Capital cities of federations. On the way to analysing the normative base of their asymmetrical status

Federal Capitals often have special statutes. Compared with member states, they often enjoy a lower degree of self-government and a lesser share in the governing of the federation. Why do actors choose such devices, and how can they be justified in a liberal democracy? Surprisingly, the burgeoning literature on asymmetric federalism (to which our research group has contributed significantly) has overlooked this important feature of a de iure asymmetry, perhaps because political theory up to now has concentrated on cases of multicultural and plurinational federations. However, comparative literature is also rare. This paper is the first step to filling in this gap by comparing some federal capitals. The Federal District model (Washington) is compared to capitals organized as member-states (Berlin and Brussels), and capitals that are cities belonging to a single member state (Ottawa in Ontario). The different features of de iure asymmetry will thereby be highlighted. Some light will be shed on the possible motives, reasons and justifications for the choice of each respective status. The paper opens the door to further research on such status questions by analysing public and parliamentary debates, for example. It paves the way for more thorough research. Sicne the author has been awarded a grant by the Institut d’Estudis Autonòmics, this research will be carried out soon.

Solving two production scheduling problems with sequence-dependent set-up times

In today’s competitive markets, the importance of goodscheduling strategies in manufacturing companies lead to theneed of developing efficient methods to solve complexscheduling problems.In this paper, we studied two production scheduling problemswith sequence-dependent setups times. The setup times areone of the most common complications in scheduling problems,and are usually associated with cleaning operations andchanging tools and shapes in machines.The first problem considered is a single-machine schedulingwith release dates, sequence-dependent setup times anddelivery times. The performance measure is the maximumlateness.The second problem is a job-shop scheduling problem withsequence-dependent setup times where the objective is tominimize the makespan.We present several priority dispatching rules for bothproblems, followed by a study of their performance. Finally,conclusions and directions of future research are presented.

Start-up costs and pecuniary externalities as barriers to economic development

We use a dynamic monopolistic competition model to show that an economythat inherits a small range of specialized inputs can be trapped into alower stage of development. The limited availability of specialized inputsforces the final goods producers to use a labor intensive technology, whichin turn implies a small inducement to introduce new intermediate inputs. Thestart--up costs, which make the intermediate inputs producers subject todynamic increasing returns, and pecuniary externalities that result from thefactor substitution in the final goods sector, play essential roles in themodel.

Keeping up with the Joneses: An international asset pricing model

We derive an international asset pricing model that assumes local investorshave preferences of the type "keeping up with the Joneses." In aninternational setting investors compare their current wealth with that oftheir peers who live in the same country. In the process of inferring thecountry's average wealth, investors incorporate information from the domesticmarket portfolio. In equilibrium, this gives rise to a multifactor CAPMwhere, together with the world market price of risk, there existscountry-speciffic prices of risk associated with deviations from thecountry's average wealth level. The model performs signifficantly better, interms of explaining cross-section of returns, than the international CAPM.Moreover, the results are robust, both for conditional and unconditionaltests, to the inclusion of currency risk, macroeconomic sources of risk andthe Fama and French HML factor.

Cost-containment in health care: The case of Spain from the eighties up to 1997

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolutionof health care expenditure in Spain during the period 1980-1997, andhenceforth to comment on the cost containment measures put forwardto control its growth. The paper is divided into three separatesections. The first offers a brief description of the Spanish HealthCare System, with emphasis placed on the issue of expenditure controland health planning targets. The second part outlines a set of costcontainment measures that has accompanied the process of extendinguniversal health care coverage which occurred during the mentionedperiod and which has helped keep public expenditure under control.Finally, the third part describes some of the more recent proposalsfor reform of the Spanish Health Care Sector.

The overhang hangover

We revisit the debt overhang question. We first use non-parametric techniques to isolate a panel of countries on the downward sloping section of a debt Laffer curve. In particular, overhang countries are ones where a threshold level of debt is reached in sample, beyond which (initial) debt ends up lowering (subsequent)growth. On average, significantly negative coefficients appear when debt face value reaches 60 percent of GDP or 200 percent of exports, and when its present value reaches 40 percent of GDP or 140 percent of exports. Second, we depart from reduced form growth regressions and perform direct tests of the theory on the thus selected sample of overhang countries. In the spirit of event studies, we ask whether, as overhang level of debt is reached: (i)investment falls precipitously as it should when it becomes optimal to default, (ii) economic policy deteriorates observably, as it should when debt contracts become unable to elicit effort on the part of the debtor, and (iii) the terms of borrowing worsen noticeably, as they should when it becomes optimal for creditors to pre-empt default and exact punitive interest rates. We find a systematic response of investment, particularly when property rights are weakly enforced, some worsening of the policy environment, and a fall in interest rates. This easing of borrowing conditions happens because lending by the private sector virtually disappears in overhang situations, and multilateral agencies step in with concessional rates. Thus, while debt relief is likely to improve economic policy (and especially investment) in overhang countries, it is doubtful that it would ease their terms of borrowing, or the burden of debt.

Tying up the loose ends in simple correspondence analysis

Although correspondence analysis is now widely available in statistical software packages and applied in a variety of contexts, notably the social and environmental sciences, there are still some misconceptions about this method as well as unresolved issues which remain controversial to this day. In this paper we hope to settle these matters, namely (i) the way CA measures variance in a two-way table and how to compare variances between tables of different sizes, (ii) the influence, or rather lack of influence, of outliers in the usual CA maps, (iii) the scaling issue and the biplot interpretation of maps,(iv) whether or not to rotate a solution, and (v) statistical significance of results.

Changes in leisure time and occupational physical activity over 8 years: The Cornellà health Interview Survey Follow-Up Study

Aim: To describe changes in leisure time and occupational physical activity status in an urban Mediterranean population-based cohort, and to evaluate sociodemographic, health-related and lifestyle correlates of such changes. Methods: Data for this study come from the Cornellè Health Interview Survey Follow-Up Study, a prospective cohort study of a representative sample (n¿=¿2500) of the population. Participants in the analysis reported here include 1246 subjects (567 men and 679 women) who had complete data on physical activity at the 1994 baseline survey and at the 2002 follow-up. We fitted Breslow-Cox regression models to assess the association between correlates of interest and changes in physical activity. Results: Regarding leisure time physical activity, 61.6% of cohort members with ¿sedentary¿ habits in 1994 changed their status to ¿light/moderate¿ physical activity in 2002, and 70% who had ¿light/moderate¿ habits in 1994 did not change their activity level. Regarding occupational physical activity, 74.4% of cohort members who were ¿active¿ did not change their level of activity, and 64.3% of participants with ¿sedentary¿ habits in 1994 changed to ¿active¿ occupational physical activity. No clear correlates of change in physical activity were identified in multivariate analyses. Conclusion: While changes in physical activity are evident in this population-based cohort, no clear determinants of such changes were recognised. Further longitudinal studies including other potential individual and contextual determinants are needed to better understand determinants of changes in physical activity at the population level.

Oscillatory magnetic tweezers based on ferromagnetic beads and simple coaxial coils

We report the design and validation of simple magnetic tweezers for oscillating ferromagnetic beads in the piconewton and nanometer scales. The system is based on a single pair of coaxial coils operating in two sequential modes: permanent magnetization of the beads through a large and brief pulse of magnetic field and generation of magnetic gradients to produce uniaxial oscillatory forces. By using this two step method, the magnetic moment of the beads remains constant during measurements. Therefore, the applied force can be computed and varies linearly with the driving signal. No feedback control is required to produce well defined force oscillations over a wide bandwidth. The design of the coils was optimized to obtain high magnetic fields (280 mT) and gradients (2 T/m) with high homogeneity (5% variation) within the sample. The magnetic tweezers were implemented in an inverted optical microscope with a videomicroscopy-based multiparticle tracking system. The apparatus was validated with 4.5 ¿m magnetite beads obtaining forces up to ~2 pN and subnanometer resolution. The applicability of the device includes microrheology of biopolymer and cell cytoplasm, molecular mechanics, and mechanotransduction in living cells.

Predictive factors in the long term outcome in gastro-oesophageal reflux disease: six years follow up of 107 patients

There is little information concerning the long term outcome of patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD). Thus 109 patients with reflux symptoms (33 with erosive oesophagitis) with a diagnosis of GORD after clinical evaluation and oesophageal testing were studied. All patients were treated with a stepwise approach: (a) lifestyle changes were suggested aimed at reducing reflux and antacids and the prokinetic agent domperidone were prescribed; (b) H2 blockers were added after two months when symptoms persisted; (c) anti-reflux surgery was indicated when there was no response to (b). Treatment was adjusted to maintain clinical remission during follow up. Long term treatment need was defined as minor when conservative measures sufficed for proper control, and as major if daily H2 blockers or surgery were required. The results showed that one third of the patients each had initial therapeutic need (a), (b), and (c). Of 103 patients available for follow up at three years and 89 at six years, respective therapeutic needs were minor in 52% and 55% and major in 48% and 45%. Eighty per cent of patients in (a), 67% in (b), and 17% in (c) required only conservative measures at six years. A decreasing lower oesophageal sphincter pressure (p < 0.001), radiological reflux (p = 0.028), and erosive oesophagitis (p = 0.031), but not initial clinical scores, were independent predictors of major therapeutic need as shown by multivariate analysis. The long term outcome of GORD is better than previously perceived.