Michael T. Bond

Corporate dividend policy and the partial adjustment model

Abstract This article critiques Lintners partial adjustment dividend model in terms of characterizing corporate dividend policy. It is first shown that many combinations of target rates and speeds of adjustment will produce the same stream of cash dividends over time. It is then established empirically from earnings and dividend data that the partial adjustment model gives results that are not unique.

Reducing Employee Health Expenses With Medical Savings Accounts: MSAs offer employers a lower-cost method for providing health insurance more efficiently.

mance. Rather, MSAs do not enjoy the same tax benefits that traditional health insurance programs do. This situation appears about to change. As this article was being prepared, the House and Senate had approved a modest bipartisan health insurance bill that includes an MSA provision, and the Senate was expected to follow suit. The President was expected to sign the measure. The MSA provision authorizes a four-year pilot program to test tax-free medical savings accounts. The program would make tax-free MSAs available

Experience With Consumer-Driven Health Plans: Does the Performance of High-Deductible Health Plans Match Expectations?

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS REVIEW

Using Health Savings Accounts to Provide Low-Cost Health Care

The recent Medicare Modernization Act made health savings accounts (HSAs) available to all non-Medicare individuals in the United States. HSAs can be combined with high-deductible health insurance plans to provide organizations with an economical approach for providing comprehensive health care coverage to their employees. Because unused funds accumulate over time, consumers are more likely to economize on their use of medical care. Proponents of HSAs argue that HSAs will slow the growth of health care costs in the United States Alternatively, critics suggest that HSAs will cause consumers to avoid necessary preventive care and will penalize the chronically ill. This article addresses these issues and includes examples of how HSAs affect both employers and employees.

Medical Savings Accounts: A Health Insurance Option for the Public Sector?

This article analyzes health insurance cost data from Ohio public employers and 27 Ohio private firms that have adopted Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs). The study shows that Ohio public employers could reduce their health insurance costs an average of 12 percent for single coverage and 34 percent for family coverage with MSAs, compared to traditional plans. Under the MSA plans, employee out of pocket costs (OPC) would also be lower compared to traditional plans. Data show that with MSAs most employees have funds remaining in their MSA account at the end of the coverage period that they keep. If MSAs had the same tax status of traditional health insurance, which is currently being considered by Congress, additional savings would be available to employees.

Housing Finance Agency Allocations

At the height of the recession in the early 1980s, a multitude of state and locally sponsored housing finance agency programs were legislatively introduced in response to populist pressure. Many of these controversial programs utilized lower cost municipal bonds to subsidize private sector housing programs and had remarkable diversity in their stated objectives. This study focuses on one of these programs, the Ohio Housing Finance Program, which purported to address the needs of mainly first‐time home buyers. Housing program evaluations,while rarely done, are very important where publicborrowing is used to support them. Using county‐level demographic data for 1983, the empirical results suggest that the Ohio program’s target clientele, first time homebuyers, were the major beneficiaries of the program.