Links of the Week - 25 April 2014

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


Are the Micro-foundations of Money Demand Important?
Chris House

A guide to navigating our arguments over race
Paul Waldman

The Fed’s macroeconomic model
Simon Wren-Lewis

Book Review: Flash Boys
Noah Smith

Confused about high-frequency trading? Here's a guide
Evan Soltas

Interest, to Deficit, to Debt
Evan Soltas

Accounting for Discouraged Workers in the Unemployment Rate
B. Ravikumar and Lin Shao

Long-run inflation expectations
FRED Blog

Forces of Divergence
John Cassidy

The Dead Are Wealthier Than the Living: Capital in the 21st Century
Timothy Noah

Apple Split

I'm trying to wrap my head around the "efficient-markets" meaning of the Apple split. I guess the entire notion of stock splits seems to me to be in violent conflict with EMH. It seems I'm not the only one who's scratched his head over this. 

While the authors of those links are concerned chiefly with the event-study implications (positive signaling and so forth), I am more curious about how to reconcile EMH with the idea that a cheaper share price should make a stock more attractive. Surely the first splits were not conducted as a signal; they were meant to draw in more investors by making the stock easier to buy. Only later, I imagine, did market actors begin to interpret splits as a sign that a firm was prospering. 

Neil Irwin best captured the absurdity of the idea of drawing in more investors with a split:

"The logic, presumably, is that there may be people who really want to invest in Apple, yet want to do so in chunks smaller than $530, (which raises a question of why somebody who can’t come up with $530 to invest would be investing in individual stocks to begin with)."

So maybe it is just about signaling. But, even that aspect is troubling. If a firm's prospects could be measured on a one-dimensional index (call it theta (0 < theta < infinity)), firms may decide to split their stock when theta reaches a certain value theta0. Market actors will subsequently learn that a split is an indication that management believes theta=theta0, and incorporate this into their information portfolio.

Grasping and impatient firms may then try to goose their share prices by splitting at, say, 0.9theta0. This will lead firms who would have waited until theta0 to split at 0.9theta0. Market actors will then adjust their beliefs about splits to mean a firm has theta=0.9theta0. The graspers may then split at 0.8theta0. This spiral will continue until market actors begin to believe that splits have no meaningful informational value. 

Yet we still see that market actors believe splits have informational value. Is the answer that there are no impatient and grasping firms? That seems unlikely. I think the most plausible explanation for (positive) market reactions to splits is that many market actors (lone wolves and institutional investors alike) have no idea what in world a given split means, except that it means that the price will go up, so they buy (hoping they are) on the up-slope.

Irwin's post has a link to Dhar, Goetzmann, Zhu, and Moscow, which found that the lower prices created by splits attracts individual idiots and has no impact on institutional investors. Irwin cites this as Warren Buffett's reason for never splitting BRK.A. Matthew Yglesias speculates that the Apple split could be aimed at getting inclusion on the Dow index, but notes that this would not likely generate much value.

However one chooses to look at it, a meaningful impact from stock splits is generally incompatible with EMH.

2014 Patriots Draft: Historical Comparisons

I recently posted a study of Belichick-era Patriots draft picks, based on the expected draft position of the Patriots in 2014. In this post, I will compare the "average player" taken by the Patriots at those positions since 2000 with the "average player" taken league-wide over the same span.

#29 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 14.26 / 12.83 = 1.11
(This indicates that Patriots draftees in this range play 11% more games per year on average than their peers.)

Starts per year: 13.06 / 8.17 = 1.60

Pro Bowl trips: 2.33 / 0.63 = 3.70

All-Pro selections: 0.33 / 0.14 = 2.36

Years as primary starter: 7.00 / 3.45 = 2.03

Career length*: 7.67 / 5.90 = 1.30

Weighted career approximate value**: 51.67 / 27.07 = 1.91

Belichick grade***: 1.66

This is outstanding. Belichick-drafted players in this range could be thought of as 66% better than the league average in this range.

#62 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 8.96 / 11.03 = 0.81

Starts per year: 5.82 / 6.27 = 0.93

Pro Bowl trips: 0.00 / 0.35 = 0.00

All-Pro selections: 0.00 / 0.04 = 0.00

Years as primary starter: 2.20 / 2.60 = 0.85

Career length: 4.60 / 5.36 = 0.86

Weighted career approximate value: 15.02 / 20.31 = 0.75

Belichick grade: 0.80

This is a lesser area for Belichick. Players he has drafted have consistently underperformed their peers.

#93 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 5.29 / 10.44 = 0.51

Starts per year: 1.21 / 4.24 = 0.29

Pro Bowl trips: 0.00 / 0.10 = 0.00

All-Pro selections: 0.00 / 0.05 = 0.00

Years as primary starter: 0.17 / 1.61 = 0.11

Career length: 2.83 / 4.67 = 0.61

Weighted career approximate value: 1.83 / 13.20 = 0.14

Belichick grade: 0.33

This is abysmal. There's really no other way to put it. For Belichick, this range, in relative terms, has been a failure.

#130 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 8.58 / 8.41 = 1.02

Starts per year: 4.10 / 2.70 = 1.52

Pro Bowl trips: 0.00 / 0.03 = 0.00

All-Pro selections: 0.00 / 0.00 = [N/A]

Years as primary starter: 0.80 / 0.90 = 0.89

Career length: 4.00 / 3.95 = 1.01

Weighted career approximate value: 10.80 / 8.71 = 1.24

Belichick grade: 1.14

This is a value area for Belichick. He drafts players in this range that are 14% better than their peers.

#140 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 8.42 / 9.24 = 0.91

Starts per year: 1.17 / 2.98 = 0.39

Pro Bowl trips: 0.00 / 0.18 = 0.00

All-Pro selections: 0.00 / 0.08 = 0.00

Years as primary starter: 0.00 / 1.45 = 0.00

Career length: 2.5 / 4.42 = 0.57

Weighted career approximate value: 3 / 10.79 = 0.28

Belichick grade: 0.52

Belichick players are about half as good as their peers in this range. It's not the train wreck that #93 is, but this is not good, by any measure. 

#198 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 7.99 / 6.01 = 1.33

Starts per year: 2.04 / 1.90 = 1.07

Pro Bowl trips: 1.29 / 0.14 = 9.21

All-Pro selections: 0.29 / 0.02 = 14.50

Years as primary starter: 1.71 / 0.72 = 2.38

Career length: 3.71 / 3.12 = 1.19

Weighted career approximate value: 25.67 / 8.06 = 3.18

Belichick grade: 2.14

This is obviously Belichick's best range, given the inclusion of Tom Brady. Even excluding Brady, Belichick's score for this range is 1.64, which is still very good.

#206 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 6.46 / 6.51 = 0.99

Starts per year: 1.53 / 1.69 = 0.90

Pro Bowl trips: 0.00 / 0.03 = 0.00

All-Pro selections: 0.00 / 0.00 = [N/A]

Years as primary starter: 0.43 / 0.53 = 0.81

Career length: 3.57 / 3.10 = 1.15

Weighted career approximate value: 7.00 / 7.18 = 0.98

Belichick grade: 1.00

This is Belichick's most "average" drafting position. 

#244 (Patriots) (league)

Games per year: 6.92 / 6.17 = 1.12

Starts per year: 2.00 / 1.55 = 1.29

Pro Bowl trips: 0.00 / 0.01 = 0.00

All-Pro selections: 0.00 / 0.00 = [N/A]

Years as primary starter: 0.33 / 0.46 = 0.72

Career length: 3.00 / 2.86 = 1.05

Weighted career approximate value: 7.00 / 5.01 = 1.40

Belichick grade: 1.20

This is another top value area for Belichick.


Overall grade: 1.11

This score indicates that, over the range of picks the Patriots have this year, Belichick has drafted 11% better than league average. Without Brady, his overall grade is still 1.04.



*Note that this number is computed using both active players and players out of football, and is therefore not to be interpreted as reflecting an entire career.

**See explanation here. See more explanation here.

***This is the total of the Patriots numbers divided by the total of the league numbers. A score of 1.0 represents a quality equal to that of the league. A score of 1.23 can be interpreted as 23% better than the league average.

2014 Patriots Draft: A Historical Perspective

In preparation for the upcoming NFL Draft, I wanted to have a look at what the Patriots have done at or near the selections they've got this year. I gathered data on their past drafts from Pro Football Reference, and the projected picks from WEEI. I will look at all picks within three of the expected picks in order to gather a more meaningful amount of data. I will post a followup after the draft, as the likelihood the Patriots use all of these picks and no others asymptotically approaches zero. The statistics can be viewed as representative of an "average player" drafted in a given area by Belichick since 2000.

The picks currently held by the Patriots are as follows:

First round: No. 29 overall

Second round: No. 62 overall

Third round: No. 93 overall

Fourth round: Nos. 130 and 140 (140 is compensatory — the last pick of the fourth round)

Fifth round: None (pick dealt to Philadelphia in Isaac Sopoaga trade)

Sixth round: Nos. 198 (via Eagles as part of Sopoaga trade) and 206

Seventh round: No. 244

#29

Players: Devin McCourty, Ben Watson, Logan Mankins

Games per year: 14.26

Starts per year: 13.06

Pro Bowl trips: 2.33

All-Pro selections: 0.33

Years as primary starter*: 7

Career length*: 7.67

All told, a Belichick selection in this area is a solid, if unspectacular, starter.

#62

Players: Aaron Dobson, Terrence Wheatley, Brandon Spikes, Marquise Hill, Deion Branch

Games per year: 8.96

Starts per year: 5.82

Pro Bowl trips: 0

All-Pro selections: 0

Years as primary starter: 2.2

Career length: 4.6

This player is a marginal starter, and is likely viewed as a disappointment, considering draft position.

#93

Players: Taylor Price, Jake Bequette, Duron Harmon, Kevin O'Connell, Guss Scott, Kenyatta Jones

Games per year: 5.29

Starts per year: 1.21

Pro Bowl trips: 0

All-Pro selections: 0

Years as primary starter: 0.17

Career length: 2.83

This player is a largely replaceable special teamer or backup.

#130

Players: Greg Randall, Kareem Brown, Cedric Cobbs, Jonathan Wilhite, James Sanders

Games per year: 8.58

Starts per year: 4.10

Pro Bowl trips: 0

All-Pro selections: 0

Years as primary starter: 0.8

Career length: 4

This player, like #93, is primarily a special teamer or backup, but, interestingly, plays and starts more than #93, and over a longer career.

#140

Players: Marcus Cannon, Dave Stachelski

Games per year: 8.42

Starts per year: 1.17

Pro Bowl trips: 0

All-Pro selections: 0

Years as primary starter: 0

Career length: 2.5

Small sample size here, but this player is primarily a backup, though one that plays a lot.

#198

Players: Bo Ruud, Nate Ebner, Jake Ingram, Tom Brady, Leonard Myers, David Nugent, Kliff Kingsbury

Games per year: 7.99 (7.03)

Starts per year: 2.04 (0.11)

Pro Bowl trips: 1.29 (0)

All-Pro selections: 0.29 (0)

Years as primary starter: 1.71 (0)

Career length: 3.71 (2)

The main numbers here show a pretty good player, but there is an outlier in the list above that skews the statistics. Stripping out the outlier, the numbers in parentheses reflect a player that plays a lot, but over a short career, starting very infrequently.

#206

Players: Ted Larsen, Thomas Welch, Myron Pryor, Justise Hairston, Corey Hilliard, Dan Stevenson, Le Kevin Smith

Games per year: 6.46

Starts per year: 1.53

Pro Bowl trips: 0

All-Pro selections: 0

Years as primary starter: 0.43

Career length: 3.57

This reflects another backup or special-teams player. Not bad for this low in the draft, however.

#244

Players: Ethan Kelley, Mike Elgin, Brandon Deaderick

Games per year: 6.92

Starts per year: 2.00

Pro Bowl trips: 0

All-Pro selections: 0

Years as primary starter: 0.33

Career length: 3.00

This is another area in which the typical Belichick player is likely better than average, considering draft position.

I will follow up soon with comparisons of Belichick-era Patriots draft picks with league-wide averages in the Belichick era.

*Note that this number is computed using both active players and players out of football, and is therefore not to be interpreted as reflecting an entire career.

Links of the Week - 18 April 2014

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


No one really knows if HFT is good or bad
Noah Smith

Low inflation is a choice
Ryan Avent

A Book That Needed To Be Written
James Kwak

The short guide to Capital in the 21st Century
Matthew Yglesias

A veteran programmer explains how the stock market became “rigged”
Max Ehrenfreund

The foxy Fed
Noah Smith

The FRB/US Model: A Tool for Macroeconomic Policy Analysis

Why We’re in a New Gilded Age
Paul Krugman

The Color of His Presidency
Jonathan Chait

Innovation: The Government Was Crucial After All
Jeff Madrick

Links of the Week - 11 April 2014

A weekly collection of links from the Conscience Warrior Newsfeed


4 Bold-Faced Lies about High Frequency Trading
ETFguide

Fleecing Seniors
Jonathan B. Wight

Why Those Guys Won the Economics Nobels
Justin Fox

Bitcoin's deflation problem
The London Economist

High Frequency Trading: Threat or Menace?
Justin Fox

Are Virtual “Currencies” Likely to Succeed?
Daniel L. Thornton

The Lewis Effect
Felix Salmon

Why hasn’t democracy saved us from inequality?
Kenneth Scheve and David Stasavage

What the Heck is “Calibration” Anyway?
Chris House

IPAB Unleashed

Many recent reports indicate a slowing of the growth rate of health care spending in the United States (Furman, New Report from the Council of Economic Advisers: The Recent Slowdown in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act 2013) and (Kaiser Family Foundation 2013). While this is good news, the US still spends far more per capita than any other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2010).

The causes of health care cost growth include the aging population, greater usage of new technology, and more wasteful spending in the US versus other OECD countries (Kaiser Family Foundation 2012) (Bentley, et al. 2008) (Furman, Reducing Costs and Improving the Quality of Health Care 2013) (Pearson 2009) (Kaiser Family Foundation 2007). Health care spending in the US is particularly inefficient compared with other OECD countries, when measured across many metrics. US life expectancy is significantly lower per dollar spent (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 2010), despite our spending far more than other OECD countries in actual dollars as well as by percentage of GDP (Squires 2011). Nearly all of the difference in health care spending between the US and the rest of the OECD comes from private expenditure, as the US spends about the same in public funds as a fraction of GDP as the rest of the OECD[1] (Kaiser Family Foundation 2011).

There is also a clear connection between high health care prices in the US and poor health outcomes. Fifty percent of respondents in the US to a 2011 Kaiser Family Foundation poll indicated that they had done one or more of the following: “Relied on home remedies or over-the-counter drugs instead of going to see a doctor,” “Skipped dental care or checkups,” “Put off or postponed getting health care needed,” “Not filled a prescription for a medicine,” “Skipped a recommended medical test or treatment,” “Cut pills in half or skipped doses of medicine,” “Had problems getting mental health care” (Kaiser Family Foundation 2012). While some of these behaviors may not be cost-related, it is obvious that lower prices would incentivize many people to modify these choices.

The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) was created with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 (U.S. House. 111th Congress, 2nd Session 2010). The purpose of IPAB is to slow the growth rate of Medicare expenditure and find savings inherent in the current coverage, without compromising the standard of care. Before the creation of IPAB, Congress made decisions about Medicare spending, with non-binding input from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. The flaw in this system has been that members of Congress are susceptible to outside pressure from interested stakeholders, such as physicians’ and drug manufacturers’ pressure groups (Aaron 2011) (Hill, et al. 2013).

Many others have proposed alternate plans to curb the growth of health care costs. The American Medical Association (AMA) has called for a reduction of risk factors for preventable disease, the encouragement of patient compliance, waste reduction, and an increase in benefit-cost analysis in decision-making (American Medical Association n.d.). While these are all laudable goals, none constitute a concrete plan. Laurence Seidman advocates a form of universal coverage he calls “Medicare for all.” Under Seidman’s plan, all Americans would automatically qualify for comprehensive health care, much in the way that all seniors now qualify (Seidman 2013). Holly Stockdale outlines many other advisory-board plans that were considered prior to the creation of IPAB. Many of these proposals were structurally similar to IPAB, but varied as to the specifics of authority, and the mechanisms for implementation of board recommendations (Stockdale 2010).

IPAB has been controversial since the planning stage. One of its foremost critics is the AMA, which argues that IPAB removes important decision making authority from Congress (Madara 2012).  The AMA has consistently backed efforts to eliminate, or reduce the scope of IPAB (Lazarus 2013). Henry Aaron writes that removal of health care expenditure decision-making authority from lawmakers susceptible to outside influence is precisely the goal of IPAB. He contends that the objections of interested parties with great political influence, such as the AMA, are a sign of the plan’s effectiveness (Aaron 2011).

The ability of IPAB to cap the growth rate of Medicare expenditures will be tested as the instruments of its mandate come into effect between 2015 and 2020 (Marciarille and DeLong 2012). Since much of the “extra” spending in the US consists of private money, the US should consider using mechanisms from the public sector to help control spending in the private sector. If IPAB proves successful, the implementation of a board like IPAB to regulate all health care spending would significantly reduce total health care costs in the US.

One area in which the US outpaces the rest of the OECD is in prescription drug usage. A higher percentage of the US population uses at least one prescription regularly than in every other OECD country. A higher percentage also uses at least four regularly. While the US allots the median percentage of health spending to drugs, it also has the highest per-capita drug spending. In most of the other OECD countries, drug prices are, at least in part, set by the government. This has clearly shown to be a useful technique to keep drug spending under control. Similar spending relationships are observed in medical imaging (Squires 2011).

One of the goals of IPAB, as a part of PPACA, is to reduce health care spending growth by way of “spillovers.” The hope is that reducing prices paid for services to Medicare patients will reduce the overall market price of those services. Whether or not these secondary effects are realized, the Congressional Budget Office projects a significant decrease in the rise of Medicare and Medicaid expenditures as a fraction of GDP over the next ten years (Council of Economic Advisers 2013). The goal of my policy is to harness these savings from reduced inefficiencies across the broad health care financing system.

Much of the recent slowdown in health care cost growth is attributable to savings achieved in Medicare through reduced overpayments (Furman, New Report from the Council of Economic Advisers: The Recent Slowdown in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act 2013). One reason Medicare is able to keep its administrative costs down is that the Medicare system is not burdened with the administrative duplication of the private sector. Every payment made in the private sector involves two specific administrators. One works for the service provider and is tasked with maximizing the billed amount. The other works for the insurer and is tasked with minimizing the billed amount. The negotiation between these two competing administrators determines, in large part, the final billed amount. Since administrative costs in Medicare are already 70 to 80% lower as a fraction of spending than in private insurance, utilizing these drivers of savings in the private sector is prudent policy (Bentley, et al. 2008).

Ezra Klein referred to IPAB as the “most promising cost control in the Affordable Care Act” (Klein 2010), because, like Henry Aaron, he believes it will virtually eliminate legislative meddling (Aaron 2011). The strong negative reaction of groups like the AMA, which lobby for financially interested parties, is an indication that the IPAB is a promising avenue for meaningful reform (Madara 2012) (Lazarus 2013).

Former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, President Obama’s first, but unconfirmed, choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has also advocated expanding IPAB to administer cost savings more broadly. It remains to be seen however, if a board like IPAB could realize decreased cost growth in the absence of the single-payer buying power of Medicare. This is the crux of Seidman’s argument for “Medicare for all” (Seidman 2013).

One survey of cost-impact studies of a move to a single-payer system in the US found estimated savings that ranged from 89 to 280 billion dollars per year (Bentley, et al. 2008). It is clear that these savings would not be achieved in their entirety simply by regulating prices paid by private firms, but these figures provide insight as to the potential magnitude of cost savings from simplifying the payment process. It is also important to consider the potential social welfare loss to patients that could result from what some would crudely refer to as “price-fixing.” Social welfare loss, in this context, usually occurs because normal market processes are interrupted by the regulation of price. The market for health care is clearly not efficient, chiefly because buyers and sellers) often lack the necessary information to make rational decisions. The market is therefore already operating at an inefficient equilibrium.

A potential cost of restricting the growth of fees paid to doctors is that, under such a regime, there will be fewer practicing doctors in the US. The US already ranks below the median in the OECD in physicians per capita (Squires 2011). The operative question is whether or not, given the US lead in adopting new medical procedures, technologies, and norms, this is simply part of a trend toward greater utilization of physician’s assistants, nurse practitioners, and other paraprofessionals (Kaiser Family Foundation 2007).

An obvious argument can be made that setting prices through non-market processes can be inefficient. It is clear, however, that the US health care market is both informationally inefficient and more market-oriented than any other in the OECD. Perhaps it is time to expand a plan that has worked well to curb cost growth in public health care finance to all health care finance.

[1] US public spending on health care is 0.224 standard deviations above the mean in data collected from OECD countries, while US private spending is 2.999 standard deviations above the mean in the same data. (See Figure)

Figure

Public and Private Healthcare Spending as a Fraction of Gross Domestic Product, 2008
	Percentage of GDP					Private Share	Per-capita Spending
	Public	Private	Total
Japan	6.6	1.5	8.1			18.5%	$2,729
Australia	5.7	2.8	8.5			32.9%	$3,353
Norway	7.2	1.3	8.5			15.3%	n/a
UK	7.2	1.5	8.7			17.2%	$3,129
Spain	6.5	2.5	9.0			27.8%	$2,902
Italy	7.0	2.1	9.1			23.1%	$2,870
Sweden	7.7	1.7	9.4			18.1%	$3,470
Canada	7.3	3.1	10.4			29.8%	$4,079
Austria	8.1	2.4	10.5			22.9%	$3,970
Germany	8.1	2.5	10.6			23.6%	$3,737
Switzerland	6.3	4.4	10.7			41.1%	$4,627
France	8.7	2.5	11.2			22.3%	$3,696
US	7.4	8.5	15.9			53.5%	$7,538
	(Minimum)			(Maximum)
Mean	7.2	2.8	10.0			28.2%	$3,842
Std Dev	0.8	1.9	2.0			10.8%	$1,291
US Deviation	+0.224	+2.999	+2.884			+2.348	+2.86
Table created by the author from OECD Health Statistics Database data obtained via KFF (2011)

Works Cited

Aaron, Henry J. "The Independent Payment Advisory Board — Congress's “Good Deed”." New England Journal of Medicine, June 23, 2011: 2377-2379.

American Medical Association. "Strategies to address rising health care costs." Getting the most for our health care dollars. http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/health-care-costs/strategies-rising-costs.pdf (accessed February 20, 2014).

Bentley, Tanya G.K., Rachel M. Effros, Kartika Palar, and Emmett B. Keeler. "Waste in the U.S. Health Care System: A Conceptual Framework." The Milbank Quarterly 86, no. 4 (December 2008): 629-659.

Calmes, Jackie. "After Health Care Passage, Obama Pushes to Get It Rolling ." New York Times, April 18, 2010: A16.

Council of Economic Advisers. "Trends in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act." Council of Economic Advisers. November 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/healthcostreport_final_noembargo_v2.pdf (accessed February 20, 2014).

Furman, Jason. "New Report from the Council of Economic Advisers: The Recent Slowdown in Health Care Cost Growth and the Role of the Affordable Care Act." Council of Economic Advisers. November 20, 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/11/20/new-report-from-council-economic-advisers-recent (accessed February 20, 2014).

—. "Reducing Costs and Improving the Quality of Health Care." Economic Report of the President. 2013. http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/erp2013/ERP2013_Chapter_5.pdf (accessed February 20, 2014).

Hill, Matthew D., G. Wayne Kelly, G. Brandon Lockhart, and Robert A. Van Ness. "Determinants and Effects of Corporate Lobbying." Financial Management 42, no. 4 (September 2013): 931-957.

Kaiser Family Foundation. "Assessing the Effects of the Economy on the Recent Slowdown in Health Spending." Kaiser Family Foundation. April 22, 2013. http://kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/assessing-the-effects-of-the-economy-on-the-recent-slowdown-in-health-spending-2/ (accessed February 20, 2014).

—. "Health Care Costs: A Primer." Kaiser Family Foundation. May 2012. http://kff.org/health-costs/report/health-care-costs-a-primer/ (accessed February 20, 2014).

—. "Snapshots: Health Care Spending in the United States & Selected OECD Countries." Kaiser Family Foundation. April 12, 2011. http://kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/snapshots-health-care-spending-in-the-united-states-selected-oecd-countries/ (accessed February 20, 2014).

—. "Snapshots: How Changes in Medical Technology Affect Health Care Costs." Kaiser Family Foundation. March 2, 2007. http://kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/snapshots-how-changes-in-medical-technology-affect/ (accessed February 20, 2014).

Klein, Ezra. "Can we control costs without Congress?" Washington Post. March 26, 2010. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/03/can_we_control_costs_without_c.html (accessed February 20, 2014).

Lazarus, Jeremy A. "AMA Newsroom." American Medical Association. January 23, 2013. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/news/news/2013-01-23-ama-applauds-bill-to-repeal-ipab.page (accessed February 20, 2014).

Madara, James L. "H.R. 452 Support Letter." American Medical Association. February 27, 2012. http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/washington/hr452-support-letter-27feb2012.pdf (accessed February 20, 2014).

Marciarille, Ann Marie, and J. Bradford DeLong. "Bending the Health Cost Curve: The Promise and Peril of the Independent Payment Advisory Board." Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 22, no. 74 (2012): 74-120.

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. "Health Care Systems: Getting more Value for Money." OECD Economics Department Policy Notes 2 (2010).

Pearson, Mark. "Written Statement to Senate Special Committee on Aging." Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. September 30, 2009. http://www.oecd.org/health/43800977.pdf (accessed February 20, 2014).

Seidman, Laurence. "Medicare for All: A Public Finance Analysis." University of Delaware Department of Economics Working Paper Series, November 2013.

Squires, David A. "The U.S. Health System in Perspective: A Comparison of Twelve Industrialized Nations." The Commonwealth Fund. July 27, 2011. http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Publications/Issue-Briefs/2011/Jul/US-Health-System-in-Perspective.aspx (accessed February 20, 2014).

Stockdale, Holly. "An Overview of Proposals to Establish an Independent Commission or Board in Medicare." Congressional Research Service, January 2010.

U.S. House. 111th Congress, 2nd Session. H.R. 3590, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Sec. 3403. Washington: U.S. Govenment Printing Office, 2010.