Using panel data to test for fiscal sustainability within the European Union

Most empirical evidence suggests that the sustainability hypothesis, stating that government revenues and expenditures should cointegrate with a unit slope on expenditures, does not hold within the European Union, a finding at odds with many theoretical models. This paper argues that these results can be attributed in part to the use of in-appropriate time-series techniques, and that the use of panel data can generate more accurate tests. By using newly devised panel unit-root and cointegration techniques it is shown that the sustainability hypothesis cannot be rejected when applied to a panel composed of 15 European countries between 1970 and 2004. © 2009 Mohr Siebeck.

Testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a century of panel data

This paper tests the convergence in per-capita carbon dioxide emissions for a collection of developed and developing countries using data spanning the period 1870-2002. For this purpose, three recently developed panel unit root tests that permit for dependence among the individual countries are employed. The results lend strong support in favor of convergence for the panel as a whole. Estimates of the speed of this convergence is also provided. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.

Error-correction-based cointegration tests for panel data

This article describes a new Stata command called xtwest, which implements the four error-correction-based panel cointegration tests developed by Westerlund (2007). The tests are general enough to allow for a large degree of heterogeneity, both in the long-run cointegrating relationship and in the short-run dynamics, and dependence within as well as across the cross-sectional units.

Is there really a unit root in the inflation rate? More evidence from panel data models

Time series unit root evidence suggests that inflation is nonstationary. By contrast, when using more powerful panel unit root tests, Culver and Papell (1997) find that inflation is stationary. In this article, we test the robustness of this result by applying a battery of recent panel unit root tests. The results suggest that the stationarity of inflation holds even after controlling for cross-sectional dependence and structural change.

Adolescent substance use and educational attainment: an integrative data analysis comparing cannabis and alcohol from three Australasian cohorts

BACKGROUND: The relative contributions of cannabis and alcohol use to educational outcomes are unclear. We examined the extent to which adolescent cannabis or alcohol use predicts educational attainment in emerging adulthood. METHODS: Participant-level data were integrated from three longitudinal studies from Australia and New Zealand (Australian Temperament Project, Christchurch Health and Development Study, and Victorian Adolescent Health Cohort Study). The number of participants varied by analysis (N=2179-3678) and were assessed on multiple occasions between ages 13 and 25. We described the association between frequency of cannabis or alcohol use prior to age 17 and high school non-completion, university non-enrolment, and degree non-attainment by age 25. Two other measures of alcohol use in adolescence were also examined. RESULTS: After covariate adjustment using a propensity score approach, adolescent cannabis use (weekly+) was associated with 1½ to two-fold increases in the odds of high school non-completion (OR=1.60, 95% CI=1.09-2.35), university non-enrolment (OR=1.51, 95% CI=1.06-2.13), and degree non-attainment (OR=1.96, 95% CI=1.36-2.81). In contrast, adjusted associations for all measures of adolescent alcohol use were inconsistent and weaker. Attributable risk estimates indicated adolescent cannabis use accounted for a greater proportion of the overall rate of non-progression with formal education than adolescent alcohol use. CONCLUSIONS: Findings are important to the debate about the relative harms of cannabis and alcohol use. Adolescent cannabis use is a better marker of lower educational attainment than adolescent alcohol use and identifies an important target population for preventive intervention.

Heart failure following cancer therapy in patients with hematological malignancies aged 18 years and under : a linked health data analysis (1996-2009)

Introduction: The causal link between chemotherapy treatments and subsequent cardiotoxicity is well established, particularly for children with hematological malignancies. Little information exists on the characteristics and outcomes for patients with heart failure (HF) after chemotherapy. This study aimed to describe the characteristics, survival and mortality of patients who received chemotherapy for hematological cancer (leukemias, lymphomas and related disorders) before 18 years old and subsequently developed HF compared to those who did not.

Methods: Linked health data (1996-2009) from the Queensland Cancer Registry, Death Registry and Hospital Administration records for HF and chemotherapy admissions were reviewed. From all breast and hematological cancers patients (n=73,158), 15,987 received chemotherapy, including 819 patients aged ≤18 years at time of cancer diagnosis. Patients were categorized as those with an index HF admission (occurred after cancer diagnosis) and those without an index HF admission (non HF).

Results: Of the 819 patients, 3.7% (n=30) had an index HF admission. Median age of HF patients at time of cancer diagnosis was 5 years (IQR 3-12) compared to 7 years (IQR 3-14) in the non HF group (p=0.503). Median follow up from cancer diagnosis was 2.5 years in the HF group compared to 5.42 years in the non HF group (p<0.01). Of those who developed HF, 70% (n=21) had the index admission within 12 months of their cancer diagnosis. Of those with HF, 53.3% (n=16) died (all cause) compared to 14.6% (n=115) with no HF. On adjustment for age, sex and chemotherapy admissions, HF patients had an almost 5 fold increased mortality risk compared to non HF patients (HR 4.91 [95% CI, 2.88-8.36]) (Figure 1).

Conclusions: This study demonstrated that in children with hematological cancers the onset of HF occurred soon after chemotherapy and mortality risk is almost 5 times that of children who do not develop HF. Innovative strategies are still needed for the prevention and management of cardiotoxicity in this population.

User centric design, data analysis and performance of snowboard bindings

This study focuses on soft boot snowboard bindings by looking at how users interact with their binding and proposes a possible solution to overcome such issues. Snowboarding is a multibillion-dollar sport that has only reached mainstream in the last 30 years its levels of progression in technology have evolved in that time. However, snowboard bindings for the most part still consist of the same basic architecture in the last 20 years. This study was aimed at taking a user centric point of view and using additive manufacturing technologies to be able to generate a new snowboard binding that is completely adaptable to the user. The initial part of the study was a survey of 280 snowboarders focussing on preferences, style and habits. This survey was generated from over 15 nations with the vast majority of boarders on the snow for five to fifty days a year. Significant emphasis was placed on the relationship between boarder binding set-up and occurrence of pain and/or injury. From the detailed survey it was found that boarder's experienced pain in the front foot/toe area as a result from the toe strap being too tight. However boarders wanted tighter bindings to increase responsiveness. Survey data was compared to ankle and foot biomechanics to build a relationship to assess the problem of pain versus responsiveness. The design stage of the study was to develop a binding that overcame the over-tightening of the binding but still maintain equivalent or better responsiveness compared to traditional bindings. The resulting design integrated the snowboard boot much more into the design, by using the sole as a "semi-rigid" platform and locking it in laterally between the heel cup and the new toe strap arrangement. The new design developed using additive manufacturing techniques was tested via qualitative and quantitative measures in the snow and in the lab. It was found that using the new arrangement in a system resulted in no loss of performance or responsiveness to the user. Due to the design and manufacturing approach users have the ability to customise the design to their specific needs.

Economic freedom and economic growth: Does specification make a difference?

In this paper we apply meta-analytic techniques to the literature on the impact of economic freedom on economic growth and find an overall positive direct association between economic freedom and economic growth. A positive indirect effect of economic freedom on economic growth through the stimulation of physical capital is also identified. However, the literature is affected by specification bias with respect to controls for physical capital. The omission of physical capital results in larger estimates of the economic freedom–economic growth association. Further, the use of panel data leads to smaller estimates of the impact of economic freedom on economic growth. The meta-analysis is confirmed by primary cross-sectional and panel data analysis of 82 countries for the period 1970–1999.

A study of voluntary disclosure of listed Chinese firms - a stakeholder perspective

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to investigate stakeholder power changes and their impact on firms' disclosure decisions in the Chinese stock market. Using legitimacy theory and stakeholder theory, the paper identifies newly emerged stakeholder groups for listed Chinese firms during three distinguished periods of the development of the Chinese stock market.

Design/methodology/approach – Panel data analysis was undertaken over a period from 1995-2006 with an aim to examine the influence of stakeholder power changes on voluntary disclosures made by 297 listed firms in their 12 years of annual reports. A voluntary disclosure checklist has been used for hand-collecting data from annual reports.

Findings – The finding shows that different stakeholder groups exert different degrees of influence on firms' decision-making in respect of information disclosure during different stages of the development of the Chinese stock market.

Research limitations/implications – The impact of a stakeholder power changes on corporate disclosure has not been well addressed and how listed Chinese firms respond to these changes is still a significant gap in the Chinese corporate disclosure literature. In this study, the paper uses proxies to represent each stakeholder group, discuss power changes of each group and predict the impact of power changes on firms' voluntary disclosure.

Originality/value – The paper identifies the new content of the “social contract” between listed firms and Chinese society and identifies various stakeholder groups of listed Chinese firms in the context of a new “social contract”. The paper predicts that voluntary corporate disclosure is the result of stakeholder pressures and firms use voluntary disclosure as one of their strategies to manage the firm-stakeholder relationship.

A note on the pooling of individual panic unit root tests

One of the most cited studies in recent years within the field of nonstationary panel data analysis is that of Bai and Ng (2004), in which the authors propose PANIC, a new framework for analyzing the nonstationarity of panels with idiosyncratic and common components. The problem is that the asymptotic validity of PANIC as a platform for constructing pooled panel unit root tests based on averaging is not fully proven. This paper provides the required results, whose usefulness is verified through simulations. © 2009 Cambridge University Press.

Clinical research 5: quantitative data collection and analysis

This six-part research series is aimed at clinicians who wish to develop research skills, or who have a particular clinical problem that they think could be addressed through research. The series aims to provide insight into the decisions that researchers make in the course of their work, and to also provide a foundation for decisions that nurses may make in applying the findings of a study to practice in their own Unit or Department. The series emphasises the practical issues encountered when undertaking research in critical care settings; readers are encouraged to source research methodology textbooks for more detailed guidance on specific aspects of the research process.

A couple of points:

1. It is artificial to describe research as qualitative or quantitative. Studies often include both dimensions. However, for the purposes of this paper/series, this distinction is drawn for clarity of writing.

2. It is common practice for quantitative studies to refer to study ‘subjects’ and qualitative studies to refer to study ‘participants’. For ease of reading, the latter term will be used throughout this series.

Evidence of panel stationarity from Chinese provincial and regional income

The aim of this paper is to examine whether Chinese provincial and regional real GDP and per capita real GDP are panel stationary for the period 1952–2003. We allow for multiple structural breaks based on a technique developed by Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. [Carrion-i-Silvestre, J. L., Barrio-Castro, T, D., & Lopez-Bazo, E. (2005). Breaking the panels: An application to the GDP per capita. Econometrics Journal, 8, 159–175]. Allowing for at most five structural breaks, we find that for 67% of the provinces, per capita real GDP is stationary; while we only find stationarity of real GDP for 17% of the provinces. However, when we extend the analysis to panel data models, we find statistically strong evidence of panel stationarity of Chinese provincial and regional income.

Manual on application of molecular tools in aquaculture and inland fisheries management. Part I : laboratory protocols, data management and analysis

The aim of this manual is to provide a comprehensive practical tool for the generation and analysis of genetic data for subsequent application in aquatic resources management in relation to genetic stock identification in inland fisheries and aquaculture. The material only covers general background on genetics in relation to aquaculture and fisheries resource management, the techniques and relevant methods of data analysis that are commonly used to address questions relating to genetic resource characterisation and population genetic analyses. No attempt is made to include applications of genetic improvement techniques e.g. selective breeding or producing genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The manual includes two ‘stand-alone’ parts, of which this is the second volume: Part 1 – Conceptual basis of population genetic approaches: will provide a basic foundation on genetics in general, and concepts of population genetics. Issues on the choices of molecular markers and project design are also discussed. Part 2 – Laboratory protocols, data management and analysis: will provide step-by-step protocols of the most commonly used molecular genetic techniques utilised in population genetics and systematic studies. In addition, a brief discussion and explanation of how these data are managed and analysed is also included. This manual is expected to enable NACA member country personnel to be trained to undertake molecular genetic studies in their own institutions, and as such is aimed at middle and higher level technical grades. The manual can also provide useful teaching material for specialised advanced level university courses in the region and postgraduate students. The manual has gone through two development/improvement stages. The initial material was tested at a regional workshop and at the second stage feedback from participants was used to improve the contents.

Construction capital productivity measurement using a data envelopment analysis

During the past few decades, the construction industry has experienced a series of changes including the innovation of construction technologies and the enhancement of management strategies. These improvements should have had a considerable effect on industrial efficiency and productivity performance, but research is needed to address whether the capital productivity levels of the construction industry have in fact shown such a huge improvement. This paper aims to develop an analysis procedure to measure capital productivity changes and to reasonably quantify factors affecting productivity levels in the construction industry. Based on the data envelopment analysis method, this research has developed a novel model measuring capital productivity and has applied it to the Australian construction industry. The numerical results indicate that the average annual capital productivity levels of the construction industry are slowly growing in all the Australian states and territories except for Queensland and Western Australia. In addition, construction technologies are shown to have a close relationship with the changes in capital productivity according to the temporal-spatial comparisons of productivity indices. The research findings are expected to be beneficial for making policy and strategic decisions to improve the capital productivity performance.

Embedded restricted Boltzmann machines for fusion of mixed data types and applications in social measurements analysis

Analysis and fusion of social measurements is important to understand what shapes the public’s opinion and the sustainability of the global development. However, modeling data collected from social responses is challenging as the data is typically complex and heterogeneous, which might take the form of stated facts, subjective assessment, choices, preferences or any combination thereof. Model-wise, these responses are a mixture of data types including binary, categorical, multicategorical, continuous, ordinal, count and rank data. The challenge is therefore to effectively handle mixed data in the a unified fusion framework in order to perform inference and analysis. To that end, this paper introduces eRBM (Embedded Restricted Boltzmann Machine) – a probabilistic latent variable model that can represent mixed data using a layer of hidden variables transparent across different types of data. The proposed model can comfortably support largescale data analysis tasks, including distribution modelling, data completion, prediction and visualisation. We demonstrate these versatile features on several moderate and large-scale publicly available social survey datasets.