Allan M. Malz: “This paper describes a method for computing risk-neutral density functions based on the option-implied volatility smile. Its aim is to reduce complexity and provide cookbook-style guidance through the estimation process. The technique is robust and avoids violations of option no-arbitrage restrictions that can lead to negative probabilities and other implausible results. I give… Continue Reading
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Monthly Archives: June 2014
How the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally
The Commonwealth Fund: “The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world, but this report and prior editions consistently show the U.S. underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance. Among the 11 nations studied in this report—Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the… Continue Reading
New Way to Look at Law, With Data Viz and Machine Learning
Wired – [snipped] “As its creators [Daniel Lewis and Nik Reed] see it, Ravel’s visual search offers myriad improvements over the old columns of text results. It better lets you see how cases evolved over time, and potentially lets you see outliers that could be useful in crafting an argument–cases that would languish at the… Continue Reading
New GAO Reports – Combatting Terrorism, Recovery Act, Sequestration
COMBATING TERRORISM: State Department Can Improve Management of East Africa Program, GAO-14-502: Published: Jun 17, 2014. Publicly Released: Jun 17, 2014. RECOVERY ACT: USDA Should Include Broadband Program’s Impact in Annual Performance Reports, GAO-14-511: Published: Jun 17, 2014. Publicly Released: Jun 17, 2014. SEQUESTRATION: Comprehensive and Updated Cost Savings Would Better Inform DOD Decision Makers If Future Civilian Furloughs Occur, GAO-14-529: Published: Jun 17,… Continue Reading
Coalition to President: End NSA’s Bulk Collection Program Now
“EPIC and a coalition of 25 organizations urged the President and the Attorney General to end the NSA’s bulk record collection program when the current authority expires on June 20. In January, the President committed to “end the Section 215 bulk metadata program as it currently exists.” The coalition letter states, “[t]he NSA’s Bulk Metadata program is simply not… Continue Reading
Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros
Smart Growth America – Foot Traffic Ahead: Ranking Walkable Urbanism in America’s Largest Metros, this report, conducted by LOCUS: Responsible Real Estate Developers and Investors, a coalition of Smart Growth America, in conjunction with The George Washington University’s Center for Real Estate & Urban Analysis, identifies each metro’s WalkUPs and ranks the top 30 U.S. metropolitan… Continue Reading
The Highway Trust Fund and the Treatment of Surface Transportation Programs in the Federal Budget
June 2014 – CBO Report – “The federal government spends more than $50 billion per year on surface transportation programs, mostly in the form of grants to state and local governments. Much of this spending is for highways and mass transit programs financed through the Highway Trust Fund. Those programs have an unusual treatment in… Continue Reading
Regulatory Consistency Assessment Programme Assessment of Basel III regulations
“The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has today published a report assessing Canada’s implementation of the Basel capital framework. Overall, Canada’s implementation was found to be “compliant” with the standards prescribed under the Basel framework. Thirteen of the 14 components assessed were graded as “compliant”, while one component – the definition of capital – was assessed as being… Continue Reading
2012 ZIP Code Business Patterns
“Provides data on the number of business establishments by employment-size class for detailed industries. Statistics are provided for about 40,000 ZIP codes nationwide.” County Business Patterns (CBP) is an annual series that provides subnational economic data by industry. This series includes the number of establishments, employment during the week of March 12, first quarter payroll,… Continue Reading
Mobility Progress Report: Are Federal Agencies Passing the Test?
Download the survey here via the Mobile Work Exchange: “It’s been two years since OMB’s Digital Government Strategy and nearly four years since the passage of the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010. Is the Federal government making the grade in mobility and telework or is it barely passing? So where are we? Mobile Work Exchange interviewed 154… Continue Reading
On Privacy, New Survey Places US Attitudes Among EU Countries
EPIC – “One of the most comprehensive surveys of privacy ever undertaken finds US attitudes toward privacy remarkably similar to those of Europeans. The survey of 15 countries on privacy, and tradeoffs consumers are prepared to make, placed the US squarely in the middle of European countries, roughly between France and Italy on one side and Germany and… Continue Reading
Inventor tests theories – Vermeer’s paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs
Via boing boing – “Tim Jenison, a Texas-based inventor, attempts to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the art world: How did Dutch master Johannes Vermeer manage to paint so photo-realistically 150 years before the invention of photography? Here’s how he conducted his experiment…Looking at Vermeer’s paintings, it seemed to me that he must… Continue Reading
