Worker Sorting, Compensating Differentials and Health Insurance: Evidence from Displaced Workers

This article introduces an empirical strategy to the compensating differentials literature that i) allows both individual observed and unobserved characteristics to be rewarded differently in firms based on health insurance provision, and ii) selection to jobs that provide benefits to operate on both sides of the labor market. Estimates of this model are used to directly test empirical assumptions that are made with popular econometric strategies in the health economics literature. Our estimates reject the assumptions underlying numerous cross sectional and longitudinal estimators. We find that the provision of health insurance has influenced wage inequality. Finally, our results suggest there have been substantial changes in how displaced workers sort to firms that offer health insurance benefits over the past two decades. We discuss the implications of our findings for the compensating differentials literature.

Worker Sorting, Health Insurance and Wages: Further Evidence from Displaced Workers in the United States

The United States has the distinction of being the only industrialized nation without universal health insurance. Health insurance may have impacts on the US labor market. We use data on displaced workers over a 25 year period to document how the role of health insurance on wages and worker sorting has evolved. We find that the provision of health insurance increasingly influences wage inequality. Our results indicate that the portion of the unadjusted wage gap due only to selection bias from unobserved (to the analyst) characteristics, such as ability or innate health status has grown rapidly since 2000. Further, while there have been substantial changes in how displaced workers sort to firms that offer health insurance benefits over the last 25 years, many of the patterns have reversed directions over the past six years. Finally, we discuss the policy implications of our results.Health insurance; Worker sorting; Displacement; Comparative advantage; Non-linear instrumental variables

Productivity in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology R&D: The Role of Experience and Alliances

Using data on over 900 firms for the period 1988-2000, we estimate the effect on phase-specific biotech and pharmaceutical R&D success rates of a firm's overall experience, its experience in the relevant therapeutic category; the diversification of its experience, and alliances with large and small firms. We find that success probabilities vary substantially across therapeutic categories and are negatively correlated with mean sales by category, which is consistent with a model of dynamic, competitive entry. Returns to experience are statistically significant but economically small for the relatively straightforward phase 1 trials. We find evidence of large, positive, and diminishing returns to a firm's overall experience (across all therapeutic categories) for the larger and more complex late-stage trials that focus on a drug's efficacy. There is some evidence that a drug is more likely to complete phase 2 if developed by firms with considerable therapeutic category-specific experience and by firms whose experience is focused rather than broad (diseconomies of scope). Our results confirm that products developed in an alliance tend to have a higher probability of success, at least for the more complex phase 2 and phase 3 trials, and particularly if the licensee is a large firm.

Documentação colaborativa de software através de anotações contextuais.

A documentação de software, apesar de nos dias de hoje ainda ser considerada secundária em relação a outros artefactos resultantes do processo de desenvolvimento, desempenha um papel fundamental no uso eficaz e na compreensão do software. O processo de desenvolvimento de software tem sofrido evolução ao longo dos tempos, sendo hoje em dia geralmente uma atividade cada vez mais social, nomeadamente quando se olha para frameworks populares na web. Contudo, os mesmos princípios são aplicáveis a equipas mais pequenas e ágeis. Neste contexto, uma documentação minimalista, onde apenas se cria o conteúdo mínimo necessário e que vai evoluindo de acordo com as necessidades dos utilizadores, tem vindo a ser prática cada vez mais utilizada. A interação e comunicação entre leitores e autores, com o intuito de debater que alterações se devem fazer à documentação, é fulcral para essa evolução.O principal objetivo desta dissertação é mostrar que essa comunicação pode ser melhorada, nomeadamente com o uso de anotações contextuais na documentação. Para o alcançar, foi desenvolvida uma wiki, que irá servir de plataforma para a documentação colaborativa de software.A essa wiki foi adicionada a possibilidade de adicionar comentários a uma página e anotações a secções específicas, criando um ambiente propício à discussão entre leitores e autores.Finalmente, de modo a comprovar que a ferramenta desenvolvida cumpre o seu objetivo de melhorar a comunicação entre os vários intervenientes, esta será testada numa pequena equipa de desenvolvimento de software.Software documentation, despite still being considered secondary in relation to other artifacts that result from the development process, is fundamental in order to use and understand software in an efficient way. The software development process has been evolving over time, and is now an increasingly social activity, namely compared to other popular frameworks on the web. However, the same principles can be applied to small agile development teams. In this context, minimalist documentation, where only the bare minimum content is created, which will evolve according to the specific needs of the users, has been rising in popularity. The interaction and communication between both readers and authors, with the goal of debating what changes must be made to the documentation, is key to this evolution.The main goal of this work is to demonstrate that this communication can be the subject of improvement, namely with the use of contextual annotations in the documentation. In order to achieve this goal, a wiki has been developed, which will serve as platform for collaborative software documentation. Then, the possibility to add comments to a certain page and annotations to specific portions of that page was added to the wiki, thus creating a friendly environment to discussion between readers and authors.Finally, in order to verify that the developed tool fulfills its goal of improving communication and interaction between the various interveners, it will be tested in a small software development team

Time Preference and Its Relationship with Age, Health, and Survival Probability

Although theories from economics and evolutionary biology predict that one’s age, health, and survival probability should be associated with one’s subjective discount rate (SDR), few studies have empirically tested for these links. Our study analyzes in detail how the SDR is related to age, health, and survival probability, by surveying a sample of individuals in townships around Durban, South Africa. In contrast to previous studies, we find that age is not significantly related to the SDR, but both physical health and survival expectations have a U-shaped relationship with the SDR. Individuals in very poor health have high discount rates, and those in very good health also have high discount rates. Similarly, those with expected survival probability on the extremes have high discount rates. Therefore, health and survival probability, and not age, seem to be predictors of one’s SDR in an area of the world with high morbidity and mortality.subjective discount rate; delay discounting; expected survival probability; health; age; South Africa

PASSE EE Estilos Parentais e Promoção da Saúde - Manual do Dinamizador Encarregados de Educação

O Programa de Alimentação Saudável em Saúde Escolar (PASSE) foi desenhado com base nas 5 dimensões das escolas promotoras da saúde: organizacional, curricular, psicossocial, ecológica e comunitária. A intervenção na dimensão curricular está descrita em dois tipos de manuais, os de educação alimentar e os de promoção de alimentação saudável.O presente manual constitui-se como instrumento de trabalho que pode de ser adaptado a um maior número de situações e realidades possíveis. Pretende abarcar quer momentos de intervenções pontuais, que sejam encaradas como incentivo a um maior envolvimento no futuro, quer ainda servir de suporte a actividades mais continuadas no tempo. Disponibiliza uma série de recursos para trabalhar com educadores e encarregados de educação no âmbito do programa PASSE

PAS3 Promoção de Alimentação Saudável no 3º ano

O Programa de Alimentação Saudável em Saúde Escolar (PASSE) foi desenhado com base nas 5 dimensões das escolas promotoras da saúde: organizacional, curricular, psicossocial, ecológica e comunitária. A intervenção na dimensão curricular está descrita em dois tipos de manuais, os de educação alimentar e os de promoção de alimentação saudável.O presente Manual refere-se à Promoção de Alimentação Saudável trabalhada na Dimensão Curricular do 1º ciclo do ensino básico, mais concretamente no 3º ano. Está balizado em duas grandes áreas: a promoção da saúde, em que o grupo se constitui como contexto de aprendizagem privilegiado; e as competências básicas do dinamizador como condutor das aprendizagens e dos jogos que propomos ao longo do programa

PASSE.org - Manual da Dimensão Organizacional

Manual PASSE referente aos recursos e opções a ter em linha de conta quando se intervém a nível organizativo

EcoPASSE - Manual da Dimensão Ecológica

Manual referente aos recursos, opções e possiblidades de intervenção no que se refere à dimensão ecológica da escola

Hair Cortisol Concentration Reflects the Life Cycle and Management of Grey Wolves Across Four European Populations

[Abstract]: The grey wolf (Canis lupus) persists in a variety of human-dominated landscapes and is subjected to various legal management regimes throughout Europe. Our aim was to assess the effects of intrinsic and methodological determinants on the hair cortisol concentration (HCC) of wolves from four European populations under different legal management. We determined HCC by an enzyme-linked immune assay in 259 hair samples of 133 wolves from the Iberian, Alpine, Dinaric-Balkan, and Scandinavian populations. The HCC showed significant differences between body regions. Mean HCC in lumbar guard hair was 11.6 ± 9.7 pg/mg (range 1.6–108.8 pg/mg). Wolves from the Dinaric-Balkan and Scandinavian populations showed significantly higher HCC than Iberian wolves, suggesting that harvest policies could reflected in the level of chronic stress. A significant negative relationship with body size was found. The seasonal, sex and age patterns are consistent with other studies, supporting HCC as a biomarker of chronic stress in wolves for a retrospective time frame of several weeks. Our results highlight the need for standardization of sampling and analytical techniques to ensure the value of HCC in informing management at a continental scale.We are grateful to ICNF and Dirección General de Biodiversidad, Medio Ambiente y Cambio Climático of the Government of Cantabria and Slovenia Forest Service for providing part of the samples. This work was supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [grants SFRH/BPD/116596/2016 to N.S. and SFRH/BD/144087/2019 to M.N.], the Slovenian Research Agency [grant P4-0059 to M.K.] and the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness [Ramon & Cajal research contract (RYC-2015-18932) to J.V.L.B.]. The fieldwork in Portugal was funded by Empreendimentos Eólicos do Vale do Minho S.A. and ACHLI.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; SFRH/BPD/116596/2016Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; SFRH/BD/144087/2019Slovenian Research Agency; P4-005