Decomposing Cross-Country Gaps in Obesity and Overweight: Does the Social Environment Matter?

[cat] Una qüestió clau sobre la producció de salut relativament poc explorada es refereix a la influència dels factors socioeconòmics i mediambientals sobre el pes i l’obesitat. Aquesta problemàtica adquireix particular rellevància quan es comparen dos països Mediterranis com Itàlia i Espanya. És interessant adonar-se que l’obesitat a Espanya és 5 punts percentual més elevada al 2003 mentre que a l’any 1990 era aproximadament la mateixa en ambdós països. Aquesta article presenta una descomposició no lineal dels gaps o diferencials en taxes de sobrepès (índex de massa corporal – IMC- entre 25 i 29.9 9 kg/m2), obesitat classe 1 (IMC≥30 kg/m2) i classe 2 (IMC≥35 kg/m2) entre Espanya i Itàlia per gènere i grups d’edat. En explicar aquests gaps entre països aïllem les influències dels estils de vida, els efectes socioeconòmics i els mediambientals. Els nostres resultats indiquen que quan no es controla pels efectes mediambientals (efectes de grup o ‘peer effects’) els hàbits alimentaris i el nivell educatiu són els principals predictors del gaps totals entre països (36-52%), si bé aquests dos factors exerceixen un impacte diferenciat segons gènere i edat. Un tant paradoxalment, quan controlem pels efectes de grup aquests predictors perden la seva capacitat explicativa i els efectes de grup passen a explicar entre el 46-76% dels gaps en sobrepès i obesitat i mostren un patró creixent amb l’edat.

Geographical determinants of the creation of manufacturing firms: The regions of Spain

La complexitat dels mecanismes que determinen l'entrada i la sortida de signatures augmenta quan diferències geogràfiques de l'estructura de producció, la capital humana i l'atur són considerades. Variacions interregionals en la tarifa de les noves de signatures dintre de cada activitat industrial persisteixen durant els períodes llargs de temps, una circumstància que indica que hi ha determinants no-conjunturals en la capacitat de regions per a crear nous projectes industrials. Aquest estudi està preocupat amb l'establiment d'influència variables geogràfiques sobre la fundació de nous establiments de la fabricació. Les indústries (NEIX la R 25) en les regions espanyoles (el BOIG 2) han estat preses com les unitats d'anàlisis per al període 1980-1992

Regional structure of wages and external economies in Spain

Regional data on wages for the Spanish economy show that workers who live in developed regions earn more than workers in other regions.Literature on external economies provides a possible explanation of why firms do not move from these regions to others where wages are lower. Previous studies for the Spanish case use aggregated sectoral data to explain in terms of external economies why average wages are different across regions. The originalcontribution of this paper consists of using individual data to detect the existenceand nature of external economies as an explanatory cause of territorial wagedifferences. With this aim, we have used individual data from the EPF 1990-91(INE). This information permits us to control the influence of individual and jobcharacteristics on wages to, first, detect the existence of external economies and,second, to test alternative explanations of their presence. The empirical evidenceobtained confirms the relevance of territorial external economies and their influence on wages, as a result of improvements in the productive efficiency of the firm. In concrete terms, the more relevant external economies are associatedwith the regional human capital stock and geographical productive specialisation

Networks of people in specialty production: family firms in the iron and steel Wire industries in Spain (1870-2000)

Capital intensive industries in specialized niches of production have constituted solid ground for family firms in Spain , as evidenced by the experience of the iron and steel wire industries between 1870 and 2000. The embeddedness of these firms in their local and regional environments have allowed the creation of networks that, together with favourable institutional conditions, significantly explain the dominance of family entrepreneurship in iron and steel wire manufacturing in Spain, until the end of the 20 th century. Dominance of family firms at the regional level has not been not an obstacle for innovation in wire manufacturing in Spain, which has taken place even when institutional conditions blocked innovation and traditional networking. Therefore, economic theories about the difficulties dynastic family firms may have to perform appropriately in science-based industries must be questioned

Iowa State Fair Campgrounds: Country Comfort, Big City Style, 2007

This brochure describes the campground and facilities on the Iowa State Fairgrounds. It also includes a map and contact information.

Chronofunctions of Heilu soil developed from Loess in Luochuan, on the chinese Loess plateau

Soil chronofunctions are an alternative for the quantification of soil-forming processes and underlie the modeling of soil genesis. To establish soil chronofunctions of a Heilu soil profile on Loess in Luochuan, selected soil properties and the 14C ages in the Holocene were studied. Linear, logarithmic, and third-order polynomial functions were selected to fit the relationships between soil properties and ages. The results indicated that third-order polynomial function fit best for the relationships between clay (< 0.002 mm), silt (0.002-0.02 mm), sand (0.02-2 mm) and soil ages, and a trend of an Ah horizon ocurrence in the profile. The logarithmic function indicated mainly variations of soil organic carbon and pH with time (soil age). The variation in CaCO3 content, Mn/Zr, Fe/Zr, K/Zr, Mg/Zr, Ca/Zr, P/Zr, and Na/Zr ratios with soil age were best described by three-order polynomial functions, in which the trend line showed migration of CaCO3 and some elements.

Physical and chemical attributes of archaeological soils developed from shell middens in the Região dos Lagos, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In prehistoric times, innumerous shell middens, called "sambaquis", consisting mainly of remains of marine organisms, were built along the Brazilian coast. Although the scientific community took interest in these anthropic formations, especially since the nineteenth century, their pedological context is still poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to characterize and identify the physical and chemical changes induced by soil-forming processes, as well as to compare the morphology of shell midden soils with other, already described, anthropogenic soils of Brazil. Four soil profiles developed from shell middens in the Região dos Lagos - RJ were morphologically described and the physical and chemical properties determined. The chemical analysis showed that Ca, Mn, Mg, and particularly P and Zn are indicators of anthropic horizons of midden soils, as in the Amazon Dark Earths (Terras Pretas de Índio). After the deposition of P-rich material, P reaction and leaching can mask or disturb the evidence of in situ man-made strata, but mineralogical and chemical studies of phosphate forms can elucidate the apparent complexity. Lower phosphate-rich strata without direct anthropic inputs indicate P leaching and precipitation in secondary forms. The total and bioavailable contents of Ca, Mg, Zn, Mn, Cu, P, and organic C of midden soils were much higher than of regional soils without influence of ancient human settlements, demonstrating that the high fertility persisted for long periods, at some sites for more than 4000 years. The physical analysis showed that wind-blown sand contributed significantly to increase the sand fraction in the analyzed soils (texture classes sand, sandy loam and sandy clay loam) and that the aeolian sand accumulation occurred simultaneously with the midden formation.

Parents' willingness to pay for diminishing children's pain during blood sampling.

BACKGROUND: Blood sampling is a frequent medical procedure, very often considered as a stressful experience by children. Local anesthetics have been developed, but are expensive and not reimbursed by insurance companies in our country. We wanted to assess parents' willingness to pay (WTP) for this kind of drug. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Over 6 months, all parents of children presenting for general (GV) or specialized visit (SV) with blood sampling. WTP was assessed through three scenarios [avoiding blood sampling (ABS), using the drug on prescription (PD), or over the counter (OTC)], with a payment card system randomized to ascending or descending order of prices (AO or DO). RESULTS: Fifty-six responses were collected (34 GV, 22 SV, 27 AO and 29 DO), response rate 40%. Response distribution was wide, with median WTP of 40 for ABS, 25 for PD, 10 for OTC, which is close to the drug's real price. Responses were similar for GV and SV. Median WTP amounted to 0.71, 0.67, 0.20% of respondents' monthly income for the three scenarios, respectively, with a maximum at 10%. CONCLUSIONS: Assessing parents' WTP in an outpatient setting is difficult, with wide result distribution, but median WTP is close to the real drug price. This finding could be used to promote insurance coverage for this drug.

Eight years experience from a skeletal dysplasia referral center in a tertiary hospital in Southern India: A model for the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases in a developing country.

We report on a series of 514 consecutive diagnoses of skeletal dysplasia made over an 8-year period at a tertiary hospital in Kerala, India. The most common diagnostic groups were dysostosis multiplex group (n = 73) followed by FGFR3 (n = 49) and osteogenesis imperfecta and decreased bone density group (n = 41). Molecular confirmation was obtained in 109 cases. Clinical and radiographic evaluation was obtained in close diagnostic collaboration with expert groups abroad through Internet communication for difficult cases. This has allowed for targeted biochemical and molecular studies leading to the correct identification of rare or novel conditions, which has not only helped affected families by allowing for improved genetic counseling and prenatal diagnosis but also resulted in several scientific contributions. We conclude that (1) the spectrum of genetic bone disease in Kerala, India, is similar to that of other parts of the world, but recessive entities may be more frequent because of widespread consanguinity; (2) prenatal detection of skeletal dysplasias remains relatively rare because of limited access to expert prenatal ultrasound facilities; (3) because of the low accessibility to molecular tests, precise clinical-radiographic phenotyping remains the mainstay of diagnosis and counseling and of gatekeeping to efficient laboratory testing; (4) good phenotyping allows, a significant contribution to the recognition and characterization of novel entities. We suggest that the tight collaboration between a local reference center with dedicated personnel and expert diagnostic networks may be a proficient model to bring current diagnostics to developing countries. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Looking for orders of magnitude : five essays in trade and the environment and economic geography

General Summary Although the chapters of this thesis address a variety of issues, the principal aim is common: test economic ideas in an international economic context. The intention has been to supply empirical findings using the largest suitable data sets and making use of the most appropriate empirical techniques. This thesis can roughly be divided into two parts: the first one, corresponding to the first two chapters, investigates the link between trade and the environment, the second one, the last three chapters, is related to economic geography issues. Environmental problems are omnipresent in the daily press nowadays and one of the arguments put forward is that globalisation causes severe environmental problems through the reallocation of investments and production to countries with less stringent environmental regulations. A measure of the amplitude of this undesirable effect is provided in the first part. The third and the fourth chapters explore the productivity effects of agglomeration. The computed spillover effects between different sectors indicate how cluster-formation might be productivity enhancing. The last chapter is not about how to better understand the world but how to measure it and it was just a great pleasure to work on it. "The Economist" writes every week about the impressive population and economic growth observed in China and India, and everybody agrees that the world's center of gravity has shifted. But by how much and how fast did it shift? An answer is given in the last part, which proposes a global measure for the location of world production and allows to visualize our results in Google Earth. A short summary of each of the five chapters is provided below. The first chapter, entitled "Unraveling the World-Wide Pollution-Haven Effect" investigates the relative strength of the pollution haven effect (PH, comparative advantage in dirty products due to differences in environmental regulation) and the factor endowment effect (FE, comparative advantage in dirty, capital intensive products due to differences in endowments). We compute the pollution content of imports using the IPPS coefficients (for three pollutants, namely biological oxygen demand, sulphur dioxide and toxic pollution intensity for all manufacturing sectors) provided by the World Bank and use a gravity-type framework to isolate the two above mentioned effects. Our study covers 48 countries that can be classified into 29 Southern and 19 Northern countries and uses the lead content of gasoline as proxy for environmental stringency. For North-South trade we find significant PH and FE effects going in the expected, opposite directions and being of similar magnitude. However, when looking at world trade, the effects become very small because of the high North-North trade share, where we have no a priori expectations about the signs of these effects. Therefore popular fears about the trade effects of differences in environmental regulations might by exaggerated. The second chapter is entitled "Is trade bad for the Environment? Decomposing worldwide SO2 emissions, 1990-2000". First we construct a novel and large database containing reasonable estimates of SO2 emission intensities per unit labor that vary across countries, periods and manufacturing sectors. Then we use these original data (covering 31 developed and 31 developing countries) to decompose the worldwide SO2 emissions into the three well known dynamic effects (scale, technique and composition effect). We find that the positive scale (+9,5%) and the negative technique (-12.5%) effect are the main driving forces of emission changes. Composition effects between countries and sectors are smaller, both negative and of similar magnitude (-3.5% each). Given that trade matters via the composition effects this means that trade reduces total emissions. We next construct, in a first experiment, a hypothetical world where no trade happens, i.e. each country produces its imports at home and does no longer produce its exports. The difference between the actual and this no-trade world allows us (under the omission of price effects) to compute a static first-order trade effect. The latter now increases total world emissions because it allows, on average, dirty countries to specialize in dirty products. However, this effect is smaller (3.5%) in 2000 than in 1990 (10%), in line with the negative dynamic composition effect identified in the previous exercise. We then propose a second experiment, comparing effective emissions with the maximum or minimum possible level of SO2 emissions. These hypothetical levels of emissions are obtained by reallocating labour accordingly across sectors within each country (under the country-employment and the world industry-production constraints). Using linear programming techniques, we show that emissions are reduced by 90% with respect to the worst case, but that they could still be reduced further by another 80% if emissions were to be minimized. The findings from this chapter go together with those from chapter one in the sense that trade-induced composition effect do not seem to be the main source of pollution, at least in the recent past. Going now to the economic geography part of this thesis, the third chapter, entitled "A Dynamic Model with Sectoral Agglomeration Effects" consists of a short note that derives the theoretical model estimated in the fourth chapter. The derivation is directly based on the multi-regional framework by Ciccone (2002) but extends it in order to include sectoral disaggregation and a temporal dimension. This allows us formally to write present productivity as a function of past productivity and other contemporaneous and past control variables. The fourth chapter entitled "Sectoral Agglomeration Effects in a Panel of European Regions" takes the final equation derived in chapter three to the data. We investigate the empirical link between density and labour productivity based on regional data (245 NUTS-2 regions over the period 1980-2003). Using dynamic panel techniques allows us to control for the possible endogeneity of density and for region specific effects. We find a positive long run elasticity of density with respect to labour productivity of about 13%. When using data at the sectoral level it seems that positive cross-sector and negative own-sector externalities are present in manufacturing while financial services display strong positive own-sector effects. The fifth and last chapter entitled "Is the World's Economic Center of Gravity Already in Asia?" computes the world economic, demographic and geographic center of gravity for 1975-2004 and compares them. Based on data for the largest cities in the world and using the physical concept of center of mass, we find that the world's economic center of gravity is still located in Europe, even though there is a clear shift towards Asia. To sum up, this thesis makes three main contributions. First, it provides new estimates of orders of magnitudes for the role of trade in the globalisation and environment debate. Second, it computes reliable and disaggregated elasticities for the effect of density on labour productivity in European regions. Third, it allows us, in a geometrically rigorous way, to track the path of the world's economic center of gravity.

Association between smoking and total energy expenditure in a multi-country study.

BACKGROUND: The association between smoking and total energy expenditure (TEE) is still controversial. We examined this association in a multi-country study where TEE was measured in a subset of participants by the doubly labeled water (DLW) method, the gold standard for this measurement. METHODS: This study includes 236 participants from five different African origin populations who underwent DLW measurements and had complete data on the main covariates of interest. Self-reported smoking status was categorized as either light (<7 cig/day) or high (≥7 cig/day). Lean body mass was assessed by deuterium dilution and physical activity (PA) by accelerometry. RESULTS: The prevalence of smoking was 55% in men and 16% in women with a median of 6.5 cigarettes/day. There was a trend toward lower BMI in smokers than non-smokers (not statistically significant). TEE was strongly correlated with fat-free mass (men: 0.70; women: 0.79) and with body weight (0.59 in both sexes). Using linear regression and adjusting for body weight, study site, age, PA, alcohol intake and occupation, TEE was larger in high smokers than in never smokers among men (difference of 298 kcal/day, p = 0.045) but not among women (162 kcal/day, p = 0.170). The association became slightly weaker in men (254 kcal/day, p = 0.058) and disappeared in women (-76 kcal/day, p = 0.380) when adjusting for fat-free mass instead of body weight. CONCLUSION: There was an association between smoking and TEE among men. However, the lack of an association among women, which may be partly related to the small number of smoking women, also suggests a role of unaccounted confounding factors.

Planosols Developed in Different Geoenvironmental Conditions in Northeastern Brazil

ABSTRACT The semiarid region of northeastern Brazil has a large area occupied by Planosols, where in the State of Pernambuco these soils are mainly used for livestock farming and subsistence crops. The knowledge on these soils is limited, which compromises the understanding on their behavior, potentialities and limitations.This study aimed to analyze morphological, chemical, physical and mineralogical attributes of Planosols developed under different geoenvironmental conditions. Morphological descriptions and chemical, physical and mineralogical analyses were performed in four profiles of Planosols along a rainfall gradient. An increase in rainfall allowed for an increase in the clay content in the Bt horizon and a reduction in ESP, EC, Na+, CEC, S, pH (water and KCl) and soil density. Horizons A and E were thicker in Planosols in more humid environments. The increase in ESP associated with the presence of expansive minerals (smectite and vermiculite) allowed the development of a prismatic structure in Haplic Planosols and a columnar structure in Natric Planosols. The mineralogical assembly is indicative of poorly weathered soils. The mineralogical assemblies of the silt and clay fractions were similar in the different geoenvironments, while higher contents of easily alterable minerals were observed in the composition of the sand fraction in environments with a drier climate.