Lobbying, innovation and protectionist cycles

This paper explains why trade liberalizations occur in developing countries,and why they are often reversed. It does so by focusing on the use oflobbying for protection by import competing firms as a means to postponecostly product quality upgrades to keep up with foreign competitors. Giventhe availability of a political market for import tariffs, domestic firmswill lobby for a sequence of tariffs that insulate domestic profits from awidening quality gap, thereby allowing adjustment to be postponed. But asthe contributions required by the government grow with the size of thequality gap, it will be optimal to adjust quality and to decrease thelobbying effort at some time, leading to liberalization and technologicalcatch-up. But then the equilibrium tariff will again be small and "cheap",and it will pay to start lobbying anew, until the next quality adjustment.Therefore, cycles in protection will occur as a result of the use oflobbying as a substitute for innovation. The model thus sheds new light onthe impact of the costs of protection on the effectiveness of the lobbyingeffort over time, and on their implications for the timing and the timehorizon of trade reforms in developing countries.

Soil and Water Conservation Strategies in Cape Verde (Cabo Verde in Portuguese) and Their Impacts on Livelihoods - An Overview from the Ribeira Seca Watershed

Severe land degradation has strongly affected both people’s livelihood and the environment in Cape Verde (Cabo Verde in Portuguese), a natural resource poor country. Despite the enormous investment in soil and water conservation measures (SWC or SLM), which are visible throughout the landscape, and the recognition of their benefits, their biophysical and socioeconomic impacts have been poorly assessed and scientifically documented. This paper contributes to filling this gap, by bringing together insights from literature and policy review, field survey and participatory assessment in the Ribeira Seca Watershed through a concerted approach devised by the DESIRE project (the “Desire approach”). Specifically, we analyze government strategies towards building resilience against the harsh conditions, analyze the state of land degradation and its drivers, survey and map the existing SWC measures, and assess their effectiveness against land degradation, on crop yield and people’s livelihood. We infer that the relative success of Cape Verde in tackling desertification and rural poverty owes to an integrated governance strategy that comprises raising awareness, institutional framework development, financial resource allocation, capacity building, and active participation of rural communities. We recommend that specific, scientific-based monitoring and assessment studies be carried out on the biophysical and socioeconomic impact of SLM and that the “Desire approach” be scaled-up to other watersheds in the country.

Cape Verde - Diagnostic Trade Inttegration study Update - 2013

This Report is an update of the Cape Verde Diagnostic Trade Integration Study, titled Cape Verde’s Insertion into the Global Economy, produced and validated by the Government of Cape Verde in December 2008. Like the previous 2008 study, this Cape Verde Diagnostic Trade Integration Study Update provides a critical examination of the major institutional and production constraints that hinder Cape Verde’s ability to capitalize fully on the growth and welfare gains from its integration into the world economy. As a policy report, this study offers a set of priority policies and measures that can be implemented by both the public and private sectors to mitigate and surmount these supply side and institutional constraints. These recommendations are summarized in an Action Matrix. The Report is fruit of the generous support of the multi-donor program the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF). In every crisis there is an opportunity. Four years after the validation of the country’s first Diagnostic Trade Integration Study in 2008, Cape Verde finds itself in a drastically altered external environment. Cape Verde faces a worsened external environment than four years ago, when it was also traversing years of crisis as global food and energy prices escalated. Just as the country was validating its first trade study in late 2008, and celebrating its graduation from the list of Least Developed Countries, the onset of the deepest global recession in recent memory triggered an even worse external situation as the country’s principal source of markets, investments, remittances and aid, the Eurozone, unraveled economically and politically. As the Eurozone crisis spread, it was Cape Verde’s misfortune that the crisis contaminated precisely its biggest Eurozone partners and donors, such as Portugal, Spain and Italy. For such a highly dependent and exposed economy like that of Cape Verde, the deteriorating external sector has had a substantial negative impact on its macroeconomic performance. At the time of the validation workshop and graduation in 2008, no one could have foreseen or predicted the severity of the global crisis that followed. Despite traversing these years of adversity and external shocks, and suffering palpable setbacks, Cape Verde’s economy had proven surprisingly resilient, especially its principal sector, tourism. To its great credit, the country’s economic fundamentals are solid, and have been carefully and prudently managed over the years. For this reason alone, the country has thus far weathered the global and Eurozone crisis. Yet the near and medium term future remains uncertain. The country’s margin for maneuver has narrowed, its options far more limited, and hard choices lie ahead. Thus, there is no better time than now to analyze Cape Verde’s position in the global economy, and to examine the many challenges and opportunities it faces. The first diagnostic trade study outlined an ambitious agenda and set of policy strategies to enhance Cape Verde’s participation in the global economy. Written prior to the global crisis, the study did not, and could not, anticipate the scope and depth of the subsequent global and Eurozone crises. A few short months before the validation of the first DTIS Cape Verde joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). It has spent these four years adjusting to this status and implementing its commitments. At the same time, the country seeks greater economic integration with the European Union. Since 2008 the government has been investing heavily in the country’s economic infrastructure, focusing especially on fostering transformation in key sectors like agriculture, fisheries, tourism and creative industries. For these and many other reasons, it is both timely and urgent to review the road traveled since 2008. It is an opportune moment to reassess the country’s options, to rethink strategies, and to chart a new way forward that it is practical, implementable, and that builds on the country’s competitive advantages and current successes.

Experimental support for the make-up hypothesis in nestling tawny owls (Strix aluco)

Body condition can affect coloration of traits used in sexual selection and parent-offspring communication by inducing rapid internal changes in pigment concentration or aggregation, thickness of collagen arrays, or blood flux. The recent "makeup hypothesis" proposes an alternative honesty-reinforcing mechanism, with behaviorally mediated deposition of substances on body surfaces ("cosmetics") generating covariation between body condition and coloration. In birds, the uropygial gland wax is actively spread on feathers using the bill and changes in its deposition rate may cause rapid changes in bill and plumage coloration. Using tawny owl nestlings, we tested 3 predictions of the makeup hypothesis, namely that 1) quantity of preen wax deposited accounts for variation in bill coloration, 2) an immune stimulation (induced by injection of a lipopolysaccharide [LPS]) impairs uropygial gland wax production, and 3) different intensities of immune stimulations (strong vs. weak stimulations induced by injections of either LPS or phytohemagglutinin [PHA], respectively) and high versus low food availabilities result in different bill colorations. We found that 1) preen wax reduced bill brightness, 2) a challenge with LPS impaired uropygial gland development, and 3) nestlings challenged with LPS had a brighter bill than PHA-injected nestlings, whereas diet manipulation had no significant effect. Altogether, these results suggest that a strong immune challenge may decrease preen wax deposition rate on the bill of nestling birds, at least by impairing gland wax production, which causes a change in bill coloration. Our study therefore highlights that cosmetic colors might signal short-term variation in immunological status.

Genome-wide association study for coronary artery calcification with follow-up in myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND: Coronary artery calcification (CAC) detected by computed tomography is a noninvasive measure of coronary atherosclerosis, which underlies most cases of myocardial infarction (MI). We sought to identify common genetic variants associated with CAC and further investigate their associations with MI. METHODS AND RESULTS: Computed tomography was used to assess quantity of CAC. A meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies for CAC was performed in 9961 men and women from 5 independent community-based cohorts, with replication in 3 additional independent cohorts (n=6032). We examined the top single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with CAC quantity for association with MI in multiple large genome-wide association studies of MI. Genome-wide significant associations with CAC for SNPs on chromosome 9p21 near CDKN2A and CDKN2B (top SNP: rs1333049; P=7.58×10(-19)) and 6p24 (top SNP: rs9349379, within the PHACTR1 gene; P=2.65×10(-11)) replicated for CAC and for MI. Additionally, there is evidence for concordance of SNP associations with both CAC and MI at a number of other loci, including 3q22 (MRAS gene), 13q34 (COL4A1/COL4A2 genes), and 1p13 (SORT1 gene). CONCLUSIONS: SNPs in the 9p21 and PHACTR1 gene loci were strongly associated with CAC and MI, and there are suggestive associations with both CAC and MI of SNPs in additional loci. Multiple genetic loci are associated with development of both underlying coronary atherosclerosis and clinical events.

Fiat money, intrinsic properties and government transaction policy

Why do people coordinate on the use of valueless piecesof paper as generally accepted money? A possible answeris that these objects have intrinsic properties that make them better candidates to be used as media of exchange. Another answer stresses the fact that unconvertible fiat money will not easily appear unless there is a centralized institution that favors its use.The main objective of the paper is to analyze these questions. In order to do this, we take a model of commodity money in which fiat money does not play any significant role and modify it to examine under which circumstances fiat money might come to circulate as medium of exchange. Some of the results obtained from the model differ in a rather substantial way from previous related literature.

Understanding the effects of government spending on consumption

Recent evidence suggests that consumption rises in response to an increase in government spending. That finding cannot be easily reconciled with existing optimizing business cycle models. We extend the standard new Keynesian model to allow for the presence of rule-of-thumb consumers. We show how the interaction of the latter with sticky prices and deficit financing can account for the existing evidence on the effects of government spending.

Government consumption and private consumption correlations

This paper examines whether the introduction of government consumptionexpenditure in a standard one good model of the international real businesscycle is sufficient to reconcile the theory with the existing pattern ofinternational consumption and output correlations. I calibrate the model totwo different pairs of countries and generate the simulated distribution ofconsumption and output correlations implied by several specifications of themodel. It is shown that the model can account for existing internationalconsumption correlations only under very specific assumptions about the sizeof effect of government expenditure on agents' utility or the variabilityof government expenditure shocks. Crucial parameters are identified and thesensitivity of the results discussed.

Pitfalls to avoid when measuring institutions: Is "Doing Business" damaging business?

Over recent years, both governments and international aid organizations have been devoting large amounts of resources to simplifying the procedures for setting up and formalizing firms. Many of these actions have focused on reducing the initial costs of setting up the firm, disregarding the more important role of business registers as a source of reliable information for judges, government departments and, above all, other firms. This reliable information is essential for reducing transaction costs in future dealings with all sorts of economic agents, both public and private. The priorities of reform policies should therefore be thoroughly reviewed, stressing the value of the legal institutions rather than trivializing them as is often the case.

Effectiveness of career counseling: A one-year follow-up

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale (CAAS) in a French-speaking Swiss sample and its relationship with personality dimensions and work engagement. The heterogeneous sample of 391 participants (Mage = 39.59, SD = 12.30) completed the CAAS-International and a short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. To assess personality dimensions, participants completed either the Zuckerman-Kuhlman-Aluja Personality Questionnaire (n=283) or the NEO-FFI-R (n=108). The internal consistencies for the four subscales and total scores of the CAAS ranged from good to excellent, and skewness and kurtosis values indicated that scores were normally distributed. Gender differences and cor- relations with age were small or negligible. Several CFA models confirmed the factor structure of the French version of the CAAS-International, with loadings very similar to the ones observed for the international form. Adaptability was related to different personality dimensions, particularly neuroticism and conscientiousness, and also to work engagement. When predicting work engage- ment, career adaptability had a significant incremental validity over personality dimensions. Fi- nally, career adaptability partially moderated the relationship between personality and work engagement, suggesting that career adaptability also contributes to regulating the expression of personality dispositions.

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.

Rôle de l'imagerie dans le diagnostic et le suivi de la polyarthrite rhumatoïde [Role of imaging in the diagnosis and follow-up of rheumatoid arthritis].

Cross-sectional imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound are becoming essential tools not only for making an early diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, but also to help clarify the prognosis of the disease and better assess the response to various therapies. This article summarises the recommendations established in 2013 by the European League Against Rheumatism on the role of imaging in the diagnosis and follow-up of rheumatoid arthritis, while adding comments and emphasising on our Swiss experience with the use of ultrasound.

Banks, government bonds, and default: what do the data say?

We use data from Bankscope to analyze the holdings of public bonds by over 18,000 banks located in 185 countries and the role of these bonds in 18 sovereign debt crises over the period 1998-2012. We find that: (i) banks hold a sizeable share of their assets in government bonds (about 9% on average), particularly in less financially developed countries; (ii) during sovereign crises, banks on average increase their bondholdings by 1% of their assets, but this increase is concentrated among larger and more profitable banks, and; (iii) the correlation between a bank's holdings of public bonds and its future loans is positive in normal times, but turns negative during defaults. A 10% increase in bank bond-holdings during default is associated with a 3.2% reduction in future loans, and bonds bought in normal times account for 75% of this effect. Our results are consistent with the view that there is a liquidity benefit for banks to hold public bonds in normal times, which is critical for understanding bank fragility during sovereign crises.

State Government E85 Use Plan, December 31, 2007

Governor Culver issued Executive Order 3 on June 21st, 2007. The Executive Order directs that at least 60 percent of fuel purchases in state flexible fuel vehicles be E85 by June 30, 2009. The Order also directed “the Director of the Office of Energy Independence, in consultation with the Director of Administrative Services, shall submit a State Government E85 Use Plan.” The following recommendations are immediate actions that can be taken to ensure that the state reaches the Governor’s goal of 60 percent E85 fuel use by June 30, 2009