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Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	50%

Selected Abstracts

Alcohol and mortality: methodological and analytical issues in aggregate analyses

ADDICTION, Issue 1s1 2001
Thor Norström
This supplement includes a collection of papers that aim at estimating the relationship between per capita alcohol consumption and various forms of mortality, including mortality from liver cirrhosis, accidents, suicide, homicide, ischaemic heart disease, and total mortality. The papers apply a uniform methodological protocol, and they are all based on time series data covering the post-war period in the present EU countries and Norway. In this paper we discuss various methodological and analytical issues that are common to these papers. We argue that analysis of time series data is the most feasible approach for assessing the aggregate health consequences of changes in population drinking. We further discuss how aggregate data may also be useful for judging the plausibility of individual-level relationships, particularly those prone to be confounded by selection effects. The aggregation of linear and curvilinear risk curves is treated as well as various methods for dealing with the time-lag problem. With regard to estimation techniques we find country specific analyses preferable to pooled cross-sectional/time series models since the latter incorporate the dubious element of geographical co-variation, and conceal potentially interesting variations in alcohol effects. The approach taken in the papers at hand is instead to pool the country specific results into three groups of countries that represent different drinking cultures; traditional wine countries of southern Europe, beer countries of central Europe and the British Isles and spirits countries of northern Europe. The findings of the papers reinforce the central tenet of the public health perspective that overall consumption is an important determinant of alcohol-related harm rates. However, there is a variation across country groups in alcohol effects, particularly those on violent deaths, that indicates the potential importance of drinking patterns. There is no support for the notion that increases in per capita consumption have any cardioprotective effects at the population level. [source]

Fear of Floating and the External Effects of Currency Unions

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2008
Thomas Plümper
The introduction of the Euro has considerably affected the de facto monetary policy autonomy,defined as independence from monetary policy in the key currency areas,in countries outside the European Currency Union (ECU). Using a standard open economy framework, we argue that de facto monetary policy autonomy has significantly declined for countries that dominantly trade with the ECU and slightly increased for countries that dominantly trade with the Dollar zone. The predictions of our model find support in the data. We estimate the influence of the Bundesbank's/ECB's and the Fed's monetary policies on various country groups. The de facto monetary policy autonomy of both non-Euro EU members and EFTA countries declined with the introduction of the Euro. This effect was slightly stronger for the EU member countries than for EFTA countries as our theory predicts. At the same time, the de facto monetary policy autonomy of Australia and New Zealand vis-à-vis the US Dollar has (moderately) increased. [source]

Dimensions of quality upgrading

THE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 1 2005
Evidence from CEECs
Abstract The impact of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) economies' trade integration with European markets on CEE trade structures has been studied extensively. These studies frequently observe a quality upgrading of CEE exports. In this paper we consider three dimensions of quality upgrading: upgrading across industries, upgrading across different quality segments within industries and, finally, product upgrading within quality segments inside industries. For the analysis we partition industries into quality segments based on EU-15 import unit values. The results for ten CEE countries (comprising the CEE-5, the Baltics and South East Europe) and thirteen industries suggest fundamental differences, both across country groups and across the three different notions of quality upgrading. The CEE-5 show no evidence of entering a ,low-quality trap' in all three dimensions. By contrast, while there is a general catching-up process across industries and inside quality segments, the second notion of low-quality specialization may be applicable within the high-tech industries to the performance for the Baltics and South East Europe as a group. [source]

European Enlargement and Agro-Food Trade

CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS, Issue 4 2008
tefan Bojnec
This paper investigates the level, composition, and differences in the dynamics of revealed comparative advantage and trade specialization patterns of the 12 new member states (NMS-12) as part of the enlarged European Union 27 countries (EU-27). The NMS-12 are classified into four country groups: the Baltic States, the CEFTA-5, and the Mediterranean and the Balkan regions. The empirical analysis employs a regression framework, a duration analysis, Markov transition probability matrices, and mobility indices. Trade increases with the EU enlargement and so does revealed comparative advantage in agro-food products. There are catching-up difficulties, as indicated by revealed comparative advantage, in higher added-value processed products. Le présent article examine le degré, la composition et les différences de la dynamique des avantages comparatifs révélés ainsi que les caractéristiques de la spécialisation du commerce des douze nouveaux pays membres (NPM-12) de l'Union européenne élargie (UE,27). Les 12 nouveaux pays membres sont divisés en quatre groupes: les États baltiques, les cinq pays membres de l'ALECE, la région de la Méditerranée et la région des Balkans. L'analyse empirique utilise un modèle de régression, une analyse de durée, des matrices de probabilités des transitions (Markov) et des indices de mobilité. Les échanges augmentent avec l'élargissement de l'UE tout comme les avantages comparatifs révélés des produits agroalimentaires. On observe des difficultés de rattrapage, comme l'indique l'avantage comparatif révélé, dans le cas des produits transformés à forte valeur ajoutée. [source]