Theodore Mitrakos

Modelling health expenditure at the household level in Greece

Health expenditure data are known to be afflicted by restricted range, zero values, skewness and kurtosis. Several methods for modelling such data have been suggested in the literature to cope with these problems. This paper compares the performance of several alternative estimators, including two-part models and generalised linear models. The dependent variable is household expenditure on health care in Greece, a country where out-of-pocket health expenditure is higher than anywhere else in the European Union, whether as a proportion of GDP, as a share of all health spending, or in per capita terms. To facilitate comparison of model performance, household health expenditure is examined in two different specifications: expenditure on all health care (where zero values are rare) and expenditure on hospital services alone (where zero values are common). In the case of expenditure on all health care, three of the estimators performed almost equally well in terms of three alternative model performance indicators: a modified two-part model with non-linear least squares in the second part, a constant-variance generalised linear model and a variance-proportional-to-mean generalised linear model. In the case of expenditure on hospital services, the constant-variance generalised linear model out-performed the rest. The findings suggest that no estimator is best under all circumstances, while most alternative estimators are likely to produce relatively similar results. The paper concludes by discussing implications for further research.

Decomposing Inequality Under Alternative Concepts Of Resources: Greece 1988

The structure of inequality in Greece is analyzed using the information of a survey which contains both consumption and income data. Due to life-cycle factors and measurement errors, the correlation between the two variables is not very high and, hence, and approximation of the “permanent income” of the population members is attempted. Although the level of inequality of either the distribution of consumption expenditure or the distribution of disposable income, the structure of inequality in Greece is only slightly affected by the choice of distribution.

The Greek REIT Industry: Current State and Its Post Crisis Evolution

The Greek property market has heavily been affected by the long lasting debt crisis as the Greek economy entered its 6th year of negative growth in 2013. In contrast to what happened in other economies, the real estate market and construction sectors were not the primary causes of the Greek debt crisis although the market was certainly overheated. The Greek real estate market has reflected the economic calamities and credit crunch, and has entered a protracted period of sluggishness characterized by low occupier activity and stalled investment transactions. All property sectors have been affected, both in Athens and the periphery. Arguably the only exception is selected tourism-related real estate which attracts international interest looking for assets on an opportunistic basis in prime locations at bargain prices.