Environmental Health Disparities: A Framework Integrating Psychosocial and Environmental Concepts

Although it is often acknowledged that social and environmental factors interact to produce racial and ethnic environmental health disparities, it is still unclear how this occurs. Despite continued controversy, the environmental justice movement has provided some insight by suggesting that disadvantaged communities face greater likelihood of exposure to ambient hazards. The exposure–disease paradigm has long suggested that differential “vulnerability” may modify the effects of toxicants on biological systems. However, relatively little work has been done to specify whether racial and ethnic minorities may have greater vulnerability than do majority populations and, further, what these vulnerabilities may be. We suggest that psychosocial stress may be the vulnerability factor that links social conditions with environmental hazards. Psychosocial stress can lead to acute and chronic changes in the functioning of body systems (e.g., immune) and also lead directly to illness. In this article we present a multidisciplinary framework integrating these ideas. We also argue that residential segregation leads to differential experiences of community stress, exposure to pollutants, and access to community resources. When not counterbalanced by resources, stressors may lead to heightened vulnerability to environmental hazards

Do dividends signal future earnings in the Nordic stock markets?

We study the informational content of dividends on three Nordic civil law markets, where other simultaneous but blurring motives for dividends may be weaker. Using aggregate data on real earnings per share and payout ratios, long time series from 1969 to 2010, and methodologies which address problems of endogeneity, non-stationarity and autocorrelation (including a Vector Error Correction Model approach), we find evidence on dividend signaling in Nordic markets. However, we also find heterogeneity in the relationship between dividends and earnings on markets similar in many respects, suggesting that even small variations in the institutional surroundings may be important for the results

Ageing and Financial Stability

Abstract: Although the precise details are subject to major uncertainty, it seems likely that the process of population ageing will involve major shifts in financing, which may give rise to financial turbulence and systemic risk. The locus and scale of these effects will also depend on the predominant approach to retirement income provision. It is argued that the financial-stability risks arising from continuing with unsustainable pay-as-you-go systems would be more threatening than those arising from funding. Fiscal crises can have incalculable consequences for private financial markets, while pension funding involves more an adaptation by regulatory authorities to a more securitised and institutionalised financial system, that is likely to develop in any case. Concerning policy, for social security, the key issue is reform, so that the fiscal difficulties and their consequences for financial stability foreshadowed above do not arise. For institutional investors involved in funding, policy issues arising include the need for prudent person asset regulation, absence of guarantees generating moral hazard and international diversification of institutional portfolios, so that they are less dependent on the performance of the domestic economy than would otherwise be the case. Banks would not be immune to the side-effects of the various patterns ageing will generate, and an awareness of such risks as well a

Regional macroeconomic outcomes under alternative arrangements for the financing of public infrastructure

We use a dynamic multi-regional CGE model (MMRF) to evaluate the regional macroeconomic consequences of four methods of financing a program of regional government infrastructure provision. The methods are developer charges, debt, payroll tax and residential rates. We demonstrate that the net gains from a program of public infrastructure development are quite sensitive to the chosen financing means. The net gains are greatest under rates and debt financing, and least under developer charges and payroll tax financing

A political economy approach to pension financing

Issues related to the welfare state and, more particularly, pension schemes, have received increasing attention in recent years from politicians and public opinion alike. This has stimulated the interest of economists, who often still apply a predominantly financial approach when analysing problems. Only some of the analytical and interpretative tools made available by political economy have therefore been used, and tools particularly suited to a description of the complex socio-economic context within which social insurance operates have been excluded from the analysis

The robustness of the causal and economic relationship between construction flows and economic growth: evidence from Western Europe

Our main objective is to analyse whether we have a problem of parameter heterogeneity across countries and over time in the estimation of the relationship between infrastructure investments and economic growth. The research approach concerning causality and the estimating of the long-run equilibrium is based on the error-correction model. The problem of parameter heterogeneity is handled by the use of interaction terms. The result indicates that residential construction Granger causes Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the short and long run and it seems likely that the interaction term indicating high unemployment do add some explanation power to the model. This is not true when it comes to infrastructural and other building construction and its impact on economic growth. A high housing stock per capita seems to reduce the short-run effect. This implies that residential construction seems to have a larger effect if the accumulated residential stock is on a low level. The speed of adjustment to long-run equilibrium differs considerably between a country with a low residential capital stock and a country with a high-capital stock. Moreover, high owner occupation rates seem to be associated with a stronger relationship between residential construction and economic growth.