The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (S.A.R.S.) epidemic on the long-run relationship between China and four Asian stock markets. To this end, we first employ the advanced smooth time-varying cointegration model to investigate the existence of a time-varying cointegration relation among these markets and then employ the difference-indifferences approach to analyse whether or not the S.A.R.S. epidemic impacted the long-run relation between China and these four markets during the period 1998-2008, covering 5 years before and after the S.A.R.S. outbreak. Our results support the existence of a time-varying cointegration relation in the aggregate stock price indices, and that the S.A.R.S. epidemic did weaken the long-run relationship between China and the four markets. Therefore, stockholders and policy makers should be concerned about the influence of catastrophic epidemic diseases on the financial integration of stock market in Asia.

No abstract

This article simulates the pricing-out effect due to various user-fee policies under Taiwan's National Health Insurance. Our simulation results indicate that the lower income group is more likely to be priced out of the healthcare system than the higher income group. On average, pricing-out effects are 0.04, 0.21, 0.52 and 0.73% of total beneficiaries with respect to the new co-payment policy, the catastrophic insurance policy, the under insurance policy, and the case of no National Health Insurance, respectively. We caution that a reduction of healthcare utilization due to higher user fees could result in some patients being left behind without professional care because the pricing-out effects could be higher than the substitution effects diverting demand to other professional care alternatives.