The International agenda: immediate priorities and longer-term challenges

This policy contribution comprises Jean Pisani-Ferry's remarks at the Asian Development Bank Institute Annual Conference. For him, the challenge policymakers are facing, is to not to waste time before addressing the urgent tasks ahead of them and not to lose the momentum for reform created by the crisis. The sense of urgency and commonality should not be lost.

Long-term Effects of Cabergoline and Levodopa in Japanese Patients with Early Parkinson’s Disease: A 5-Year Prospective Study

Several international studies have suggested that treatment of early Parkinsonʼs disease (PD) with a dopamine agonist instead of levodopa delays the occurrence of motor complications. This 5-year prospective, open, multicenter randomized study aimed to compare the effects of cabergoline on the onset of motor complications with those of levodopa in Japanese patients with early PD. Patients who had never been treated with dopamine agonists or levodopa were enrolled in this study. Four of 45 patients in the cabergoline group and 11 of 46 patients in the levodopa group developed motor complications. The estimated cumulative incidence of motor complications in the cabergoline and levodopa groups was 17ｵ and 34ｵ (hazard ratio, 0.57;95ｵ confidence interval, 0.18‒1.81;p＝0.347). Thirty-five adverse events (AEs) were reported in 24 patients in the cabergoline group, while 16 AEs were reported in 13 patients in the levodopa group. Patients in the cabergoline group showed fewer motor complications than did those in the levodopa group, although the difference was not statistically significant. However, the hazard ratio found in this study was similar to those in previous reports

Recent shocks and long-term change in the Samoan economy

The strengths exhibited by the Samoan economy during the period of steady growth from 1998 to 2007 have since been tested by considerable volatility in economic activity, declining employment, rapidly rising prices, the global financial crisis, and the September 2009 tsunami. The economy has done reasonably well in the face of these challenges with key economic support in the form of aid, remittances and tourism. Questions are raised about the future viability of these forms of support

Long-term Care Costs and The National Retirement Risk Index

Even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets, including the receipts from reverse mortgages on their homes, the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) has shown that 44 percent will be ‘at risk.’ ‘At risk’ means they will be unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. When health care costs were included explicitly, the percentage of households ‘at risk’ increased to 61 percent. Our previous analysis of health care costs, however, did not consider possible expenses for long-term care towards the end of life. This brief explores how the need for long-term care could affect the NRRI. This brief is structured as follows. The first section recaps the original NRRI and the NRRI with health care costs explicitly included. The second section describes the nature of long-term care, the likelihood of a household member needing such care, and the financing alternatives available. The third section explores how the challenge posed by long-term care is different for households of different types and wealth levels. The fourth section models the impact of long-term care on the NRRI. The final section concludes.

On the long-term trends of public debt. Implications of the government’s Ponzi game and ageing

This paper sets out to analyse the impact of global ageing on the financeability of states. It covers issues regarding the sustainability of public debt and theories addressing the repayability of debt. It presents the possibilities of a fiscal Ponzi game, which would allow the financing of the debt burden from borrowings and enable succeeding generations to roll over public debt. Sustainability depends greatly on the relationship between interest rates and economic growth, and if the growth rate exceeds the interest rate charged on public debt, the Ponzi game will not only be feasible, but it will also have a Pareto optimal outcome. However, if the growth rate is lower than the interest rate, the Ponzi scheme cannot be run over the long term. The global ageing of the population fundamentally changes the financing environment of countries and government debt. The financing terms of public debt worsen significantly as baby boomers reach retirement age. The soaring old-age dependency ratio exacerbates the relationship between interest and economic growth. The primary balance effects are dramatic. This increases the supply of demography-related government securities, while the demand for government papers diminishes amid declining macro level savings. Over the coming decades, this may give rise to unusual price and quantity problems on a global scale across government paper markets. Grasping the issues of public debt is particularly relevant in the context of current global and domestic debt developments. The ongoing debt crisis is further compounded by demographic tensions. In point of fact, from an intuitive perspective, the countdown to the retirement of baby boomers may well be one of the underlying reasons for the debt crisis, if not for the entire global financial crisis.ageing, public debt, sustainability, Ponzi game

The short term debt vs. long term debt puzzle: a model for the optimal mix

This paper argues that the existing finance literature is inadequate with respect to its coverage of capital structure of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In particular it is argued that the cost of equity (being both conceptually ill defined and empirically non quantifiable) is not applicable to the capital structure decisions for a large proportion of SMEs and the optimal capital structure depends only on the mix of short and long term debt. The paper then presents a model, developed by practitioners for optimising the debt mix and demonstrates its practical application using an Italian firm's debt structure as a case study

A Short-term Intervention for Long-term Fairness in the Labor Market

The persistence of racial inequality in the U.S. labor market against a general backdrop of formal equality of opportunity is a troubling phenomenon that has significant ramifications on the design of hiring policies. In this paper, we show that current group disparate outcomes may be immovable even when hiring decisions are bound by an input-output notion of "individual fairness." Instead, we construct a dynamic reputational model of the labor market that illustrates the reinforcing nature of asymmetric outcomes resulting from groups' divergent accesses to resources and as a result, investment choices. To address these disparities, we adopt a dual labor market composed of a Temporary Labor Market (TLM), in which firms' hiring strategies are constrained to ensure statistical parity of workers granted entry into the pipeline, and a Permanent Labor Market (PLM), in which firms hire top performers as desired. Individual worker reputations produce externalities for their group; the corresponding feedback loop raises the collective reputation of the initially disadvantaged group via a TLM fairness intervention that need not be permanent. We show that such a restriction on hiring practices induces an equilibrium that, under particular market conditions, Pareto-dominates those arising from strategies that statistically discriminate or employ a "group-blind" criterion. The enduring nature of equilibria that are both inequitable and Pareto suboptimal suggests that fairness interventions beyond procedural checks of hiring decisions will be of critical importance in a world where machines play a greater role in the employment process.Comment: 10 page