Susceptibility, d13C and Iron of Site 171-1051

Current models of the global carbon cycle lack natural mechanisms to explain known large, transient shifts in past records of the stable carbon-isotope ratio (delta13C) of carbon reservoirs. The injection into the atmosphere of ~1,200-2,000 gigatons of carbon, as methane from the decomposition of sedimentary methane hydrates, has been proposed to explain a delta13C anomaly associated with high-latitude warming and changes in marine and terrestrial biota near the Palaeocene-Eocene boundary, about 55 million years ago. These events may thus be considered as a natural 'experiment' on the effects of transient greenhouse warming. Here we use physical, chemical and spectral analyses of a sediment core from the western North Atlantic Ocean to show that two-thirds of the carbon-isotope anomaly occurred within no more than a few thousand years, indicating that carbon was catastrophically released into the ocean and atmosphere. Both the delta13C anomaly and biotic changes began between 54.93 and 54.98 million years ago, and are synchronous in oceans and on land. The longevity of the delta13C anomaly suggests that the residence time of carbon in the Palaeocene global carbon cycle was ~120 thousand years, which is similar to the modelled response after a massive input of methane. Our results suggest that large natural perturbations to the global carbon cycle have occurred in the past-probably by abrupt failure of sedimentary carbon reservoirs-at rates that are similar to those induced today by human activity.

Task sharing within a managed clinical network to improve child health in Malawi

BACKGROUND: Eighty per cent of Malawi's 8 million children live in rural areas, and there is an extensive tiered health system infrastructure from village health clinics to district hospitals which refers patients to one of the four central hospitals. The clinics and district hospitals are staffed by nurses, non-physician clinicians and recently qualified doctors. There are 16 paediatric specialists working in two of the four central hospitals which serve the urban population as well as accepting referrals from district hospitals. In order to provide expert paediatric care as close to home as possible, we describe our plan to task share within a managed clinical network and our hypothesis that this will improve paediatric care and child health.

PRESENTATION OF THE HYPOTHESIS: Managed clinical networks have been found to improve equity of care in rural districts and to ensure that the correct care is provided as close to home as possible. A network for paediatric care in Malawi with mentoring of non-physician clinicians based in a district hospital by paediatricians based at the central hospitals will establish and sustain clinical referral pathways in both directions. Ultimately, the plan envisages four managed paediatric clinical networks, each radiating from one of Malawi's four central hospitals and covering the entire country. This model of task sharing within four hub-and-spoke networks may facilitate wider dissemination of scarce expertise and improve child healthcare in Malawi close to the child's home.

TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS: Funding has been secured to train sufficient personnel to staff all central and district hospitals in Malawi with teams of paediatric specialists in the central hospitals and specialist non-physician clinicians in each government district hospital. The hypothesis will be tested using a natural experiment model. Data routinely collected by the Ministry of Health will be corroborated at the district. This will include case fatality rates for common childhood illness, perinatal mortality and process indicators. Data from different districts will be compared at baseline and annually until 2020 as the specialists of both cadres take up posts.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE HYPOTHESIS: If a managed clinical network improves child healthcare in Malawi, it may be a potential model for the other countries in sub-Saharan Africa with similar cadres in their healthcare system and face similar challenges in terms of scarcity of specialists.

From Crisis to Opportunity: Turnaround Strategies of Large Irish Construction Contractors During the Period 2007-2015.

The sudden change in environmental munificence level in the construction sector
during the period 2007 – 2015 provides a natural experiment to investigate strategic
and operating actions of firms, particularly during an environmental jolt. Statistics on
business failures corroborate that neither academics nor practitioners have succeeded
in guiding strategic action during periods of environmental jolt. Despite the recent
increase of turnaround research in the general management domain, its use in the
construction management realm remains underexplored. To address this research
gap, five exploratory case studies of an ongoing PhD study were used to examine the
turnaround strategies of construction contractors during a period of economic
contraction and growth. The findings show that, although retrenchment is often
considered to be a short-term strategy, this is clearly not the case; with the majority of
contractors maintaining the strategy for 6-7 years. During the same period,
internationalization became critical, with the turnaround process shifting towards
strategic reorientation that altered the firms' market domain. The case studies further
suggest that strategic and operational actions resonate quite well with contemporary
practice-based approaches to strategy making. The findings provide valuable
assistance for construction contractors in dealing with organisational decline and in
developing a successful turnaround response.

Essays on Corruption and Enforcement

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Effects of subsidizing the first employee – Empirical evidence from Finland

Small businesses form a significant share of all businesses and employ a large share of all employees. Therefore, governments are often interested in subsidizing them and especially employment in smaller firms. Nonemployer firms have received special interest, especially in Finland, due to their large share of all businesses. It has been argued that the government should encourage them to hire by subsidizing employment. However, there is no evidence on the effectiveness of such policies. In general, there is surprisingly little evidence on how small firms react to employment subsidies or of employment subsidies targeted according to firm characteristics. The subject of this thesis is the effects of subsidizing the first employee. While theoretical background suggests the subsidy might have efficiency gains, because there might be market inefficiencies that lead to too little employment in small firms. The focus of this research, however, is on the empirical evidence. There was a regional subsidy for hiring the first employee in Finland between 2007 and 2011. Nonemployer firms in the subsidy area were eligible for a wage subsidy for two years when they hired the first employee. The design of the subsidy enables studying the effects in a natural experiment framework that are nowadays popular in public economics. It can be shown that the area without the subsidy provides a good counterfactual to the area where the subsidy was available. Therefore, the effects of the subsidy can be estimated with difference-in-differences method. This method compares the change in the subsidy area to the change in the area without the subsidy. The data used is firm level data spanning from 2000 to 2013. The data is provided by the Finnish Tax Administration including tax declarations by all Finland based companies. The effects for hiring decisions are estimated by examining the effects for alternative variables such as employment, wage expenditure and turnover. According to the results, the subsidy did not have statistically significant effect on any of the variables of interest. Therefore, it can be concluded that the subsidy did not increase hires in nonemployer firms. This implies that the labour demand elasticity of nonemployer firms is very small. The results are in line with previous literature on the effectiveness of general employment subsidies in Scandinavia that suggest that labour demand elasticity is rather small resulting in small or no effects of employment subsidies. However, my research provides new evidence on labour demand of nonemployer firms especially that has not been studied before. The results are in line with the observation that most nonemployer firms are self-employed persons who are not interested in growing their business to employ others as well, but only provide for themselves. Because of this employment subsidies to the self-employed are not particularly well targeted. The theoretical grounds for the subsidy actually hold for other small firms as well, so it can be argued the subsidy would be more effective if it was extended for hiring the first few employees.

Essays in Corporate Finance

Prior research has been divided regarding how firms respond to bankruptcy risk, largely revolving around two competing forces. On the one hand, asset substitution encourages firms to increase the riskiness of assets to extract value from creditors. On the other, firms want to minimize bankruptcy risk, either by reducing cash flow risk or through increasing the size of the firm. I test these two theories using a natural experiment of chemicals used in production processes being newly identified as carcinogenic to explore how firms may respond to potential negative cash flow resulting from litigation risk. I use plantlevel chemical data to study firm exposure to risk. I examine how responses between firms of differing levels of chemical exposure may vary within the industry, how firm financial distress affects firm response and whether public and private firms respond differently. In general, my research provides support for the asset substitution theory. My first paper studies how investment response varies based on level of carcinogenic exposure. I find that firms with moderate levels of exposure make efforts to mitigate their cash flow risk and reduce their exposure. At the same time, firms with high levels of exposure increase their exposure and riskiness of future cash flows. These findings are consistent with asset substitution theory. My second paper analyzes the interaction of financial distress and risk exposure. I find that firms in a stronger financial position are more likely to limit their exposure by reducing the number of exposed facilities. On the other hand, not only do firms in weaker financial position not decrease their exposure, I find that, in some instances, they increase their exposure to carcinogens. This work again supports the theory of asset substitution. Finally, in my third paper, I explore if public firms respond differently to a potential negative cash flow shock than do private firms. I test whether existing public firms are more likely to attempt to minimize their cash flow risk and thus reduce their carcinogen exposure than are private firms. I do not find evidence that public firms respond differently to this shock than do private firms.

Three essays on corporate taxation : financial reporting, value, and firm creation

Doutoramento em Gestão

The effect of ambient scent on moviegoers’ behavior

Atmospheres influence behavior, create a positive image, and influence consumer purchasing patterns and retail perceptions. Nonetheless, the physical environment is a potential source of competitive advantage, though neglected more often than not. In particular, research on the effects of aroma as an independent variable in natural settings is very limited and requires further research. A sample of 407 moviegoers participated in a “natural experiment” in a cinema complex, using scented and unscented conditions. Findings show that scent produces significant positive differences in the evaluation of the theater, its environment, and on intention to return. No significant differences are found in the evaluations of concession products sold, despite the fact that spectators in scented rooms considered product prices to be significantly cheaper than did spectators in unscented rooms. A major implication of this study is that scent significantly affects emotional reactions to atmospheres. Retailers can thus improve environments to create enjoyable experiences and positively influence consumer responses.

Salud sexual y reproductiva: aspectos de análisis para el departamento de Casanare

La sexualidad y la reproducción están íntimamente ligadas a la calidad de vida, tanto en el ámbito de lo individual como de lo social, por tanto la salud sexual y reproductiva representa un componente esencial para la evaluación de desarrollo de un país, y un tema prioritario en la agenda política mundial y nacional como lo evidencian los objetivos del milenio y de desarrollo sostenible; aunque el país ha dado enormes avances en el tema, aun se presentan grandes retos para el logro y goce efectivo de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en la población. El objetivo del presente estudio es describir y analizar algunos indicadores de salud sexual y reproductiva en el departamento de Casanare, en el periodo 2008- 2015. Como metodología se usó un diseño descriptivo trasversal, los datos fueron tomados de Sivigila departamental, Estadísticas DANE y del Instituto Nacional de Salud. Se usó SPSS versión 18 y Excel para el análisis de los datos. Como resultados se encontraron altas tasas de prevalencia e incidencia para VIH, sífilis gestacional, y fecundidad en adolescentes en el departamento de Casanare que sobrepasan los indicadores nacionales y presentan tendencia creciente

The role of cell-surface-bound phosphatases in species competition within natural phytoplankton assemblage: an in situ experiment

Despite it is widely acknowledged that the ability to hydrolyze dissolved organic matter using extracellular phosphatases is diverse in fresh water phytoplankton, the competition within single species related to presence and quantity of cell-surface-bound phosphatases has not been examined in natural conditions yet. Here, we studied phytoplankton species competition in a freshwater reservoir during an in situ experiment. A natural plankton community, with the exclusion of large zooplankton, was enclosed in permeable dialysis bags inside two large containers of different bioavailable phosphate concentrations. Phytoplankton species biomass and the abundance of bacteria were determined in purpose to compare the development of enclosed microbial communities. Total and cell-surface-bound phosphatase activities in the phytoplankton were investigated using the Fluorescently Labelled Enzyme Activity (FLEA) technique that allows for direct microscopic detection of phosphatase-positive cells and, with image cytometry, enables quantification of phosphatase hydrolytic capacity. Production of extracellular phosphatases was not completely inhibited or stopped in the phosphate-enriched environment, phytoplankton cells only showed the activity less often. Under the phosphate-nonenriched conditions, the production of phosphatases was enhanced, but active species did not proliferate amongst phytoplankton assemblage. Further, specific growth rates of the phosphatase-positive species in the non-enriched environment were lower than the same phosphatase-positive species in phosphate-enriched environment. Interestingly, the phosphatase-positive cells of Ankyra ancora increased their size in both treatments equally, although the population in phosphate-enriched environment grew much faster and the cell-specific phosphatase activity was lower. We hypothesize that brand new daughter cells had sufficient phosphorus reserves and therefore did not employ extracellular phosphatases until they matured and needed extra bioavailable phosphorus to support their metabolism before cell division. Based on presented in situ experiment, we propose that the ability to hydrolyze organic polymers and particles with cell-surface-hound phosphatases is advantageous for longer persistence of given population in a phosphate-scarce environment; although phosphatase-positive species cannot dominate the reservoir phytoplankton solely because of specific phosphorus-scavenging strategy.

Compensation and Rewards for Environmental Services (CRES) and efficient design of contracts in developing countries. Behavioral insights from a natural field experiment

The use of economic incentives for biodiversity (mostly Compensation and Reward for Environmental Services including Payment for ES) has been widely supported in the past decades and became the main innovative policy tools for biodiversity conservation worldwide. These policy tools are often based on the insight that rational actors perfectly weigh the costs and benefits of adopting certain behaviors and well-crafted economic incentives and disincentives will lead to socially desirable development scenarios. This rationalist mode of thought has provided interesting insights and results, but it also misestimates the context by which ‘real individuals’ come to decisions, and the multitude of factors influencing development sequences. In this study, our goal is to examine how these policies can take advantage of some unintended behavioral reactions that might in return impact, either positively or negatively, general policy performances. We test the effect of income's origin (‘Low effort’ based money vs. ‘High effort’ based money) on spending decisions (Necessity vs. Superior goods) and subsequent pro social preferences (Future pro-environmental behavior) within Madagascar rural areas, using a natural field experiment. Our results show that money obtained under low effort leads to different consumption patterns than money obtained under high efforts: superior goods are more salient in the case of low effort money. In parallel, money obtained under low effort leads to subsequent higher pro social behavior. Compensation and rewards policies for ecosystem services may mobilize knowledge on behavioral biases to improve their design and foster positive spillovers on their development goals.

Do Information, Price, or Morals Influence Ethical Consumption? A Natural Field Experiment and Customer Survey on the Purchase of Fair Trade Coffee

We address ethical consumption using a natural field experiment on the actual purchase of Fair Trade (FT) coffee in three supermarkets in Germany. Based on a quasi-experimental before-and-after design the effects of three different treatments – information, 20% price reduction, and a moral appeal – are analyzed. Sales data cover actual ethical purchase behavior and avoid problems of social desirability. But they offer only limited insights into the motivations of individual consumers. We therefore complemented the field experiment with a customer survey that allows us to contrast observed (ethical) buying behavior with self-reported FT consumption. Results from the experiment suggest that only the price reduction had the expected positive and statistically significant effect on FT consumption.