The depression report: a new deal for depression and anxiety disorders.

Crippling depression and chronic anxiety are the biggest causes of misery in Britain today. They are the great submerged problem, which shame keeps out of sight. But if you mention them, you soon discover how many families are affected. According to the respected Psychiatric Morbidity Survey, one in six of us would be diagnosed as having depression or chronic anxiety disorder, which means that one family in three is affected. That is the bad news. The good news is that we now have evidence-based psychological therapies that can lift at least a half of those affected out of their depression or their chronic fear. These new therapies are not endless nor backwardlooking treatments. They are short, forward-looking treatments that enable people to challenge their negative thinking and build on the positive side of their personalities and situations. The most developed of these therapies is cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT). The official guidelines from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) say these treatments should be available to all people with depression or anxiety disorders or schizophrenia, unless the problem is very mild or recent. But the NICE guidelines cannot be implemented because we do not have enough therapists. In most areas waiting lists for therapy are over nine months, or there is no waiting list at all because there are no therapists. So, if you go to the GP, all that can be provided is medication (plus at some surgeries a little counselling). But many people will not take medication, either because they dislike the side effects or because they want to control their own mood. The result is tragic. Only one in four of those who suffer from depression or chronic anxiety is receiving any kind of treatment. The rest continue to suffer, even though at least half of them could be cured at a cost of no more than £750. This is a waste of people’s lives. It is also costing a lot of money. For depression and anxiety make it difficult or impossible to work, and drive people onto Incapacity Benefits. We now have a million people on Incapacity Benefits because of mental illness – more than the total number of unemployed people receiving unemployment benefits. At one time unemployment was our biggest social problem, but we have done a lot to reduce it. So mental illness is now the biggest problem, and we know what to do about it. It is time to use that knowledge. 2 But can we afford the £750 it costs to treat someone? The money which the government spends will pay for itself. For someone on Incapacity Benefit costs us £750 a month in extra benefits and lost taxes. If the person works just a month more as a result of the treatment, the treatment pays for itself. So we have a massive problem – the biggest problem they have for one in three of our families. But we also have a solution that can improve the lives of millions of families, and cost the taxpayer nothing. We should implement the NICE guidelines; and most people with mental illness should be offered the choice of psychological therapy. Everyone who wants something done should write to their MP calling for action.

ARE POLITICAL CONNECTIONS IMPORTANT FOR FIRM PERFORMANCE?

Department of Management EngineeringWe explore the influence of political connections on the firm performance. An analysis of data from 395 Korean listed firms in manufacturing sector during 2011-2015 reveals that firms with high levels of political connections and such presence are negatively related to Tobin Q, operating cash flow, and ROA, supporting the rubber stamp perspective. An important implication is that Korean firms appointing former officials as outside directors are prone to negatively affect performance. In other words, instead of hiring former government officials to take advantages from the government, firms in Korea should consider and appoint experts rather than political connections outside-directors in order to increase their performance.ope

Political instability, public investment and macroeconomic performance

This paper attempts to provide a framework to explain both the lower share of current spending in large fiscal adjustments and the potential expansionary effects of fiscal contractions. We distinguish between current spending and productivity enhancing public investments and analyze the potential determinants of the policy maker's choice for the composition of overall public spending. Using this framework, we also link the overall macroeconomic performance to the public spending decisions. Our results suggest that raising current spending at the expense of public investment is associated with less favourable performance in terms of not only inflation and output but also, interestingly, future ‘current'' spending.composition of public spending

Socio-Political Conflict and Economic Performance in Bolivia

We examine how socio-political conflict in Bolivia has affected its economic performance since the 1970s. Such conflict includes strikes, demonstrations, road blockades, and conventional rent-seeking. Since conflict has costs, it diverts resources away from production, tends to reduce investment and could therefore reduce economic growth. We first review the characteristics of conflict in Bolivia using a unique data set. We then provide estimates of the direct costs of conflict and examine the relationship with economic performance using hypotheses derived from a simple model. In particular, we make a distinction between economic growth that is due to external factors – like changes in income due to movements in the terms of trade – and economic growth that is due to productive investment. Growth due to external factors tends to be positively related to conflict, whereas growth due to productive investment should be negatively related to conflict. Finally, we discuss how levels of conflict, economic performance, and governance might be related in Bolivia’s recent history.economic growth, property rights, governance

Price jitters: Do markets punish political stocks?

The paper examines the impact of firms exhibiting political connection on their stock market performance. The results appear to suggest that the performance of ‘political’ stocks has been significantly weak. This is apparent in simple univariate tests that compare the political stocks across various industry categories or even comparisons of political versus apolitical stocks. The regression analysis indicates that the returns on political stocks are on average, over 20% lower as compared to stocks without any political association.political connection; buy-and-hold abnormal returns; India

The performance of global democracy : parody and/as the political

The article develops a critical analysis of the debate on global democracy. Departing from common post-structural IR critiques of global democracy as (merely) a metaphor of escape that entrenches many of the sovereign logics it claims to contest, we explore what it would mean to engage the discourse of global democracy as an ongoing performative practice. After briefly outlining the relative positions of liberal reformist and cosmopolitan democrats – we argue that more attention can/should be paid to the ontopolitical foundations of global democracy. Drawing from William Connolly and Judith Butler, it is argued that fundamental (democratic) limits of the discourse are overlooked/re-produced, and even in the more ambitious cosmopolitan positions. Ontopolitical closures in relation to a problematic global scale and the universal assumption of individual agency/rights highlight the necessity of democratising ‘actually existing’ discourses of global democracy. We explore these ideas via a discussion of the cultural governance of global trade and resistance to it, especially via the activities of a UK based anarchist group called The Space Hijackers. By deploying parody the Space Hijackers can contribute to the debate on global democracy by provoking reflection upon fundamental assumptions about globalisation and ethics in everyday situations. They therefore problematise and subvert the problematic subjectivity of the ‘global-individual’ in a manner that might (but does not necessarily) allow for the imagination of alternative possibilities. The importance of this argument is that it resists the tendency of poststructural scepticism with regard to ethical discourses of global democracy, while retaining what is so promising: a turn towards singularity and imagination. Parody does not solve all problems, what could? But it does offer a modality within which subjects can imagine and act creatively with regards to the everyday closures of global democrac

The roles of political skill and intrinsic motivation in performance prediction of adaptive selling

Previous studies have long recognized and examined adaptive selling behavior as an effective selling behavior in current selling situations. Although some studies assumed and revealed moderating factors that affect the effectiveness of adaptive selling behavior, few studies examined an individual’s skill as a moderator on this effect. This study focuses on political skill as a type of skill that has been recently found to have positive effects on sales performance. In addition, this study includes intrinsic motivation as an additional moderator that enables political skill to be invested for effective selling behavior. Our analysis of 249 salespeople and 145 supervisors in a matching sample largely supports our hypotheses that the positive effects of adaptive selling behavior on sales performance are the highest when both political skill and intrinsic motivation are high

Political accountability and regulatory performance in infrastructure industries : an empirical analysis

The aim of this paper is to empirically explore the relationship between the quality of political institutions and the performance of regulation, an issue that has recently occupied much of the policy debate on the effectiveness of infrastructure industry reforms. Taking the view that political accountability is a key factor that links political structures and regulatory processes, the authors investigate, for the case of telecommunications, its impact on the performance of regulation in two time-series-cross-sectional data sets on 29 developing countries and 23 industrial countries covering the period 1985-99. In addition to confirming some well documented results on the positive role of regulatory governance in infrastructure industries, the authors provide empirical evidence on the impact of the quality of political institutions and their modes of functioning on regulatory performance. The analysis of the data sets shows that the (positive) effect of political accountability on the performance of regulation is stronger in developing countries. An important policy implication of this finding is that future reforms in these countries should give due attention to the development of politically accountable systems.Infrastructure Regulation,Governance Indicators,National Governance,Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Econometrics

„Dziady" directed by Kazimierz Dejmek – an attempt at demythologisation

The author of the article attempts to recreate the famous staging of Dziady directed by Kazimierz Dejmek, in order to demystify the spectacle. The performance is analysed in terms of art, taking into account the political situation (March 1968). In order to establish the facts, the author uses an assistant’s script, the recollections of the witnesses of the release of Dziady and fragments of the performance. The reconstruction of the staging enabled the researcher to conclude that it was artistically valuable, but it was the political situation at the time that played the most important role in popularising that interpretation of the drama

Political Participation and Entrepreneurial Initial Public Offerings in China

This paper examines the value of political participation by private entrepreneurs in China. Using a unique sample of all initial public offerings by entrepreneurial firms during 1994-2007 and political participation by the controlling entrepreneurs, we test the hypothesis that firms with entrepreneurs who participate in politics are able to exploit rent-seeking opportunities that normal firms do not have access to. We document that the long-run stock performance after the IPO of firms controlled by entrepreneurs who participate in politics is superior to that of common entrepreneurial firms. Our results also show that political participation has a significant positive effect on change in operating performance and a negative effect on first-day returns. Moreover, we find that economic development and local institutions are important for this value effect. The difference in performance is even larger in regions characterized by more abundant rent-seeking opportunities, indicating that the value effect of political participation likely originates from rent seeking. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that political participation facilitates entrepreneurs’ rent seeking.Political participation; Entrepreneurial firms; Corporate governance; Initial public offerings; China