Health Care Capital Financing Agencies: The Intergovernmental Roles of Quasi-Government Authorities and the Impact on the Cost of Capital

During the decade 1983-1992, approximately $1.4 trillion of municipal bonds were sold in 87,000 in separate issues, primarily to finance capital projects for education, electric power, transportation, health care, housing, and other public and private purpose activities. Approximately two-thirds of these financings were originated by financing authorities, quasi-government agencies which are the creation of state legislature. Despite the growing role played by quasi-public authorities in capital finance, their impacts have not been studied systematically. We first describe the issuers of tax-exempt debt in the health sector and then derive measures for describing the mix of issuers between state and local levels, and between both government and quasi-government sectors. We present abbreviated test results of the impact that different mixes have on the cost of capital. First, competition is good: using a Herfindahl index analysis we show that states with less concentrated issuers have a lower cost of capital than those with a more concentrated market, including state-level finance monopolies. On the other hand, we cannot assert unequivocally that market deconcentration, in and of itself, should be a goal. For instance, there are economies of scale in the health care finance industry that allow larger (often state-level) issuers to lower the cost of capital.     

Obituary: Marshal of the royal air force Sir Edward Leonard Ellington,G.C.B., C.M.G., C.B.E.

General

Islam in Perspective: A Guide to Islamic Society, Politics and Law. By Patrick Bannerman. Routledge for Chatham House. 1988. Pp. 278. Gloss. Biographical Notes. Index. £35.00.

Profit and Loss Sharing: An Islamic Experiment in Finance and Banking. By Shahrukh Ran Khan. Karachi, O.U.P., 1988. Pp. 180. Bibliog. Index. £10.95 Pb.

The Urbanization of the Third World. Ed. J. Gugler. Oxford, O.U.P., 1988. Pp. 421. Index. £12.95 Pb.

South Asia

Poona in the Eighteenth Century: an Urban History. By Balkrishna Govind Gokhale. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 225. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £9.95.

A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, the British and the Mughals. By Richard M. Fisher. Riverdale, Maryland. The Riverdale Company, 1987. Pp. 245. Appendices, Gloss. Bibliog. Index. Illus. £35.00.

The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past 1784–1838. By O. P. Kejariwal. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 293. Bibliog. Index. £12.95.

Vallabhbhai Patel: Power and Organization in Indian Politics. By Rani Dhavan Shankardass. London, Sangam Books, 1988. Pp. 325. Bibliog. Index. £17.95.

India Wins Freedom ‐ the Complete Version. By Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. London, Sangam Books, 1988. Pp. 283. Illus. Index. £12.95.

The Politics of Health in India. By Roger Jeffrey. Berkeley, University of California Press. 1988. Pp. 348. Bibliog. Index. $39.95.

Breaking the Curfew: A Political Journey Through Pakistan. By Emma Duncan. London, Michael Joseph, 1989. Pp. 313. Index. £14.95.

South‐East Asia

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680, Volume One: The Lands below the Winds. By Anthony Reid. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 275. Maps. Illus. Index. £20.00.

The Rise of Ersatz Capitalism in South‐East Asia. By Yoshihara Kunio. Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 297. Appendices. Tables. Bibliog. Index. £22.50.

Sociology of “Developing Societies”: Southeast Asia. Ed. John G. Taylor and Andrew Turton. Basingstoke and London, Macmillan, 1988. Pp. 280. Bibliog. Index. £30.00 Hb. £8.95 Pb.

ASEAN and the Security of South‐East Asia. By Michael Leifer. International Politics in Asia Series. Routledge, 1988. Pp. 198. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. £30.00.

Indonesia Under Suharto. By Nawaz B. Mody. London, Oriental University Press, 1987. Pp. 405. Bibliog. Index. £25.00.

Chinese Politics in Malaysia ‐ A History of the Malaysian Chinese Association. By Heng Pek Koon. Singapore, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 307. Bibliog. Index. £16.50.

Running Amok ‐ an historical inquiry. By John C. Spores. Athens, Ohio, Ohio University Press, 1988. Pp. 179. Notes. Bibliog. £12.35 Pb.

Heaven in Transition ‐ Non‐Muslim Religious Innovation and Ethnic Identity in Malaysia. By Susan E. Ackerman and Raymond L. M. Lee. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. 201. Bibliog. Index. £20.90.

Frank Swettenham &; George Giles Watercolours &; Sketches of Malaya 1880–1894. Text by Lim Chong Keat and Henry Barlow. Kuala Lumpur, The Malaysian‐British Society, 1988. Pp. 166. Notes. Bibliog. Price not stated.

Government and Politics of the Philippines. Eds. Raul P. De Guzman and Mila A. Reforma. Singapore, Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 289. Tables. Index. £19.50.

Vietnam and the Chinese Model. A Comparative Study of Vietnamese and Chinese Government in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century. By Alexander Barton Woodside. Harvard University Press, 1988. Pp. 358. Bibliog. Index. £11.25 Pb.

French Catholic Missionaries and the Politics of Imperialism in Vietnam, 1857–1914: A Documentary Survey. By Patrick J. N. Tuck. Liverpool University Press, 1987. Pp. 352 Maps. Bibliog. £12.50.

Decision Against War. Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954. By Melanie Billings‐Yun. New York, Columbia University Press, 1988. Pp. 199. Bibliog. Index. US$25.00.

Middle East

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Middle East and North Africa. Eds. Trevor Mostyn and Albert Hourani, Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. 504. Illus. Index. £30.00.

Ethnicity, Pluralism, and the State in the Middle East. Ed. Milton J. Esman and Itamar Rabinovich. New York, Cornell University Press, 1988. Pp. 296. Index. Hb. $35. Pb. $12.95.

Lebanon: A History of Conflict and Consensus. Ed. Nadim Shehadi and Dana Haffar Mills. London, I.B. Tauris, 1988. Pp. 337. Bibliog. Index. £29.50.

A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. By Kamal Salibi. London, I. B. Tauris, 1988. Pp. 247. Map. Bibliog. Index. £17.50.

The Druze. By Robert Brenton Betts. Yale University Press. 1988. Pp. 161. Maps. Illus. Gloss. Bibliog. Index. £14.95.

The Soviet Union and Syria: The Asad Years. By Efraim Karsh. London, Routledge, Chatham House Papers, 1988. Pp. 136. Notes. Appendices. £7.95.

Far East

East Asian Civilizations: A Dialogue in Five Stages. By Wm. Theodore de Bary, Harvard University Press, 1988, Pp. 160. Notes, Bibliog. Index. £15.95.

China in World History. By S. A. M. Adshead. London, Macmillan Press, 1988. Pp. 422. Notes. Index. Bibliog. £35.00. Hb.

Behind the Scenes in Peking. By Mary Hooker. Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. 209. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £4.95 Pb.

Elegant Flower: Recollections of a Cadet in Cathay. By Desmond Neill. O.U.P., 1988, Pp. 202. £6.95 Pb.

Myself a Mandarin: Memoirs of a Special Magistrate. By Austin Coates. O.U.P., 1988. Pp. 250. £2.50 Pb.

Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform. By Orville Schell. New York, Pantheon Books, 1988. Pp. 381. $19.95.

Bandits in Republican China. By Phil Billingsley. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. 375. Gloss. Illus. Index. Bibliog. Maps. £42.50.

China Builds the Bomb. By John Wilson Lewis and Xue Litai. Stanford, Ca, Stanford University Press, 1988. Pp. 238. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. $29.50.

Hong Kong under Imperial Rule. 1912–41. By Norman Miners. Hong Kong, OUP, 1988. Pp. 330. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £18.50.

A Macao Narrative. By Austin Coates. Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 112. Bibliog. Index. Illus. £7.95.

The Craft of Gardens. By Ji Cheng. Translated by Alison Hardie, Photographs by Zhong Ming with a Foreword by Maggie Keswick. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 144. Notes. Index. £25.00.

The Hatcher Porcelain Cargoes: The Complete Record. By Colin Sheaf &; Richard Kilburn. Oxford, Phaidon Christie's, 1988. Pp. 192. Illus. Bibliog. Gloss. Map. Index. £45.00.

The Food of China. By E. N. Anderson. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 263. Bibliog. Index. £14.95.

Pirates of the South China Coast 1790–1810. By Dian H. Murray. Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1987. Pp. 243. Appendices, Bibliog. Illus. Index. US$32.50.

Ceremony and Symbolism in the Japanese Home. By Michael Jeremy &; M. E. Robinson. Manchester University Press, 1989. Pp. 196. Illus. Gloss. Bibliog. £25.00.

Mirror in the Shrine: American Encounters with Meiji Japan. By Robert A. Rosenstone. Howard University Press, 1989. Pp. 315. Frontis. £19.95.

Japanese Government Leadership and Management. By Charles P. Bingham. London, Macmillan Press, 1989. Pp. 165. Index. £29.50.

“Things Seen &; Unseen; Discourse &; Ideology in Tokugawa Nativism”. By H. D. Harootunian. Chicago &; London, University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. 494. Index (includes Bibliog.) £11.95 Pb.

Political Protest and Social Control in Pre‐war Japan: the Origins of Buraku Liberation. By Ian Neary. Manchester University Press, 1989. Pp. 250. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £29.95.

The Origins of the Korean Community in Japan 1910–1923. By Michael Weiner. Manchester University Press, 1989. Pp. 249. Index. £29.95.

A Heritage of Kings: One Man's Monarchy in the Confucian World. By JaHyun Kim Haboush. New York, Columbia University Press, 1988. Pp. 237. Appendices, Gloss. Bibliog. Index. $35.00.

South Korea: Education, Culture and Economy. By Georgie D. M. Hyde. London, The Macmillan Press, 1988. Pp. 287. Bibliog. Index. Appendices. £35.00.

Kim Il Sung: The North Korean Leader. By Dae‐Sook Suh. Columbia University Press, 1988. Pp. 338. Notes. Bibliog. Index. $45.00.

The Korean Frontier in America: Immigration to Hawaii, 1896–1910. By Wayne Patterson. University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Pp. 257. Bibliog. Index. £28.50.

Shorter notices

International Relations of the Asian Muslim States. By James Piscatori, Lanham, New York, London, University Press of America. 1986. Pp. 41. Gloss. Bibliog. £13.40.

The Asian Development Bank and Rural Development: Policy and Practice. By R. Withol, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1988. Pp. 218. Bibliog. Index. £15.00.

An Arab‐Syrian Gentleman and Warrior. Memoirs of Usamah Ibn‐Munqidh. Translated by Philip Hitti. Princeton, 1987. Pp. 265. Illus. Map. Index. $9.95 Pb.

Curzon's Persia. Edited by Peter King. London. Sidgwick &; Jackson, 1988. Pp. 192. Illus. Maps. £9.95 Pb.

The Modern History of Mongolia. By C. R. Bawden. London, Kegan Paul International. 1989. Pp. 476. Illus. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £14.95 Pb.

Gandhi and His Critics. By B. R. Nanda. Delhi, OUP, 1985. Pp. 178. Index. £9.95.

Traditional Chinese Clothing in Hong Kong and South China 1840–1980. By Valery Garrett. Oxford University Press, (Images of Asia Series), 1988. Pp. 87. Illus. Index. £6.95.