Trials, tricks and transparency: how disclosure rules affect clinical knowledge

Scandals of selective reporting of clinical trial results by pharmaceutical firms have underlined the need for more transparency in clinical trials. We provide a theoretical framework which reproduces incentives for selective reporting and yields three key implications concerning regulation. First, a compulsory clinical trial registry complemented through a voluntary clinical trial results database can implement full transparency (the existence of all trials as well as their results is known). Second, full transparency comes at a price. It has a deterrence effect on the incentives to conduct clinical trials, as it reduces the firms'gains from trials. Third, in principle, a voluntary clinical trial results database without a compulsory registry is a superior regulatory tool; but we provide some qualified support for additional compulsory registries when medical decision-makers cannot anticipate correctly the drug companies' decisions whether to conduct trials. Keywords: pharmaceutical firms, strategic information transmission, clinical trials, registries, results databases, scientific knowledge JEL classification: D72, I18, L15

Significados sociales y culturales del envio de remesas de la migracion ecuatoriana en España

Proyecto realizado a partir de una estancia en la Facultad Latinoaméricana de Ciencias Sociales de Quito, Ecuador, entre julio y octubre del 2006. La estancia de investigación está enmarcada en la realización de una tesis doctoral sobre las connotaciones sociales y culturales que las remesas tienen para la migración ecuatoriana en España. Se pretende aportar conocimiento sobre las remesas partiendo de los posibles significados sociales y culturales que éstas guardan para los migrantes y sus familiares. En la mayor parte de los estudios sobre remesas han abundado una visión economicista y centrada únicamente en aspectos cuantitativos dejando a un margen aspectos como el papel que las remesas juegan en el mantenimiento del espacio social transnacional, su relación con el proyecto migratorio, o el uso y finalidad que se hace de estas remesas dentro del grupo doméstico. En este sentido, la estancia ha permitido realizar parte del trabajo de campo de la investigación (observación participante, realización de entrevistas semiestructuradas a familiares de migrantes, migrantes retornados, y migrantes que estaban de vacaciones, realización de grupos focales), así como contrastar y discutir algunas de las primeras conclusiones obtenidas en el trabajo con investigadores de este tema en Ecuador y realizar un vaciado de bibliografía publicada en Ecuador relacionada con el tema.

The causal relationship between Individual’s choice behavior and self-reported satisfaction: the case of residential mobility in the EU

One of the most persistent and lasting debates in economic research refers to whether the answers to subjective questions can be used to explain individuals’ economic behavior. Using panel data for twelve EU countries, in the present study we analyze the causal relationship between self-reported housing satisfaction and residential mobility. Our results indicate that: i) households unsatisfied with their current housing situation are more likely to move; ii) housing satisfaction raises after a move, and; iii) housing satisfaction increases with the transition from being a renter to becoming a homeowner. Some interesting cross-country differences are observed. Our findings provide evidence in favor of use of subjective indicators of satisfaction with certain life domains in the analysis of individuals’ economic conduct.

An HEI-Disaggregated Input-Output Table for Scotland

This paper describes how the education sector of the Scottish Input-Output tables is disaggregated to identify a separate sector for each of Scotland’s twenty Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The process draws on accounting and survey data to accurately determine the incomes and expenditures of each institution. In particular we emphasise determining the HEIs incomes source of origin to inform their treatment, as endogenous or exogenous, in subsequent analyses. The HEI-disaggregated Input- Output table provides a useful descriptive snapshot of the Scottish economy and the role of HEIs within it for a particular year, 2006. The table can be used to derive multipliers and conduct various impact studies of each institution or the sector as a whole. The table is furthermore useful to calibrate other multi-sectoral, HEI disaggregated models of regional economies, including Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models.

An HEI-Disaggregated Input-Output Table for Wales

This paper describes how the education sector of the Welsh Input-Output tables is disaggregated to identify a separate sector for each of Wales’s twelve Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The process draws on accounting and survey data to accurately determine the incomes and expenditures of each institution. In particular we emphasise determining the HEIs incomes source of origin to inform their treatment, as endogenous or exogenous, in subsequent analyses. The HEI-disaggregated Input-Output table provides a useful descriptive snapshot of the Welsh economy and the role of HEIs within it for a particular year, 2006. The table can be used to derive multipliers and conduct various impact studies of each institution or the sector as a whole. The table is furthermore useful to calibrate other multi-sectoral, HEI-disaggregated models of regional economies, including Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models.

An HEI-Disaggregated Input-Output Table for Northern-Ireland

This paper describes how the education sector of an Input-Output table for Northern Ireland is disaggregated to identify a separate sector for each of the four Northern Irish Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The process draws on accounting and survey data to accurately determine the incomes and expenditures of each institution. In particular we emphasise determining the HEIs incomes source of origin to inform their treatment, as endogenous or exogenous, in subsequent analyses. The HEI-disaggregated Input-Output table provides a useful descriptive snapshot of the Northern Irish economy and the role of HEIs within it for a particular year, 2006. The table can be used to derive multipliers and conduct various impact studies of each institution or the sector as a whole. The table is furthermore useful to calibrate other multisectoral, HEI-disaggregated models of regional economies, including Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) and computable general equilibrium (CGE) models.

The Importance of Graduates for the Scottish Economy: A “Micro-to-Macro” Approach

There have been numerous attempts to assess the overall impact of Higher Education Institutions on regional economies in the UK and elsewhere. There are two disparate approaches focussing on: demand-side effects of HEIs, exerted through universities’ expenditures within the local economy; HEIs’ contribution to the “knowledge economy”. However, neither approach seeks to measure the impact on regional economies that HEIs exert through the enhanced productivity of their graduates. We address this lacuna and explore the system-wide impact of the graduates on the regional economy. An extensive and sophisticated literature suggests that graduates enjoy a significant wage premium, often interpreted as reflecting their greater productivity relative to non-graduates. If this is so there is a clear and direct supply-side impact of HEI activities on regional economies through the employment of their graduates. However, there is some dispute over the extent to which the graduate wage premium reflects innate abilities rather than the impact of higher education per se. We use an HEI-disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to estimate the impact of the growing proportion of graduates in the Scottish labour force that is implied by the current participation rate and demographic change, taking the graduate wage premium in Scotland as an indicator of productivity enhancement. We conduct a range of sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our results. While the detailed results do, of course, vary with alternative assumptions about future graduate retention rates and the size of the graduate wage premium, for example, they do suggest that the long-term supply-side impacts of HEIs provide a significant boost to regional GDP. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supply-side impacts of HEIs are likely to be more important than the expenditure impacts that are the focus of most “impact” studies.

Implicit attitudes and self-concepts towards transgression and aggression: Differences between male community and offender adolescents, and associations with psychopathic traits.

Research suggests that implicit attitudes play a key role in the occurrence of antisocial behaviours. This study assessed implicit attitudes and self-concepts related to aggression and transgression in community and offender adolescents, using a new set of Implicit Association Tests (IATs), and examined their association with of psychopathic traits. Thirty-six offenders and 66 community adolescents performed 4 IATs assessing 1) implicit attitudes about a) aggression and b) transgression as good, and 2) implicit self-concepts about a) aggression and b) transgression as self-descriptive. They filled in self-report questionnaires: the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory, the Child Behaviour Checklist, and explicit measures of their attitudes and self-concepts towards transgression and aggression. Results showed few differences between community and offender adolescents on implicit attitudes and self-concepts, and unexpected negative associations between some implicit attitudes and psychopathic traits, while the association was positive for the corresponding explicit attitudes. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed.

The use of the likelihood ratio for evaluative and investigative purposes in comparative forensic handwriting examination

This paper extends previous research and discussion on the use of multivariate continuous data, which are about to become more prevalent in forensic science. As an illustrative example, attention is drawn here on the area of comparative handwriting examinations. Multivariate continuous data can be obtained in this field by analysing the contour shape of loop characters through Fourier analysis. This methodology, based on existing research in this area, allows one describe in detail the morphology of character contours throughout a set of variables. This paper uses data collected from female and male writers to conduct a comparative analysis of likelihood ratio based evidence assessment procedures in both, evaluative and investigative proceedings. While the use of likelihood ratios in the former situation is now rather well established (typically, in order to discriminate between propositions of authorship of a given individual versus another, unknown individual), focus on the investigative setting still remains rather beyond considerations in practice. This paper seeks to highlight that investigative settings, too, can represent an area of application for which the likelihood ratio can offer a logical support. As an example, the inference of gender of the writer of an incriminated handwritten text is forwarded, analysed and discussed in this paper. The more general viewpoint according to which likelihood ratio analyses can be helpful for investigative proceedings is supported here through various simulations. These offer a characterisation of the robustness of the proposed likelihood ratio methodology.

Changing Eating Habits - A Field Experiment in Primary Schools

We conduct a field experiment in 31 primary schools in England to test whether incentives to eat fruit and vegetables help children develop healthier habits. The intervention consists of rewarding children with stickers and little gifts for a period of four weeks for choosing a portion of fruit and vegetables at lunch. We compare the effects of two incentive schemes (competition and piece rate) on choices and consumption over the course of the intervention as well as once the incentives are removed and six months later. We find that the intervention had positive effects, but the effects vary substantially according to age and gender. However, we find little evidence of sustained long term effects, except for the children from poorer socio‐economic backgrounds.

Commitment vs. Discretion in the UK: An Empirical Investigation of the Monetary and Fiscal Policy Regime

This paper investigates the conduct of monetary and fiscal policy in the post-ERM period in the UK. Using a simple DSGE New Keynesian model of non-cooperative monetary and fiscal policy interactions under fiscal intra-period leadership, we demonstrate that the past policy in the UK is better explained by optimal policy under discretion than under commitment. We estimate policy objectives of both policy makers. We demonstrate that fiscal policy plays an important role in identifying the monetary policy regime.

Suppliers of Priors: A Theory of Retailing Inspired by the Market for Chinese Antiquities

Adverse selection may thwart trade between an informed seller, who knows the probability p that an item of antiquity is genuine, and an uninformed buyer, who does not know p. The buyer might not be wholly uninformed, however. Suppose he can perform a simple inspection, a test of his own: the probability that an item passes the test is g if the item is genuine, but only f < g if it is fake. Given that the buyer is no expert, his test may have little power: f may be close to g. Unfortunately, without much power, the buyer's test will not resolve the difficulty of adverse selection; gains from trade may remain unexploited. But now consider a "store", where the seller groups a number of items, perhaps all with the same quality, the same probability p of being genuine. (We show that in equilibrium the seller will choose to group items in this manner.) Now the buyer can conduct his test across a large sample, perhaps all, of a group of items in the seller's store. He can thereby assess the overall quality of these items; he can invert the aggregate of his test results to uncover the underlying p; he can form a "prior". There is thus no longer asymmetric information between seller and buyer: gains from trade can be exploited. This is our theory of retailing: by grouping items together - setting up a store - a seller is able to supply buyers with priors, as well as the items themselves. We show that the weaker the power of the buyer�s test (the closer f is to g), the greater the seller�s profit. So the seller has no incentive to assist the buyer � e.g., by performing her own tests on the items, or by cleaning them to reveal more about their true age. The paper ends with an analysis of which sellers should specialise in which qualities. We show that quality will be low in busy locations and high in expensive locations.

Imperfect Credibility and Robust Monetary Policy

This paper studies the behavior of a central bank that seeks to conduct policy optimally while having imperfect credibility and harboring doubts about its model. Taking the Smets-Wouters model as the central bank.s approximating model, the paper's main findings are as follows. First, a central bank.s credibility can have large consequences for how policy responds to shocks. Second, central banks that have low credibility can bene.t from a desire for robustness because this desire motivates the central bank to follow through on policy announcements that would otherwise not be time-consistent. Third, even relatively small departures from perfect credibility can produce important declines in policy performance. Finally, as a technical contribution, the paper develops a numerical procedure to solve the decision-problem facing an imperfectly credible policymaker that seeks robustness.

Effects of Experience, Knowledge and Signals on Willingness to Pay for a Public Good

This paper compares how increases in experience versus increases in knowledge about a public good affect willingness to pay (WTP) for its provision. This is challenging because while consumers are often certain about their previous experiences with a good, they may be uncertain about the accuracy of their knowledge. We therefore design and conduct a field experiment in which treated subjects receive a precise and objective signal regarding their knowledge about a public good before estimating their WTP for it. Using data for two different public goods, we show qualitative equivalence of the effect of knowledge and experience on valuation for a public good. Surprisingly, though, we find that the causal effect of objective signals about the accuracy of a subject’s knowledge for a public good can dramatically affect their valuation for it: treatment causes an increase of $150-$200 in WTP for well-informed individuals. We find no such effect for less informed subjects. Our results imply that WTP estimates for public goods are not only a function of true information states of the respondents but beliefs about those information states.

The role of fixed delays in neuronal rate models

Fixed delays in neuronal interactions arise through synaptic and dendritic processing. Previous work has shown that such delays, which play an important role in shaping the dynamics of networks of large numbers of spiking neurons with continuous synaptic kinetics, can be taken into account with a rate model through the addition of an explicit, fixed delay. Here we extend this work to account for arbitrary symmetric patterns of synaptic connectivity and generic nonlinear transfer functions. Specifically, we conduct a weakly nonlinear analysis of the dynamical states arising via primary instabilities of the stationary uniform state. In this way we determine analytically how the nature and stability of these states depend on the choice of transfer function and connectivity. While this dependence is, in general, nontrivial, we make use of the smallness of the ratio in the delay in neuronal interactions to the effective time constant of integration to arrive at two general observations of physiological relevance. These are: 1 - fast oscillations are always supercritical for realistic transfer functions. 2 - Traveling waves are preferred over standing waves given plausible patterns of local connectivity.