Promoting sustainability as a strategy to mitigate the effects of economic downturn on the construction industry

During the recent years followed by the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), most of business and industries around the globe have been hardly hit to the limit that it still struggling to survive, suffering from the crisis financial consequences. For instance, in the construction industry; many construction projects have been suspended or totally cancelled. Nevertheless, among this dilemma, a call has been raised to use the sustainable practices to mitigate the effects of the GFC on construction industry. For the first look, it seems that there is contradiction since the sustainable solutions are often associated with an increase in the initial cost, undoubtedly, the sustainable practices have many advantages in both economic and environment aspects, however, the question which needs to be addressed here is, to what extent using such sustainable practices can mitigate the negative effects of the economic downturn on construction industry. Therefore, it is a challenging argument for using such sustainable construction from its economic perspective, however, this paper is aiming to present the economical benefits of sustainable practices in construction industry, and trying to clear the doubt of the high initial costs of the sustainable construction through studying the life cycle benefit of green building.

Cost-Effectiveness of High, Moderate and Low-Dose Statins in the Prevention of Vascular Events in the Brazilian Public Health System

Background:Statins have proven efficacy in the reduction of cardiovascular events, but the financial impact of its widespread use can be substantial.Objective:To conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis of three statin dosing schemes in the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) perspective.Methods:We developed a Markov model to evaluate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) of low, intermediate and high intensity dose regimens in secondary and four primary scenarios (5%, 10%, 15% and 20% ten-year risk) of prevention of cardiovascular events. Regimens with expected low-density lipoprotein cholesterol reduction below 30% (e.g. simvastatin 10mg) were considered as low dose; between 30-40%, (atorvastatin 10mg, simvastatin 40mg), intermediate dose; and above 40% (atorvastatin 20-80mg, rosuvastatin 20mg), high-dose statins. Effectiveness data were obtained from a systematic review with 136,000 patients. National data were used to estimate utilities and costs (expressed as International Dollars - Int$). A willingness-to-pay (WTP) threshold equal to the Brazilian gross domestic product per capita (circa Int$11,770) was applied.Results:Low dose was dominated by extension in the primary prevention scenarios. In the five scenarios, the ICER of intermediate dose was below Int$10,000 per QALY. The ICER of the high versus intermediate dose comparison was above Int$27,000 per QALY in all scenarios. In the cost-effectiveness acceptability curves, intermediate dose had a probability above 50% of being cost-effective with ICERs between Int$ 9,000-20,000 per QALY in all scenarios.Conclusions:Considering a reasonable WTP threshold, intermediate dose statin therapy is economically attractive, and should be a priority intervention in prevention of cardiovascular events in Brazil.

The optimal behaviour of firms facing stochastic costs

This paper aims at assessing the optimal behavior of a firm facing stochastic costs of production. In an imperfectly competitive setting, we evaluate to what extent a firm may decide to locate part of its production in other markets different from which it is actually settled. This decision is taken in a stochastic environment. Portfolio theory is used to derive the optimal solution for the intertemporal profit maximization problem. In such a framework, splitting production between different locations may be optimal when a firm is able to charge different prices in the different local markets.

A cost-benefit analisys of chagas disease control

Chagas disease transmission can be effetively interrupted by insecticidal control of its triatomine bug vectors. We present here a simple model comparing the costs and benefits of such a programme, designed to eliminate domestic populations of Triatoma infestans throughout its known area of distribution over the seven southernmost countries of Latin America. The model has been simplified to require only four financial estimates relating to the unit cost of housing spraying and benefits due to avoidance of premature death in the acute phase of the disease, avoidance of supportive treatment and care in the chronic phase of the disease, and avoidance of corrective digestive and cardiac surgery. Exceptfor these direct medical costs, al other potential benefits have been ignored. Nevertheless, the model shows that the direct financial benefits of such a programme would far outweigh the costs, and the project would support a remarkably high internal rate of return under the least optimistic estimates.

Agency cost of government ownership: a study of voluntary audit comitte formation in China

In this paper, we investigate the agency costs of government ownership and their impact on corporate governance and firm value. China is used as a laboratory because of the prevalent state shareholdings in exchange-listed firms. In this context, we specifically consider the trade-offs involved in the voluntary formation of an audit committee when the controlling shareholder is the state. The decision to improve corporate governance (in this case, introduce an audit committee) is shown to be value relevant and a function of existing agency relationships and non-trivial implementation costs. Our findings are robust to the level of pyramid groups, the ownership-control wedge, and financial leverage. The research adds to the debate regarding the effect of government shareholdings on corporate culture and performance - a topic that hastaken on renewed importance in recent times.

Less frequent dosing of erythropoiesis stimulating agents in patients undergoing dialysis: a European multicentre cost study.

OBJECTIVE: To calculate the variable costs involved with the process of delivering erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESA) in European dialysis practices. METHODS: A conceptual model was developed to classify the processes and sub-processes followed in the pharmacy (ordering from supplier, receiving/storing/delivering ESA to the dialysis unit), dialysis unit (dose determination, ordering, receipt, registration, storage, administration, registration) and waste disposal unit. Time and material costs were recorded. Labour costs were derived from actual local wages while material costs came from the facilities' accounting records. Activities associated with ESA administration were listed and each activity evaluated to determine if dosing frequency affected the amount of resources required. RESULTS: A total of 21 centres in 8 European countries supplied data for 142 patients (mean) per hospital (range 42-648). Patients received various ESA regimens (thrice-weekly, twice-weekly, once-weekly, once every 2 weeks and once-monthly). Administering ESA every 2 weeks, the mean costs per patient per year for each process and the estimates of the percentage reduction in costs obtainable, respectively, were: pharmacy labour (10.1 euro, 39%); dialysis unit labour (66.0 euro, 65%); dialysis unit materials (4.11 euro, 61%) and waste unit materials (0.43 euro, 49%). LIMITATION: Impact on financial costs was not measured. CONCLUSION: ESA administration has quantifiable labour and material costs which are affected by dosing frequency.

Youth of the Eighties, Parents of 2000, Sociological Observations

(Résumé de l'ouvrage) This book is meant to honour the Belgian religious educationalist Herman Lombaerts reflecting on his legacy. He is internationally renowned as a scholar with a strong commitment to and a conceptual analysis of the social and cultural context in which people live and learn. This series of essays is build upon a thought provoking, streamlined design on the relationship between theology and education, relying on Lombaerts' societal and cultural analysis of contemporary religious education. Three key elements are at stake: the self-agency of the learner, the hermeneutic and communitive interpretation of religious traditions in the teaching of religion, and the radical re-imagination of Christian theology relying on this new model of religious educational praxis. For Lombaerts, the search processes of religious people have their own dynamic and dignity. Practical theology should listen carefully and empathetically to this quest. But he is also convinced of the need of solid fundamental research to understand critically its ambiguities and perspectives. Scholars from Europe, the United States and Australia lead the way in this process of "conceptual stretching". Issues such as happiness of children, identity formation of youth, educational and religious insecurity of parents, multi-faith education, tradition crisis of churches, theological education of lay ministers, narrativity and modern art in religious education, etc. are examined from a practical theological point of view, with a strong commitment to the philosophical, psychological, sociological, educational and political dimensions of three issues. With this book the editors hope to commemorate Lombaerts' international radiation, by building a collegial bridge between the different theoretical approaches in the German, Dutch, French, Italian and Anglo-Saxon religious educational research.

Global burden of dementia in the year 2050: summary of methods and data sources

��The number of people suffering dementia will triple in the next 40 years, according to a new study by the World Health Organization, leading to catastrophic social and financial costs. Dementia, a brain illness that affects memory, behavior and the ability to perform even common tasks, affects mostly older people; Alzheimer's causes many cases. Read the report:Global burden of dementia in the year 2050: summary of methods and data sources

Effects of brood manipulation costs on optimal sex allocation in social hymenoptera.

In eusocial Hymenoptera, queens and workers are in conflict over optimal sex allocation. Sex ratio theory, while generating predictions on the extent of this conflict under a wide range of conditions, has largely neglected the fact that worker control of investment almost certainly requires the manipulation of brood sex ratio. This manipulation is likely to incur costs, for example, if workers eliminate male larvae or rear more females as sexuals rather than workers. In this article, we present a model of sex ratio evolution under worker control that incorporates costs of brood manipulation. We assume cost to be a continuous, increasing function of the magnitude of sex ratio manipulation. We demonstrate that costs counterselect sex ratio biasing, which leads to less female-biased population sex ratios than expected on the basis of relatedness asymmetry. Furthermore, differently shaped cost functions lead to different equilibria of manipulation at the colony level. While linear and accelerating cost functions generate monomorphic equilibria, decelerating costs lead to a process of evolutionary branching and hence split sex ratios.

Differential effect of Charlson index and its components on in-hospital mortality and health costs

Introduction: The Charlson index (Charlson, 1987) is a commonly used comorbidity index in outcome studies. Still, the use of different weights makes its calculation cumbersome, while the sum of its components (comorbidities) is easier to compute. In this study, we assessed the effects of 1) the Charlson index adapted for the Swiss population and 2) the sum of its components (number of comorbidities, maximum 15) on a) in-hospital deaths and b) cost of hospitalization. Methods: Anonymous data was obtained from the administrative database of the department of internal medicine of the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV). All hospitalizations of adult (>=18 years) patients occurring between 2003 and 2011 were included. For each hospitalization, the Charlson index and the number of comorbidities were calculated. Analyses were conducted using Stata. Results: Data from 32,741 hospitalizations occurring between 2003 and 2011 was analyzed. On bivariate analysis, both the Charlson index and the number of comorbidities were significantly and positively associated with in hospital death. Conversely, multivariate adjustment for age, gender and calendar year using Cox regression showed that the association was no longer significant for the number of comorbidities (table). On bivariate analysis, hospitalization costs increased both with Charlson index and with number of comorbidities, but the increase was much steeper for the number of comorbidities (figure). Robust regression after adjusting for age, gender, calendar year and duration of hospital stay showed that the increase in one comorbidity led to an average increase in hospital costs of 321 CHF (95% CI: 272 to 370), while the increase in one score point of the Charlson index led to a decrease in hospital costs of 49 CHF (95% CI: 31 to 67). Conclusion: Charlson index is better than the number of comorbidities in predicting in-hospital death. Conversely, the number of comorbidities significantly increases hospital costs.

Paved Shoulders on Primary Highways in Iowa: An Analysis of Shoulder Surfacing Criteria, Costs, and Benefits, 2001

The value of providing paved shoulders adjacent to many higher volume roadways has been accepted in many states across the country. Iowa’s paved shoulder policy is considerably more conservative than neighboring states, particularly on rural four-lane and high-volume two-lane highways. The objectives of this research are to examine current design criteria for shoulders employed in Iowa and surrounding states, compare benefits and costs of alternative surface types and widths, and make recommendations based on this analysis for consideration in future design policies for primary highway in Iowa. The report finds that many safety and maintenance benefits would result from enhancing Iowa’s paved shoulder and rumble strip design practices for freeways, expressways, and Super 2 highway corridors. The benefits of paved shoulders include reduced numbers of certain crashes, higher capacity potentials, reduced maintenance, enhanced opportunities for other users such as bicyclists, and even possible increased longevity of pavements. Alternative paved shoulder policies and programming strategies are also offered, with detailed assessments of the benefits, costs, and budget impacts.

An Investigation of User Costs and Benefits of Winter Road Closures, June 2005

This project explores the user costs and benefits of winter road closures. Severe winter weather makes travel unsafe and dramatically increases crash rates. When conditions become unsafe due to winter weather, road closures should allow users to avoid crash costs and eliminate costs associated with rescuing stranded motorists. Therefore, the benefits of road closures are the avoided safety costs. The costs of road closures are the delays that are imposed on motorists and motor carriers who would have made the trip had the road not been closed. This project investigated the costs and benefits of road closures and found that evaluating the benefits and costs is not as simple as it appears. To better understand the costs and benefits of road closures, the project investigates the literature, conducts interviews with shippers and motor carriers, and conducts case studies of road closures to determine what actually occurred on roadways during closures. The project also estimates a statistical model that relates weather severity to crash rates. Although, the statistical model is intended to illustrate the possibility to quantitatively relate measurable and predictable weather conditions to the safety performance of a roadway. In the future, weather conditions such as snow fall intensity, visibility, etc., can be used to make objective measures of the safety performance of a roadway rather than relying on subjective evaluations of field staff. The review of the literature and the interviews clearly illustrate that not all delays (increased travel time) are valued the same. Expected delays (routine delays) are valued at the generalized costs (value of the driver’s time, fuel, insurance, wear and tear on the vehicle, etc.), but unexpected delays are valued much higher because they result in interruption of synchronous activities at the trip’s destination. To reduce the costs of delays resulting from road closures, public agencies should communicate as early as possible the likelihood of a road closure.

Financial Markets and Real Ecinomy: Four Essays in International Trade

Financial markets play an important role in an economy performing various functions like mobilizing and pooling savings, producing information about investment opportunities, screening and monitoring investments, implementation of corporate governance, diversification and management of risk. These functions influence saving rates, investment decisions, technological innovation and, therefore, have important implications for welfare. In my PhD dissertation I examine the interplay of financial and product markets by looking at different channels through which financial markets may influence an economy.My dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter is a co-authored work with Martin Strieborny, a PhD student from the University of Lausanne. The second chapter is a co-authored work with Melise Jaud, a PhD student from the Paris School of Economics. The third chapter is co-authored with both Melise Jaud and Martin Strieborny. The last chapter of my PhD dissertation is a single author paper.Chapter 1 of my PhD thesis analyzes the effect of financial development on growth of contract intensive industries. These industries intensively use intermediate inputs that neither can be sold on organized exchange, nor are reference-priced (Levchenko, 2007; Nunn, 2007). A typical example of a contract intensive industry would be an industry where an upstream supplier has to make investments in order to customize a product for needs of a downstream buyer. After the investment is made and the product is adjusted, the buyer may refuse to meet a commitment and trigger ex post renegotiation. Since the product is customized to the buyer's needs, the supplier cannot sell the product to a different buyer at the original price. This is referred in the literature as the holdup problem. As a consequence, the individually rational suppliers will underinvest into relationship-specific assets, hurting the downstream firms with negative consequences for aggregate growth. The standard way to mitigate the hold up problem is to write a binding contract and to rely on the legal enforcement by the state. However, even the most effective contract enforcement might fail to protect the supplier in tough times when the buyer lacks a reliable source of external financing. This suggests the potential role of financial intermediaries, banks in particular, in mitigating the incomplete contract problem. First, financial products like letters of credit and letters of guarantee can substantially decrease a risk and transaction costs of parties. Second, a bank loan can serve as a signal about a buyer's true financial situation, an upstream firm will be more willing undertake relationship-specific investment knowing that the business partner is creditworthy and will abstain from myopic behavior (Fama, 1985; von Thadden, 1995). Therefore, a well-developed financial (especially banking) system should disproportionately benefit contract intensive industries.The empirical test confirms this hypothesis. Indeed, contract intensive industries seem to grow faster in countries with a well developed financial system. Furthermore, this effect comes from a more developed banking sector rather than from a deeper stock market. These results are reaffirmed examining the effect of US bank deregulation on the growth of contract intensive industries in different states. Beyond an overall pro-growth effect, the bank deregulation seems to disproportionately benefit the industries requiring relationship-specific investments from their suppliers.Chapter 2 of my PhD focuses on the role of the financial sector in promoting exports of developing countries. In particular, it investigates how credit constraints affect the ability of firms operating in agri-food sectors of developing countries to keep exporting to foreign markets.Trade in high-value agri-food products from developing countries has expanded enormously over the last two decades offering opportunities for development. However, trade in agri-food is governed by a growing array of standards. Sanitary and Phytosanitary standards (SPS) and technical regulations impose additional sunk, fixed and operating costs along the firms' export life. Such costs may be detrimental to firms' survival, "pricing out" producers that cannot comply. The existence of these costs suggests a potential role of credit constraints in shaping the duration of trade relationships on foreign markets. A well-developed financial system provides the funds to exporters necessary to adjust production processes in order to meet quality and quantity requirements in foreign markets and to maintain long-standing trade relationships. The products with higher needs for financing should benefit the most from a well functioning financial system. This differential effect calls for a difference-in-difference approach initially proposed by Rajan and Zingales (1998). As a proxy for demand for financing of agri-food products, the sanitary risk index developed by Jaud et al. (2009) is used. The empirical literature on standards and norms show high costs of compliance, both variable and fixed, for high-value food products (Garcia-Martinez and Poole, 2004; Maskus et al., 2005). The sanitary risk index reflects the propensity of products to fail health and safety controls on the European Union (EU) market. Given the high costs of compliance, the sanitary risk index captures the demand for external financing to comply with such regulations.The prediction is empirically tested examining the export survival of different agri-food products from firms operating in Ghana, Mali, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more financing to keep up with food safety regulation of the destination market, indeed sustain longer in foreign market, when they are exported from countries with better developed financial markets.Chapter 3 analyzes the link between financial markets and efficiency of resource allocation in an economy. Producing and exporting products inconsistent with a country's factor endowments constitutes a serious misallocation of funds, which undermines competitiveness of the economy and inhibits its long term growth. In this chapter, inefficient exporting patterns are analyzed through the lens of the agency theories from the corporate finance literature. Managers may pursue projects with negative net present values because their perquisites or even their job might depend on them. Exporting activities are particularly prone to this problem. Business related to foreign markets involves both high levels of additional spending and strong incentives for managers to overinvest. Rational managers might have incentives to push for exports that use country's scarce factors which is suboptimal from a social point of view. Export subsidies might further skew the incentives towards inefficient exporting. Management can divert the export subsidies into investments promoting inefficient exporting.Corporate finance literature stresses the disciplining role of outside debt in counteracting the internal pressures to divert such "free cash flow" into unprofitable investments. Managers can lose both their reputation and the control of "their" firm if the unpaid external debt triggers a bankruptcy procedure. The threat of possible failure to satisfy debt service payments pushes the managers toward an efficient use of available resources (Jensen, 1986; Stulz, 1990; Hart and Moore, 1995). The main sources of debt financing in the most countries are banks. The disciplining role of banks might be especially important in the countries suffering from insufficient judicial quality. Banks, in pursuing their rights, rely on comparatively simple legal interventions that can be implemented even by mediocre courts. In addition to their disciplining role, banks can promote efficient exporting patterns in a more direct way by relaxing credit constraints of producers, through screening, identifying and investing in the most profitable investment projects. Therefore, a well-developed domestic financial system, and particular banking system, would help to push a country's exports towards products congruent with its comparative advantage.This prediction is tested looking at the survival of different product categories exported to US market. Products are identified according to the Euclidian distance between their revealed factor intensity and the country's factor endowments. The results suggest that products suffering from a comparative disadvantage (labour-intensive products from capital-abundant countries) survive less on the competitive US market. This pattern is stronger if the exporting country has a well-developed banking system. Thus, a strong banking sector promotes exports consistent with a country comparative advantage.Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis further examines the role of financial markets in fostering efficient resource allocation in an economy. In particular, the allocative efficiency hypothesis is investigated in the context of equity market liberalization.Many empirical studies document a positive and significant effect of financial liberalization on growth (Levchenko et al. 2009; Quinn and Toyoda 2009; Bekaert et al., 2005). However, the decrease in the cost of capital and the associated growth in investment appears rather modest in comparison to the large GDP growth effect (Bekaert and Harvey, 2005; Henry, 2000, 2003). Therefore, financial liberalization may have a positive impact on growth through its effect on the allocation of funds across firms and sectors.Free access to international capital markets allows the largest and most profitable domestic firms to borrow funds in foreign markets (Rajan and Zingales, 2003). As domestic banks loose some of their best clients, they reoptimize their lending practices seeking new clients among small and younger industrial firms. These firms are likely to be more risky than large and established companies. Screening of customers becomes prevalent as the return to screening rises. Banks, ceteris paribus, tend to focus on firms operating in comparative-advantage sectors because they are better risks. Firms in comparative-disadvantage sectors finding it harder to finance their entry into or survival in export markets either exit or refrain from entering export markets. On aggregate, one should therefore expect to see less entry, more exit, and shorter survival on export markets in those sectors after financial liberalization.The paper investigates the effect of financial liberalization on a country's export pattern by comparing the dynamics of entry and exit of different products in a country export portfolio before and after financial liberalization.The results suggest that products that lie far from the country's comparative advantage set tend to disappear relatively faster from the country's export portfolio following the liberalization of financial markets. In other words, financial liberalization tends to rebalance the composition of a country's export portfolio towards the products that intensively use the economy's abundant factors.

‘A tiger that wants to become a lion’: Violent forms of agency among youth in Cape Verde

Cape Verdean prison population raised 100% in the last ten years: in this paper I offer an interpretation of this disturbing figure, addressing the issue of young offenders and children in conflict with the law, the perception of youth crime in Cape Verde, and how the government has recently dealt with these issues. Cape Verde currently deploys a repressive approach to the issue of youth crime: in this draconian context, I will follow the application of policies and laws targeting juvenile delinquents as well as the public and media discourse on the issue. At the same time, through interviews with younger inmates in prisons and institutions, I will relocate young offenders’ behavior and activity within their wider social context, providing urgently needed data on the cultural and social dimensions of juvenile offending and violence.

Cost of nursing turnover in a Teaching Hospital

Abstract OBJECTIVE To map the sub processes related to turnover of nursing staff and to investigate and measure the nursing turnover cost. METHOD This is a descriptive-exploratory study, classified as case study, conducted in a teaching hospital in the southeastern, Brazil, in the period from May to November 2013. The population was composed by the nursing staff, using Nursing Turnover Cost Calculation Methodology. RESULTS The total cost of turnover was R$314.605,62, and ranged from R$2.221,42 to R$3.073,23 per employee. The costs of pre-hire totaled R$101.004,60 (32,1%), and the hiring process consumed R$92.743,60 (91.8%) The costs of post-hire totaled R$213.601,02 (67,9%), for the sub process decreased productivity, R$199.982,40 (93.6%). CONCLUSION The study identified the importance of managing the cost of staff turnover and the financial impact of the cost of the employee termination, which represented three times the average salary of the nursing staff.