at least two AD diagnosis claims (N = 13,749) were compared with three matched controls (based on yr of birth and gender) with no AD diagnosis (N = 41,247). In addition, a multivariate two-part regression analysis was used to isolate the cost increase attributable to AD by controlling for confounding factors such as age, gender, health plan type, comorbidities, organ transplantation, industry of employer, region, and year. Direct medical and indirect work-loss costs for the AD group were higher on average by $88 and $64 per patient per month, respectively (both P.001). After multivariate adjustment, the total incremental cost per patient per month for the AD group was $83 (direct: $52, P.001; indirect: $31, P.001). Employer-payers experience a significant annual cost burden of $991 per patient attributable to AD. Employee disability and increased sick days account for 38% of the cost burden.

For individuals with chemotherapy-related anemia, the clinical effectiveness of epoetin alfa (EPO) dosed once weekly ([QW], 40,000 units per dose) has been demonstrated to be indistinguishable from that observed with thrice-weekly dosing ([TIW], 10,000 units per dose). Whether the advantage of less-frequent administration justifies the higher EPO dosage used in the weekly regimen in terms of overall cost of care is unknown.To conduct a cost-minimization analysis comparing QW and TIW EPO dosing from a societal perspective.Direct and indirect medical cost data were calculated for a 16-week period for 2 large, prospective, multicenter, community-based studies. Costs measured included EPO, transfusions, laboratory tests, office visits, and opportunity cost of patient time.The average total costs in 2002 (first half) dollars were nearly equivalent across the 2 groups (QW: 9,204 dollars; 95% confidence interval [CI], 9,057 dollars-9,350 dollars. TIW: 9,265 dollars; 95% CI, 9,083 dollars-9,447 dollars. P=0.60). QW incurred mean drug acquisition costs that were 23% higher (QW: 6,725 dollars; 95% CI, 6,611 dollars-6,838 dollars. TIW: 5,474 dollars; 95% CI, 5,350 dollars-5,598 dollars. P0.001). However, QW patients can avoid the resource use and time cost associated with 2 additional office visits incurred each week (QW: 592 dollars [583 dollars-600 dollars]; TIW: 1,709 dollars [1,678 dollars-1,740 dollars]; P0.001). Transfusion and laboratory test costs were slightly higher in the TIW group (QW: 1,888 dollars [1,837 dollars-1,940 dollars]; TIW: 2,082 dollars [2,020 dollars-2,144 dollars]; P0.001).Total anemia treatment costs over a 16-week period with EPO QW were similar to those of TIW dosing. In the absence of cost differences between regimens, the noneconomic advantages of less-frequent dosing intervals should make weekly dosing increasingly attractive to patients, clinicians, and payers.

This paper applies spreadsheet software to intermediate-level consumer theory concepts. Spreadsheets help make the concepts more accessible while allowing students to explore the ideas in more depth. Areas of application are utility functions, income and substitution effects, price indices, measures of welfare change, and the optimal saving rate. We chose the examples to stimulate awareness and discussion of the many classroom uses for four important Excel spreadsheet tools: three-dimensional (3-D) graphs, iteration, Goal Seek, and Solver. This paper uses spreadsheet software to explore a series of consumer theory examples appropriate to intermediate-level economics classes. The paper also illustrates how spreadsheets can make some advanced topics more accessible to students, thereby helping to bridge the gap between undergraduate and graduate education in economics.' The examples pertain to important topic areas in consumer theory: utility functions, substitution and income effects, price indices, measures of welfare change, and the optimal aggregate saving rate. A web-based supplement accompanies this paper and includes additional examples pertaining to cost minimization, oligopoly models, IS-LM and aggregate supply-aggregate demand models, and the Solow growth model. This supplement is available on the Internet at http:// sterling.holycross.edu/ departments/economics/mcahill/sejpaper.html. The examples in the supplement draw on the same Excel tools that the paper presents.2 The web supplement also contains student instruction

Empirical evidence contradicts the view that savings rates are independent of permanent income levels. Instead, a distinctive nonlinear relationship between savings and permanent income has been found. What explains this result? Using Robert Frank's model of the demand for nonpositional goods, this note explores the impact that treating savings as a nonpositional good has on the relationship between savings and permanent income. Frank's model is extended and predictions are generated for various income distributions and utility function parameters. The similarity of the predictions to existing evidence increases as more weight is given to current consumption rank.

This important, provocative, and highly readable book defies most traditionial ideological pigeonholes. In it Charles Heckscher raises issues in such a way as to make both liberals and conservatives rethink what they believe about unions and their place in the American economic and social system. Heckscher's basic thesis is that the decline of American unions results in large part from New Deal labor law the Wagner Act and the logic of industrial unionism and contrived scarcity upon which it is based. He argues that the Wagner Act framework maintains a rigid, increasingly artificial boundary between workers and management. This boundary accounts for union commitment to adversarial tactics, the importance of the strike as a weapon in bilateral bargaining, and organized labor's insistence that benefits be based upon seniority rather than performance. Of course, this line can also be drawn by management, which is all too often willing to violate standards of fair dealing and tacit agreements for short-term gain and to make adjustments at labor's expense using layoffs to adapt to market fluctuations, increasing worker discipline, and cutting wages and benefits to meet increased price competition. Heckscher acknowledges that workers are capable of solidarity and even militance, of striking and picketing in the traditional fashion, when they are treated as an inferior mass. But he insists that given the choice, they gravitate to less adversarial, more participatory modes of interaction. Heckscher observes that managers have increasingly come to recognize the folly of treating employees as an inferior mass. To win their trust and cooperation and thereby to mobilize their intelligence and creativity, many firms now offer strong guarantees of fair treatment and employment security, and their top managers have established effective mechanisms for employee participation in the direction of the firm. Because such firms can generate an unusual degree of commitment from employees at all levels of the organization, they are often far more successful than their competitors in meeting the challenges of economic change. Heckscher concludes that unions are declining because they have failed to meet the challenge of management reform: to adapt to participatory modes of interaction in which workers share work and allocate their own tasks and in which there is close cooperation among all the members of the organization and a strong sense of team spirit. Unions have failed to adapt because of barriers to worker participation established by New Deal labor law; under the Wagner Act worker participation is not encouraged and may even be illegal. The paradox Heckscher sees in this development is that by displacing unions participatory modes of interaction have tended to concentrate power in the hands of management. Hence, the positive commitment, increased productivity, and higher real incomes that are the goals of management reform remain vulnerable to myopic abuse and deception. Heckscher notes, for example, that many managers are satisfied with the appearance of employee participation rather than the reality. Clearly, any ongoing cooperative endeavor requires a system of formal governance