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Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	33%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	33%

Selected Abstracts

Over-the-Counter Markets

ECONOMETRICA, Issue 6 2005
Darrell Duffie
We study how intermediation and asset prices in over-the-counter markets are affected by illiquidity associated with search and bargaining. We compute explicitly the prices at which investors trade with each other, as well as marketmakers' bid and ask prices, in a dynamic model with strategic agents. Bid,ask spreads are lower if investors can more easily find other investors or have easier access to multiple marketmakers. With a monopolistic marketmaker, bid,ask spreads are higher if investors have easier access to the marketmaker. We characterize endogenous search and welfare, and discuss empirical implications. [source]

Do Developing Countries Need a Development Box?

EUROCHOICES, Issue 2 2003
Jonathan Brooks
Summary Do Developing Countries Need a Development Box? Developing country proposals for a Development Box focus on changes to WTO rules on agricultural trade that would enable them to address more effectively their objectives related to food security, poverty alleviation and economic development. Yet, there are few instances where developing countries have been constrained in the policies they can adopt. This does not mean that demands for a Development Box are pointless, for if the next WTO agreement is to have a real impact on rates of protection, there will be a need for tighter commitments in both developed and developing countries. Hence proposals for a Development Box can be seen as an insurance policy, given the prospect of deeper multilateral reforms. There is a strong case for easier access to safeguards, under which developing countries could temporarily apply higher tariffs on food security crops when world prices are depressed below threshold levels. There may be an economic justification for expanding the types of domestic support measures that developing countries can employ, in those rare cases where policies would otherwise be constrained. However, these demands should not constrain progress on the most important issue; namely, how OECD countries can do more for developing countries through improvements in market access, the elimination of explicit and implicit export subsidies, and reductions in trade-distorting domestic support. Faut-il une boite spéciale pour le développement ? Les propositions des pays en développement en vue ?établir une ,boîte pour le développement'à,OMC sont centrées sur ,idée qu'il convient de modifier les règies du commerce international agricole, afin de leur permettre ?aborder de façon plus efflcace leurs problèmes spécifiques de sécurité alimentaire, de réduction de la pauvreté et de développement économique. Pourtant, il existe peu ?exemples de situations dans lesquelles un pays en développement ait pu être gêné dans ,adoption ?une politique particulière. Cela ne veut pas dire qu'une boîte pour le développement soit inutile: si le prochain accord à,OMC doit avoir un effet réel sur les taux de protection, des engagements encore plus stricts seront nécessaires de la part, aussi bien des pays en développement que des pays développés. II en résulte que les propositions en vue ?une ,boîte pour le développement' peuvent être considérées comme une politique ?assurance, dans ,optique de réformes multilatérales plus approfondies. II y a des raisons sérieuses pour faciliter le recours aux clauses de sauvegarde, grâce auxquelles les pays en développement pourraient imposer temporairement des droits plus élevés sur les denrées importantes pour leur sécurité alimentaire lorsque les cours mondiaux descendent en deçà?un certain seuil. Il peut exister une justification économique à,extension des catégories de soutien que les pays en développement peuvent employer, dans les cas peu fréquents où les engagements pris seraient contraignants à cet égard. Mais surtout, il faut que les pays en développement prennent garde à ne pas entraver les progrès dans les domaines vraiment importants, à savoir ce que les pays de ,OCDE peuvent faire pour eux en améliorant ,accès aux marchés, en eliminant les subventions implicites et explicites aux exportations, et en réduisant les mesures de soutien intérieures qui affectent les échanges. Benötigen Entwicklungsländer eine Development Box? Die Vorschläge der Entwicklungsländer für eine Development Box zielen auf Änderungen in den Agrarhandelsvorschriften der WTO ab; es soil ihnen ermöglicht werden, ihre Zdele hinsichtlich der Nahrungsmt-telsicherheit, Armutsbekämpfung und Wirtschaftsentwicklung wirkungsvoller zu verfolgen. Bis heute jedoch wurden die Entwicklungsländer nur in wenigen Fällen bei der Ausgestaltung bestimmter Politikmaßnahmen eingeschränkt. Damit ist nicht gesagt, dass Forderungen nach einer Development Box zwecklos sind, denn wenn sich das kommende WTO-Abkommen tatsächlich auf die Protektionsraten auswirken soil, werden sowohl den entwickelten Ländern als auch den Entwicklungsländern mehr Verpflichtungen abverlangt werden. Daher können Vorschläge für eine Development Box als eine Versicherungspolirik vor dem Hintergrund der Aussicht auf tiefergreifende multilaterale Reformen angesehen werden. Es spricht vieles für einen einfacheren Zugang zu Schutzmaßnahmen, unter denen Entwicklungsländer vorübergehend höhere Zölle auf pflanzliche Erzeugnisse mit Bedeutung für die Nahrungsmittelsicherheit erheben könnten, wenn die Weltpreise unterhalb von Schwellenwerten liegen. Es mag aus ökonomischer Sicht eine Rechtfertigung für die Ausdehnung der inlandischen marktstützenden Maßnahmen geben, welche Entwicklungsländer anwenden dürfen; dies kann sinnvoll sein, wenn andernfalls, allerdings in seltenen Fällen, Politikmaßnahmen eingeschränkt werden müssten. Diese Forderungen sollten den Fortschritt bei den allerwichtigsten Themen jedoch nicht behindern; OECD-Länder können mehr für Entwicklungsländer tun, und zwar durch Verbesserung des Marktzugangs, durch die Abschaffung von expliziten und impliziten Exportsubventionen und durch Kürzungen bei den handelsverzerrenden Inlandssubventionen. [source]

A European Legal Method?

EUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 1 2009
On European Private Law, Scientific Method
This article examines the relationship between European private law and scientific method. It argues that a European legal method is a good idea. Not primarily because it will make European private law scholarship look more scientific, but because a debate on the method of a normative science necessarily has to be a debate on its normative assumptions. In other words, a debate on a European legal method will have much in common with the much desired debate on social justice in European law. Moreover, it submits that, at least after the adoption of the Common Frame of Reference by the European institutions, European contract law can be regarded as a developing multi-level system that can be studied from the inside. Finally, it concludes that the Europeanisation of private law is gradually blurring the dividing line between the internal and external perspectives, with their respective appropriate methods, in two mutually reinforcing ways. First, in the developing multi-level system it is unclear where the external borders of the system lie, in particular the borders between Community law and national law. Second, because of the less formal legal culture the (formerly) external perspectives, such as the economic perspective, have easier access and play an increasing role as policy considerations. [source]

Collaboration, facilities and communities in day care services for older people

HEALTH & SOCIAL CARE IN THE COMMUNITY, Issue 1 2001
Sarah Burch BA
Abstract Collaborative working in care for older people is often seen as a desirable goal. However, there can be problems with this approach. This paper reports on a single blind randomized controlled trial which was carried out to compare outcomes of rehabilitation in two settings: a day hospital and social services day centres augmented by visiting therapists. The subjects were 105 older patients. Principal outcome measures were the Barthel Index, Philadelphia Geriatric Centre Morale Scale and the Caregiver Strain Index. Two aspects of the trial are examined here. Firstly, we investigated whether trial patients were more disabled than regular day centre attendees. Levels of health and well being amongst trial patients were compared with those of a random sample of 20 regular attendees from both of the participating day centres and an additional voluntary sector day centre. Secondly, key staff from the different settings were interviewed to assess how well the day centre model had worked in practice. Trial patients were significantly more disabled than regular day centre attendees according to the Barthel Index (P < 0.001), but this difference was no longer significant after three months of treatment. The day centre model had several problems, principally discharge policy, acceptability, facilities and attitudes of staff and regular attendees. Positive aspects of the day centre model, as well as successful rehabilitation, included shared skills, knowledge and resources. This paper suggests that collaborative working in day centres requires multipurpose facilities. If health staff maintain a permanent presence, benefits can include improved joint working, easier access to health care and the use of rehabilitative therapy as a preventative strategy. Day care settings can be analyzed as representing different types of communities. Allowing older users a greater degree of choice in facilities may increase the acceptability of care. [source]

Hematological malignancies in the island of Sardinia, 1974,1993: age and sex distributions and temporal changes in incidence

HEMATOLOGICAL ONCOLOGY, Issue 3 2004
G. Broccia
Abstract We have collected, by an active retrospective survey, all the cases of hematologic malignancies (HM) newly diagnosed during the time period 1974,1993 in the resident population of Sardinia. Diagnosis was deemed valid, after consultation of clinical records, in more than 90% of the 7264 collected cases. The number of newly diagnosed cases by year more than doubled during the 20-year period investigated. This striking increase can be only partially accounted for by ageing of population. Indeed, age-specific and age-adjusted rates of most of HM increased during this period, although Hodgkin Disease (HD), Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) and Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) were notable exceptions. The observed increase in rates is likely, in a large part, to be fictitious, due to easier access to a health care system, which in the meantime, improved its diagnostic efficiency. This was particularly evident for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL), Multiple Myeloma (MM) and some others myelo- and lympho-proliferative disorders, but its relevance declined after 1984,1989. A likely true increase in occurrence was evidenced for Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas (NHL) and similarly, although to a lesser extent and more doubtful, for Myelodysplasias (MDS) and Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). At the end of the studied period each type of HM presented age and sex distributions and age-adjusted rates that show only minor differences from those reported for other western countries. No argument emerged to suggest that any genetic peculiarities of the Sardinian population might have affected the occurrence of HM. The confounding effects of improved diagnostic efficiency have prevented a reliable assessment of influence on incidences of environmental and socio-economic changes that, in relatively recent times, have occurred in Sardinia. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Improving the evidence base for international comparative research

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 193-194 2008
Ekkehard Mochmann
Industrial societies today produce abundant data fed by the statistical system, social research, market research and administrative data. This is increasingly complemented by processing data produced from sources like commercial transactions. Looking at societies in an international comparative perspective, however, we find many incoherent patterns or even white spots on the globe. Nevertheless, we can observe encouraging progress over past decades. The pioneers of the data movement worked towards an international network of data infrastructures that were conceived as building blocks in a system of social observation. Gaps in the statistical data base had to be filled by sample surveys from social research. This resulted in a network of social science data services to preserve and process the data collected to make them available for secondary analysis, and systematic efforts to continuously collect data comparative by design and to make them available as a public good to the scientific community at large. Increasingly we can observe a rapprochement that has been taking place between social policy and social research since the turn of the millennium. Facing the challenges of globalisation we cannot however, overlook the fact that in spite of all progress, social science data have been collected predominantly with a national perspective, are not well integrated and , even if they are technically and legally accessible , do not easily lend themselves to comparison between nations or periods of time. International data programmes may well profit from the methodological standardisation and harmonisation of measurements as well as from technical progress towards the easier access to and interoperability of data bases. These processes will profit much, if growing efforts to agree on data policies and funding perspectives for international and transcontinental cooperation succeed. [source]