Country-specific Sets Research Articles

Brazilian Valuation of EQ-5D-3L Health States: Results from a Saturation Study.

Most EQ-5D-3L valuation studies include the same sample of health states that was used in the protocol of the original UK Measurement and Valuation of Health (MVH) study. Thus far, no studies using a time tradeoff utility elicitation method have been carried out using all 243 EQ-5D health states. Because the values and preferences regarding health outcomes differ among countries, it is essential to have country-specific data to enable local high-level decisions regarding resource allocation. This study developed a country-specific set of values for EQ-5D-3L health states. A multicentric study was conducted in 4 Brazilian areas. A probabilistic sample of the general population, aged 18 to 64 y, stratified by age and gender, was surveyed. The interview followed a revised version of the MVH protocol, in which all 243 health states were valued. Each respondent ranked and valued 7 health states using the TTO in a home interview. Data were collected from 9148 subjects. The best-fitting regression model was an individual-level mixed-effects model without any interaction terms. The dimensions "Mobility" and "Usual Activities" were associated with higher losses in health state utility value. The "Anxiety/Depression" dimension was the domain that contributed to lower losses in health state utility value. This study generated significant insight into the Brazilian population's health preferences that can be applied to health technology assessment and economic analyses in Brazil. This information represents an important new tool that can be used in Brazilian health policy creation and evaluation.

Agriculture and Nutrition in Bangladesh: Mapping Evidence to Pathways.

Although much work has been done on the theoretical links between agriculture and nutrition, there is limited understanding of the evidence from observational and experimental research studies on the impacts of agriculture programs on nutrition outcomes. To assess the emphasis of the literature on different agriculture-nutrition pathways in Bangladesh. Twenty databases and Web sites were searched, yielding more than 2400 resources that were pared down through an iterative, eliminative process to 60 articles. These articles were then rated for quality and mapped to 1 of the 6 agriculture-nutrition pathways. The body of evidence reveals gaps in knowledge in all of the pathways, but especially in the areas of agriculture as a source of livelihoods, and women's role as intermediaries between agriculture and good nutrition and health within their household. More research is needed on the links between agriculture and nutrition in country-specific settings, particularly as regards the role of women. Nutrition-related outcomes, such as dietary diversity and women's empowerment, need to be measured more explicitly when evaluating the impact of agricultural production systems and development initiatives.

The New Normal: A Sector-level Perspective on Productivity Trends in Advanced Economies

Total factor productivity growth was stagnant or slowing in many advanced countries even prior to the crisis. This paper documents sector-level productivity patterns across advanced economies prior to the crisis and examines the role of product and labor market rigidities as well as innovation and investments in information technology and human capital in driving productivity differences across sectors and countries. Since productivity payoffs of reforms evolve over time, we also focus on large changes in the structural indicators examine their dynamic impact on productivity, employment, and output. Our results suggest that reform priorities depend on country-specific settings, including the scale of specific policy distortions and the distance from the technology frontier. Productivity gains from reforms are large and materialize predominantly in the medium term, with some important variations across industries and countries.

Can electricity reform help Mexico achieve carbon emission reductions?

The energy sector is both a significant contributor to the problem of climate change and a critical factor in efforts to tackle it. With the use of a tailor-made system dynamics model, we aim to learn if the liberalisation of the power sector that has been proposed by recent changes to the Constitution in Mexico can lead to lower carbon emissions. This is in line with ecological modernisation's main claim that win–win opportunities may occur with the restructuring of the economy. However, our hypothesis is that it is not the simple liberalisation of the electricity markets which would bring environmental benefits, but some country-specific set of policies. One of our main findings is that a full liberalisation scenario would lead to higher carbon emissions as a consequence of an increase in coal capacity. But when compared to the initial emission rate prior to the reform and other reform scenarios, this policy could bring about decreases in carbon emissions. Combining a climate change instrument, such as a carbon tax, with the liberalisation process is effective at reducing carbon emissions further, but expensive in terms of power price hikes, and unnecessary if proper reform settings are put in place.

Determinants of Firm Performance and Growth During Economic Recession: The Case of Central and Eastern European Countries

The crisis has hit the corporate sectors of the new EU member states from Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) more than those of most old EU member states. Taking full account of firms’ heterogeneity, the paper analyses what kind of CEECs firms’ characteristics make some of them more resilient to crisis than the others. Using panel VAR system on a large firm-level dataset we estimate the responses of firms’ employment and investment to cyclical demand shocks and financial shocks. Controlling for industry, time and country differences, we split firms according to size, age, export status, foreign versus domestic ownership and pre- vs. during crisis growth in order to compare firms’ responses between distinct splits. We find that cyclical drop in demand decreases firms’ employment in subsequent periods but there is substantial heterogeneity among different types of firms. Old and especially small old firms react more swiftly, whereas downward adjustment in employment is less severe in exporters and in foreign-owned firms. On the other hand, investment does not respond to demand shocks per se, but to free cash flow component of the business cycle. It is large young firms that are the most and small young firms that are the least responsive to financial shocks in terms of investment activity. In contrast to employment adjustments, exporters adjust their investment activity to cash flow availability to a larger extent than non-exporters. Differences in country specific settings also show important impact on firms’ resistance to crisis. The quality of legal institutional environment in a country is positively correlated with the employment sensitivity to shocks but it has no discernible effect on investment sensitivity. On the other hand, political and economic institutions make employment more stable over the cycle.

The commonwealth censuses: partial insights into issues of identity

Population censuses gather considerable quantities of information on virtually every person within the state. This is converted into statistical tabulations for the use of the government and private individuals. Although most of the questions asked are directed towards specific demographic and economic goals, others are concerned with more contentious issues of identity, most notably ethnicity, religion and language. No standard procedures or classifications of these indicators have been evolved within the Commonwealth, and virtually every country has created its own systems. Thus a series of country specific sets of questions and responses provide significant insights into the identity of the populations of Commonwealth countries, but also require careful interpretation.

Conflict and its governance in horizontal cooperations of logistics service providers

Purpose– Horizontal cooperations of logistics service providers (LSPs) have become important for LSPs within the last decades. Owing to the high complexity of these cooperations as observed by Schmoltzi and Wallenburg, the potential for conflict is inherent. This research, therefore, aims to investigate how nature (dysfunctional vs functional) and extent of conflict impact the outcome of these cooperations. Further, the roles of formal and relational governance mechanisms in influencing conflict are analyzed.Design/methodology/approach– The research is empirical in nature and employs a theory-driven, confirmatory approach. It utilizes large-scale survey data of German LSPs, which are analyzed using multivariate statistical methods.Findings– The research shows that governance mechanisms impact the extent and functionality of conflict: relational governance lowers the extent of conflict and leads to higher functionality of conflicts, while formal governance increases the extent of conflict. Moreover, it is shown that conflicts decrease the overall cooperation performance, whereas – when functional in nature – they have a positive impact on the innovativeness of cooperations.Research limitations/implications– The impact of governance on conflicts and of conflicts on outcome may differ depending on the cultural and country-specific setting.Practical implications– The results allow mangers of LSP cooperations to adapt their set of applied governance mechanisms and conflict resolution approaches with regard to the improvement of cooperation performance and cooperation innovation.Originality/value– This is the first study that analyzes conflict and conflict resolution in horizontal LSP cooperations and shows their interrelation with both governance and performance.

Does location matter? An empirical investigation of flexibility patterns in foreign and domestic companies in five European countries

A major field of discussion about globalization is the role multinational enterprises play in an international economy. The essence of the debate lies in the distribution of power between the two centres of influence – multinational corporations, on the one hand, and the institutional setting of nation states, on the other. Is it the local environment (country-specific settings) that exerts the decisive influence on the organization of employment and production or is it the corporate environment (corporate settings) of the companies in question? The aim of this contribution is to analyze flexibility patterns of foreign owned companies compared with domestic owned companies in five European countries with respect to the aforementioned debate. The analysis uses the EUCOWE dataset which is based on an enterprise survey in six countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom) in 2003. By comparing foreign owned with domestic owned companies, similarities and differences between companies and between countries were analysed. The results show a hierarchy of effects influencing the flexibility patterns of enterprises. The analysis gives strong support to the argument that the institutional framework of countries is still a key factor for the organization of labour even within multinational corporations.

Economic impact of compliance to treatment with antidiabetes medication in type 2 diabetes mellitus: a review paper

Objectives: Suboptimal compliance and failure to persist with antidiabetes therapies are of potential economic significance. The present research aims to describe the impact of poor compliance and persistence with antidiabetes medications on the cost of healthcare or its components for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Methods: Literature search was conducted in PubMed for relevant articles published in the period between 1 January 2000 and 30 April 2009. Thus, it is possible that relevant articles not listed in PubMed, but available in other databases are not included in the current review. Studies describing economic consequence of compliance and/or persistence with pharmaceutical antidiabetes treatment were identified. The variability in the studies reviewed was high, making it extremely difficult to make a comparison between them.Results: Of 449 articles corresponding to the primary search algorithm, 12 studies (all conducted in USA) fulfilled the inclusion criteria regarding the economic impact of compliance and/or persistence with treatment on the overall cost of T2DM care or its components. Compliance was assessed via medication possession ratio (MPR) in ten studies, where it ranged from 0.52 to 0.93 depending on regimen. Persistence was assessed in one study. Mean total annual costs per T2DM patient varied between the studies, ranging from $4570 to $17338. In seven studies, medication compliance was inversely associated with total healthcare costs, while in four other studies inverse associations between medication compliance and hospitalisation costs were reported. In one study increased adherence did not change overall healthcare costs.Conclusions: Improved compliance may lead to reductions of the total healthcare costs in T2DM, Further research is needed in countries other than the US to assess impact of compliance and persistence to pharmacotherapy on T2DM costs in country-specific settings.

Fiscal Stimulus Packages and Uncertainty in Times of Crisis - The Option of Waiting Can Be Valuable, Though!

Policymakers in the EU member states are currently shaping rescue packages to prevent the financial crisis hitting their economies with unmitigated force. Each government is responding to the emerging problems with a country-specific set of measures. Given the global nature of the crisis, would coordinated action at the European level not be a better approach? Was the German government - much-criticized for its initial reluctance to adopt massive fiscal stimulation measures - right after all to exploit the option value of waiting in a situation of high uncertainty? The answer to the second question is a qualified yes. However, the answer to the first one is more complex and crucially depends on how reasonable it appears to model the impact of the economic crisis as an exogenous demand shock which has hit the euro area countries.

Fiscal Stimulus Packages and Uncertainty in Times of Crisis: Economic Policy for Open Economies

Policymakers in the EU member states and around the world, as for instance in Australia, are currently shaping rescue packages to prevent the financial crisis hitting their economies with unmitigated force. Each government is responding to the emerging problems with a country-specific set of measures. Given the global nature of the crisis, would coordinated action at the European level not be a better approach? Was the German government – much-criticized for its initial reluctance to adopt massive fiscal stimulation measures – right after all to exploit the option value of waiting in a situation of high uncertainty? The answer to the second question is a qualified ‘yes’. However, the answer to the first one is more complex and crucially depends on how reasonable it appears to model the impact of the economic crisis as an exogenous demand shock which has hit the euro area countries.

The case against a common fiscal boost in Europe

Policymakers in the EU member states are currently shaping rescue packages to prevent the financial crisis hitting their economies with unmitigated force. Each government is responding to the emerging problems with a country-specific set of measures. Given the global nature of the crisis, would coordinated action at the European level not be a better approach? Was the German government — much-criticised for its initial reluctance to adopt massive fiscal stimulation measures — right after all to exploit the option value of waiting in a situation of high uncertainty?

Environmental and health impact by dairy cattle livestock and manure management in the Czech Republic

In this study we evaluate the potential environmental and health impact of dairy cattle livestock and manure management in the Czech Republic. We present a new approach for national assessments of the environmental impact of an agricultural sector. Emission estimates are combined with a country-specific set of indicators to assess the environmental impact in nine regions with specific environmental characteristics. We estimate the contribution of emissions of ammonia (NH 3) and nitrogen oxides (NO) to acidification and terrestrial eutrophication, nitrate (NO 3) and phosphate (PO 4) to aquatic eutrophication, nitrogen oxides (NO), particulate matter (PM 10) and (PM 2.5) to human toxicity and methane (CH 4) and nitrous oxide (NO) to global warming. We present large regional differences in the environmental and health impact per unit of agricultural production. The regional acidifying, eutrophying and global warming impact of dairy cattle is calculated to be up to three times the national average, depending on the dairy cattle intensity. Aquatic eutrophication is found to be a problem in regions with relatively high eutrophying emissions per hectare of so-called nitrate vulnerable zones. Human toxicity problems caused by dairy cattle livestock and manure management are problematic in regions with a high population density in rural areas. The strength of our approach is the use of country-specific characterisation factors to assess the potential environmental and health impact of agriculture at the sub-national scale. We were able to analyse the potential environmental impact without explicit quantification of specific effects on humans and ecosystems. The results can be used to identify the most polluted areas as well as appropriate targets for emission reduction.

The categorization of African descent populations in Europe and the USA: should lexicons of recommended terminology be evidence-based?

This review attempts to evaluate a proposed lexicon for African-descent populations from the viewpoint of saliency amongst those described and wider official and scientific usage, focusing on Britain and the USA. It is argued that it is unsatisfactory to privilege the term 'African American' over 'Black' for African-descent populations in the USA as the evidence base shows that both labels compete as self-designations on co-equal terms, while 'Black' is the prevalent term in scientific writing. Moreover, 'African American' is not an inclusive term for the African-descent population and it is not known how prevalent and enduring the term will prove to be. With respect to Britain, the census terms of 'Black African' and 'Black Caribbean' are well established, the increasing popularity of 'Black British' also being recognized in census labels. Given the increasing interest in the relationship between ethnic identity and health, there are arguments for documenting the diversity of terminology amongst different user constituencies in country-specific settings. The approach of synthetic glossaries of consensual terms may, through the need for economy and parsimony in the use of terminology, contribute to an unsatisfactory paring of that diversity.

What kind of German biotechnology start-ups do venture capital companies and corporate investors prefer for equity investments?

The paper deals with the role played by private equity investors (venture capital companies and corporate investors) in the emergence of a new biotechnology industry in Germany in the second half of the 90's. Our analysis takes into account the different business models and business fields to be found in the biotechnology industry. Based on theoretical arguments, a great relevance of venture capital companies (VCC) in financing young innovative biotechnology firms developing health care applications and technology platforms is expected, whereas corporate investors like incumbents in pharmaceutical and chemical industries may play a more important role in financing supplier companies. The empirical analysis is based on 378 biotechnology firms, founded between 1995 and 1999. Descriptive results emphasize a crucial importance of the access to venture capital provided by venture capital companies: VCC are venturing partner of 42 percent of healthcare developer in their early stage. Opposite to that, corporate investors are marginally involved as venturing partner of high risk projects. The observed pattern also holds in a multivariate analysis which controls for some core variables as determinants of equity funding. The result for corporate investors differs from observations in the US for collaborative arrangements. Therefore, country specific settings may matter.

Emissions trading and investment decisions in the power sector—a case study in Finland

Organizations, which consider investment in or divestment of power production licences/capacity within the European Community, are exposed to the impacts of the European Union Emission allowance Trading Scheme (EU ETS). In this paper, the consequences of the EU ETS on investment decisions are explored in a country-specific setting in Finland. First, we review the general mechanisms through which the EU ETS influences size, timing and cashflows of an investment. Next, we discuss the projected changes in Finnish power producers’ investment environment and examine the financial impacts due to the EU ETS on a case investment decision, a hypothetical condensing power plant (250 MW e). The standard discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis is extended to take into account the value of two real options: the option to wait and the option to alter operating scale. In a quantitative investment appraisal, the impact of emissions trading not only depends on the expected level of allowance prices, but also on their volatility and correlation with electricity and fuel prices. The case study shows that the uncertainty regarding the allocation of emission allowances is critical in a quantitative investment appraisal of fossil fuel-fired power plants.

Cross-Validation of Item Selection and Scoring for the SF-12 Health Survey in Nine Countries: Results from the IQOLA Project

Data from general population surveys ( n = 1483 to 9151) in nine European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) were analyzed to cross-validate the selection of questionnaire items for the SF-12 Health Survey and scoring algorithms for 12-item physical and mental component summary measures. In each country, multiple regression methods were used to select 12 SF-36 items that best reproduced the physical and mental health summary scores for the SF-36 Health Survey. Summary scores then were estimated with 12 items in three ways: using standard (U.S.-derived) SF-12 items and scoring algorithms; standard items and country-specific scoring; and country-specific sets of 12 items and scoring. Replication of the 36-item summary measures by the 12-item summary measures was then evaluated through comparison of mean scores and the strength of product-moment correlations. Product-moment correlations between SF-36 summary measures and SF-12 summary measures (standard and country-specific) were very high, ranging from 0.94–0.96 and 0.94–0.97 for the physical and mental summary measures, respectively. Mean 36-item summary measures and comparable 12-item summary measures were within 0.0 to 1.5 points (median = 0.5 points) in each country and were comparable across age groups. Because of the high degree of correspondence between summary physical and mental health measures estimated using the SF-12 and SF-36, it appears that the SF-12 will prove to be a practical alternative to the SF-36 in these countries, for purposes of large group comparisons in which the focus is on overall physical and mental health outcomes.