Costs and Benefits of Building Faster Payment Systems: The U.K. Experience and Implications for the United States

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Greene ◽  
Marc Rysman ◽  
Scott D. Schuh ◽  
Oz Shy
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Payment Systems

“A Hidden War”

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-146
Author(s):  
Pierre-Hugues Verdier
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Payment Systems ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Negative Publicity ◽  
State Prosecutors ◽  
Global Banks ◽  
The U.S

This chapter examines the rise of financial sanctions as a tool of U.S. foreign policy and the role of U.S. prosecutors in enforcing sanctions against global banks. It describes how the United States developed its financial sanctions capabilities against terrorist groups, then turned them against state actors such as North Korea, culminating with elaborate sanctions programs against Iran and Russia. It shows how U.S. federal and state prosecutors uncovered large-scale sanctions evasion efforts at numerous global banks that processed U.S. dollar payments. This enforcement campaign led to some of the largest criminal fines ever levied, and global banks such as HSBC and BNP Paribas agreed to implement U.S. sanctions and anti-money laundering controls in their worldwide operations, thus broadening the reach of U.S. policy. Although U.S. enforcement actions faced strong criticism by U.S. allies, banks facing large fines, negative publicity, and potential loss of access to essential U.S. dollar payment infrastructure complied with U.S. demands. Unlike other cases, U.S. sanctions did not lead to multilateral reforms, instead triggering efforts by sanctioned states and bystanders to reduce their dependence on the U.S. dollar and U.S. payment systems.

Managing Failures

2030 ◽  
2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rutger van Santen ◽  
Djan Khoe ◽  
Bram Vermeer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Power Supply ◽  
Communication Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Payment Systems ◽  
Software Failure ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
High Doses

Computers are the engines that drive our society. We get paid via computer, and we use them to vote in elections; computers decide whether to deploy the airbags in our car; and doctors use them to help identify a patient’s injuries. Computers are embedded in all sorts of processes nowadays, and that can make us vulnerable. Because of a single computer glitch, large payment systems can grind to a halt. When computers malfunction, we risk losing our power supply, our railway links, and our communications. Worst of all, we habitually shift responsibility to computers and blindly follow their advice. This is why patients occasionally receive ridiculously high doses of a powerful drug or a car driver who blindly follows his satnav may end up in a ditch. Ubiquitous computer use can cause otherwise responsible people to leave their common sense at home. We’re all too familiar with poorly designed software, computer errors, or—worse still—programs that flatly refuse to function properly no matter what we do. It is hardly surprising then that computer failures cost the world hundreds of billions of dollars a year. In the United States alone, failed computer projects are believed to waste $55 billion annually. And the media only report the tip of the iceberg— the foul-ups that cost millions or result in fatalities. For instance, in the 1980s, several cancer patients were killed by a programming error that caused the Therac 25 radiotherapy unit to deliver excessive doses of radiation. In 1996, Europe’s first Ariane 5 rocket had to be blown up a mere 37 seconds after launch in what might be the costliest software failure in history. In 2007, six F-22 aircraft experienced multiple computer crashes as they crossed the date line, disabling all navigation and communication systems. The list can be extended endlessly, and there are many more failures that we never hear about. Only about a third of all computer projects can be described as successful, and even these are hardly error-free. Why can’t we prevent programming mistakes? Could we improve computers and their software to protect society from the “moods”’ of its digital machines?

Price Regulation and Pay-for-Performance in Public Health Systems

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luigi Siciliani
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Pay For Performance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Price Regulation ◽  
Payment Systems ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Fixed Price ◽  
Fixed Prices

Payment systems based on fixed prices have become the dominant model to finance hospitals across OECD countries. In the early 1980s, Medicare in the United States introduced the Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) system. The idea was that hospitals should be paid a fixed price for treating a patient within a given diagnosis or treatment. The system then spread to other European countries (e.g., France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom) and high-income countries (e.g., Canada, Australia). The change in payment system was motivated by concerns over rapid health expenditure growth, and replaced financing arrangements based on reimbursing costs (e.g., in the United States) or fixed annual budgets (e.g., in the United Kingdom). A more recent policy development is the introduction of pay-for-performance (P4P) schemes, which, in most cases, pay directly for higher quality. This is also a form of regulated price payment but the unit of payment is a (process or outcome) measure of quality, as opposed to activity, that is admitting a patient with a given diagnosis or a treatment. Fixed price payment systems, either of the DRG type or the P4P type, affect hospital incentives to provide quality, contain costs, and treat the right patients (allocative efficiency). Quality and efficiency are ubiquitous policy goals across a range of countries. Fixed price regulation induces providers to contain costs and, under certain conditions (e.g., excess demand), offer some incentives to sustain quality. But payment systems in the health sector are complex. Since its inception, DRG systems have been continuously refined. From their initial (around) 500 tariffs, many DRG codes have been split in two or more finer ones to reflect heterogeneity in costs within each subgroup. In turn, this may give incentives to provide excessive intensive treatments or to code patients in more remunerative tariffs, a practice known as upcoding. Fixed prices also make it financially unprofitable to treat high cost patients. This is particularly problematic when patients with the highest costs have the largest benefits from treatment. Hospitals also differ systematically in costs and other dimensions, and some of these external differences are beyond their control (e.g., higher cost of living, land, or capital). Price regulation can be put in place to address such differences. The development of information technology has allowed constructing a plethora of quality indicators, mostly process measures of quality and in some cases health outcomes. These have been used both for public reporting, to help patients choose providers, but also for incentive schemes that directly pay for quality. P4P schemes are attractive but raise new issues, such as they might divert provider attention and unincentivized dimensions of quality might suffer as a result.

scholarly journals Potential Data Sources for a New Study of Social Mobility in the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol 657 (1) ◽  
pp. 208-246
Author(s):  
John Robert Warren
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Population Survey ◽  
Data Access ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Survey ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
American Community Survey ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Trade Offs

In this article I define the main criteria that ought to be considered in evaluating the costs and benefits of various data resources that might be used for a new study of social and economic mobility in the United States. These criteria include population definition and coverage, sample size, topical coverage, temporal issues, spatial issues, sustainability, financial expense, and privacy and data access. I use these criteria to evaluate the strengths and weakness of several possible data resources for a new study of mobility, including existing smaller-scale surveys, the Current Population Survey, the American Community Survey, linked administrative data, and a new stand-alone survey. No option is perfect, and all involve trade-offs. I conclude by recommending five possible designs that are particularly strong on the criteria listed above.

scholarly journals Surgical training in the United States

2007 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig A Nicholson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Surgical Training ◽  
Medical Training ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
The United States ◽  
Training System ◽  
Payment Systems ◽  
Graduate Medical ◽  
The Us ◽  
Generational Changes

Surgical education in the United States has developed along with the graduate medical education (GME) system. Changes in health care delivery and payment systems, changes in the practice and specialisation of surgery, attempts to improve the system of graduate medical training and even generational changes among those entering surgical training have influenced and changed the way surgeons are trained in the US. Although a thorough examination of these factors and their influence on surgical training is beyond the scope of this brief review, some of these influences and our current surgical training system will be described.

Nationalization and Privatization: A Rational-Choice Perspective on Efficiency

1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen M. Pint
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
The United States ◽  
Organized Labor ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Post War

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes the use of nationalization and privatization policies to redistribute costs and benefits among interest groups, using a rational-choice framework. The major cases considered are the post-war nationalizations and the current wave of privatizations in the United Kingdom, plus France and the United States. The analysis indicates that governments tend to redistribute benefits to more concentrated interest groups, such as organized labor or shareholders, and to impose costs on more diffuse groups, such as consumers and taxpayers. This type of redistribution is often economically inefficient, but politically efficient for the party in power. Policy design is also influenced by the ease with which policies can be changed by future governments within the prevailing political institutions.

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