Coping with Digital Extortion: An Experimental Study of Benefit Appeals and Normative Appeals

Digital extortion has emerged as a significant threat to organizations that rely on information technologies for their operations. Using human subject experimentation, we study the effectiveness of message appeals in encouraging defenders to adopt two mitigation strategies, investment in security and refusal to pay ransoms, to digital extortion threats. We explore two types of appeals, benefit and normative, for this purpose. We find that the decisions of the defenders (representing any organization that can be a potential victim) deviate from the predictions of game theory. However, given the strategic interactions between the defenders and the attacker as well as noisy decision-making behaviors, it is challenging to untangle the influence of the appeals on the defenders. We develop a structural model based on the quantal response equilibrium framework to measure how message appeals change the defenders’ utilities of investment and payment refusal. Although the interventions may be successful in increasing the utilities of investment and/or payment refusal, their impacts on investment rate and payment rate are mitigated by the attacker reducing ransoms. Thus, it is challenging for an intervention to significantly boost a community’s investment rate or to suppress the ransom payment rate. We characterize how security outcomes of a community (including expected ransom, attack rate, investment rate, and payment rate) vary with the defenders’ utilities of investment and pay refusal. This paper was accepted by Chris Forman, information systems.

Traditional Medicare Spending on Inpatient Episodes as Hospitalizations Decline

OBJECTIVE: To describe Medicare inpatient episode spending trends between 2009 and 2017 as inpatient use declined among traditional Medicare beneficiaries. METHODS: Inpatient episodes included claims for all traditional Medicare inpatient, outpatient, and Part D services provided during the 30 days prehospitalization, the inpatient stay, and the 90 subsequent days. We describe the mean number of episodes per 1000 beneficiaries, mean episode-related spending per beneficiary, and mean spending per episode for all beneficiaries and for specific populations and types of episodes. Spending measures are reported with and without adjustment for payment rate increases over the study period. RESULTS: The number of inpatient-initiated episodes per 1000 beneficiaries declined by 18.2% between 2009 and 2017 from 326 to 267. After adjusting for payment rate increases, Medicare spending per beneficiary on episode-related care declined by 8.9%, although spending per episode increased by 11.4% over this period. Between 2009 and 2017, all subgroups defined by age, sex, race, or Medicaid status experienced declines in inpatient use accompanied by decreased overall episode-related spending per beneficiary and increased spending per episode. Larger declines in the number of episodes per 1000 beneficiaries were seen among episodes that began with a planned admission (28.8%) or involved no use of post–acute care services (23.9%). When comparing admissions according to medical diagnosis, the largest decline occurred for episodes initiated by a hospitalization for a cardiac or circulatory condition (31.8%). CONCLUSION: Medicare inpatient episodes per beneficiary decreased, but spending decreases due to declining volume were offset by increased spending per episode.

The Impacts of Benefits Perception and Risks Awareness on Participating In Voluntary Social Insurance - A Study on Informal Workers in Hanoi Area

Voluntary social insurance is the type of social insurance that an employee voluntarily participates in, it is allowed the employee to choose the payment rate and method of payment in accordance with his/her income, based on the general regulations of the State. Accordingly, this is an additional form of compulsory social insurance in the context of not implementing compulsory social insurance for all employees. This is an opportunity for employees to have an additional means of ensuring their financial condition against risks and incidents in life. However, the actual results indicate that the number of voluntary social insurance participants has increased rapidly but is not commensurate with its potential. This study aims to examine the effects of perceptions of benefits and perceptions of risk on attitudes towards voluntary social insurance based on a survey conducted on 245 workers in the informal sectors in Hanoi. The research results show that, as expected and consistent with previous studies, the attitude towards participating in social insurance is actually influenced by the participants' perception of benefits and risks. Accordingly, it is necessary to focus on increasing these perceptions for employees as the solutions to change attitudes with voluntary social insurance. This will promote the intention and behavior of employees to participate in social insurance in the informal sector, thereby contribute to ensure social security.

Seigniorial revenue from villages by general norm: two volosts of Smerdy in Derevskaya Pyatina of Novgorod Land of the late XV century

This article analyzes the data described in the most ancient Russian scribal book – Derevskaya Pyatina of Novgorod Land compiled in the early 1499 based on the land documentation of 1495/96 – 1496/97. The object of this research is the records on seigniorial revenue collected from two volosts – Mikhailovskaya Smerda and Berezayskaya Smerda. The choice of these volosts for analysis is explained by accurate dating in scribal books, as well as by the fact that the income of all villages in these two volosts was calculated by general norm. The subject of this research is the correspondence of the description of revenue by villages to the results calculated by the scriber, as well as correlation between the amount of payment collected from the village and the economic indicators of this village. The novelty of this work lies in the analysis of statistical data taking into account that the scribal book of the XV century contains the records of different times: the composition of households and impost of villages were recorded at the time of the scribal description, while the revenue was calculated a little bit later. This explains certain discrepancies between the payment rate applied to the village and its economic characteristics. Special attention is given to verification of statistical record of scribal book for errors, such as miscount. The author suggests that the criterion for defining the rate of return for the village was not an abstract value – taxation in “obzha”, but the number of households that could be easily determined without special competency of the observer. This hypothesis can be tested only in terms of using the proposed methodology for analyzing other lands according to the scribal books of the XV – XVI centuries.

Zoning of territory of lands of settlements of the Republic of Kazakhstan

This article presents the existing methodology of determining the cadastral value of land in settlements of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The concept of State appraisal of the value of land plots is reflected on the basis of the standard land payment rate, market approaches to the cadastral registration of land use. The influence of real estate market on payment for land in the category of land of settlements is considered. The article presents the foreign experience of American and Western European systems of zoning of territories, as well as countries such as Japan and Singapore, which are perceived in unity with the settlement mechanism and as an instrument of territorial development. It is proposed to introduce a new coefficient for commercial purposes for land plots located in the RS. As an example, the cadastral value of one land plot has been calculated. It was revealed that method of zoning the lands of Kazakhstan is in many respects identical with the foreign one. Its shortcomings are shown and proposals on improvement by the type of Nur-Sultan are given. The existing number of zones is analyzed, their frequent fragmentation is noted. The expediency of combining 1 and 2, 25 and 26 zones is indicated. The conclusion: zoning of land in settlements is carried out in order to determine the boundaries of assessment zones and correction factors to the basic land plots payment rates, and is also necessary as a tool for managing land resources in built-up areas.

Comportamiento de la cartera comercial de los bancos privados del ecuador, 2010-2018

El presente estudio tiene como objetivo determinar el comportamiento de la cartera comercial del sistema bancario privado del Ecuador durante el período 2010-2018, los factores considerados corresponden a cartera improductiva, tasa de morosidad, Producto Interno Bruto (PIB), Índice de precios del consumidor, riesgo país, variación de la deuda pública y liquidez. Los datos fueron obtenidos de la Superintendencia de Compañías, Banco Central del Ecuador y Superintendencia de Bancos. La metodología plantea dos modelos econométricos, el primero el Univariante Autoregresivo Integrado Media Móvil (ARIMA) por las estimaciones de las variables a corto plazo y el segundo Multivariante del Análisis de la Covarianza (ANCOVA) que permite relacionar variables con el comportamiento de la cartera comercial. Los principales resultados determinan que los factores de estudio provocan alteraciones en la cartera comercial, por lo tanto, las conclusiones se deducen a un sistema bancario sensible ante las crisis económicas, especialmente a factores externos como el precio del petróleo y planteamientos de políticas económicas. Palabras clave: Cartera comercial; morosidad; liquidez; bancos privados; Ecuador. ABSTRACT The objective of this study is to determine the behavior of the commercial portfolio of the private banking system of Ecuador during the period 2010-2018, the factors considered correspond to unproductive portfolio, late payment Rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), consumer price index , country risk, variation of public debt and liquidity. The data were obtained from the Superintendence of Companies, Central Bank of Ecuador and Superintendence of Banks. The methodology proposes two econometric models, the first the Mobile Media Integrated Autoregressive Univariate (ARIMA) by the estimates of the short-term variables and the second Multivariate of the covariance analysis (ANCOVA) allows to relate variables with the behavior of the commercial portfolio. The main results determine that the study factors cause alterations in the commercial portfolio, therefore, the conclusions are deduced to a banking system sensitive to economic crises, especially to external factors such as the price of oil and economic policy approaches. Keywords: Commercial portfolio; late payment; liquidity; private banks; Ecuador.

Can income-based co-payment rates improve disparity? The case of the choice between brand-name and generic drugs

Background Higher income population tend to prefer brand-name to generic drugs, which may cause disparity in access to brand-name drugs among income groups. A potential policy that can resolve such disparity is imposing a greater co-payment rate on high-income enrollees. However, the effects of such policy are unknown. We examined how patients’ choice between brand-name and generic drugs are affected by the unique income-based co-payment rates in Japan; 10% for general enrollees and 30% for those with high income among the elderly aged 75 and over. Methods We drew on cross-sectional price variation among commonly prescribed 311 drugs using health insurance claims data from a large prefecture in Japan between October 2013 and September 2014 to identify between-income-group differences in responses to differentiated payments. Results Running 311 multivariate logistic regression models controlling individual demographics, the median estimate indicated that high-income group was 3% (odds ratio = 0.97) less likely to choose a generic drug than the general-income group and the interquartile estimates ranged 0.92–1.02. The multivariate feasible generalized least squares model indicated high-income group’s higher likelihood to choose brand-name drugs than the general-income group without co-payment rate differentiation (p < 0.001). Such gap in the likelihood was attenuated by 0.4% (p = 0.027) with an US$1 increase in the difference in additional payment/month for brand-name drugs between income groups — no gap with US$10 additional payment/month. This attenuation was observed in drugs for chronic diseases only, not for acute diseases. Conclusions Income-based co-payment rates appeared to reduce disparity in access to brand-name drugs across income groups, in addition to reducing total medical expenditure among high-income group who shifted from brand-name drugs to generic ones due to larger drug price differences.

Pricing a Lease Contract in Presence of Late Payment Extra-Charges

Partial insolvency in leasing contracts may entail to afford additional late payment costs. In this paper we focus on the case that the lessee makes partial payments in due time and settles the debt augumented by the late payment interests later. The presence of the extra-costs drives the lease Effective Annual interest Rate (EAR) to deviate from the lease contract rate. The aim of this work is to illustrate how design the contract payback amortization to stick EAR to the lease contract rate, when the lease contract rate, the late payment rate and the contract term are exogeneously fixed. First we achieve a proxy for EAR given by the lease contract rate plus an extra-charge rate addendum. We show that this latter addendum is sensitive to the payback Macaulay Duration, a weighted size and timing average. Specifically, the longer the Macaulay Duration, the smaller the extra-charge rate addendum. As a consequence, two general rules to drive EAR close to the lease contract rate roll out, specifically: (1) the payment pattern should be set with a long Macaulay Duration; and (2) the surrender value of the leased good should be put large. As the contract settlement is given, we show that EAR is delimited by a lower bound and an upper bound. Then the payback amortizations with fixed instalments are studied. To get insight on the importance of EAR inputs we roll sensitivity analysis out through illustrative applications. The results of the paper are useful to provide policymakers a better knowledge about the effects on EAR of the contract conditions on the pattern of payments.