Job Satisfaction and Happiness: New Evidence from Japanese Union Workers

This paper utilizes survey data of Japanese union workers to pro- vide new insights to the "happiness and economics" literature. A cru- cial item that distinguishes our empirical analyses from previous stud- ies is the use of data on workers' expectations of their peers' wages. With our data, we conrm that individuals report higher levels of subjective well-being (SWB) when they perceive that their wages are higher relative to their peers'. On the other hand, the traditional ap- proach in the literature constructs relative wages from Mincer equa- tions, thus presuming that individuals infer their peers' wages the way econometricians do. We argue that this method may be inappropriate. Moreover, we address the issue of endogeneity of our subjective refer- ence income measure employing an instrumental variables approach, and corroborate the causality from relative income to SWB. Addition- ally, we study the relationship between SWB measures and workers' individual characteristics, and compare our results with standard nd- ings in the literature for U.S. and European workers. In agreement with these studies, women and married individuals seem to be happier than their counterparts, men and single workers. However, we observe a U-shaped relationship between education and happiness, which con- trasts with ndings for U.S. and British workers. Finally, we attempt to explain these relationships in the context of the Japanese social background.subjective well-being; relative utility; sub- jective reference income

The Relative Utility Hypothesis With and Without Self-reported Reference Wages

This article uses survey data of 90,000 union employees working in 62 publicly-traded companies in Japan between 1990 and 2004 to study the effect of both own and self-reported reference wages on workers' subjective well-being levels. The availability of self-reported reference wages generates very robust findings that do not depend on questionable identifying assumptions. These findings confirm that higher estimates by workers of their peers' earnings are associated with lower levels of life and job satisfaction. These comparison effects are statistically and economically strong but are smaller in absolute value than the impact of workers' own wages on their own utility. We compare our results with standard tests of the relative utility hypothesis in the literature that recur to alternative proxies for comparison wages, including: (i) Mincer-predicted wages; (ii) cell averages defined over different groups within our dataset; (iii) cell wage averages estimated from an external data source; and (iv) colleagues' average wages. In spite of their potential flaws — that we discuss — these alternative empirical constructs employed in the literature do not introduce a simple classical measurement error problem and the bias attributed to this measurement error issue can go in both directions. We propose a simple IV strategy when the self-reported reference wage is not available that does not eliminate the bias but delivers a lower bound of the "true" effect. We also address the issue of endogeneity of self-reported reference wages in our subjective well-being regressions by accounting for workers' pessimistic attitudes at the workplace.Subjective well-being; relative utility; reference wages

The Relative Utility Hypothesis With and Without Self-reported Reference Wages

This article makes three main contributions to the economics of happiness literature. First, using a novel data set of about 90,000 Japanese workers surveyed in annual cross-sections between 1990 and 2004, it demonstrates that individuals experience strong disutility when they perceive that their coworkers earn relatively higher wages. In contrast with other tests of the relative utility hypothesis in the literature, our estimation relies on workers' self-reported beliefs of their peers' wages, which we argue are more closely aligned to the "true" reference-group benchmark than the assumed comparison income measures employed in other studies. Second, the article shows important heterogeneous effects of both absolute and relative income on happiness. In particular, workers who are better able to accurately predict their peers' wages seem to experience both greater utility of higher own income and greater disutility of higher relative income. Third, we assess the validity of different methodologies that the literature has employed to construct comparison income measures and find significant discrepancies, particularly when reference income is derived from Mincer equations--a common approach in other studies. We demonstrate that such discrepancies stem from the difficulty in finding valid exclusion restrictions that help identify the relative income effect on happiness. In the absence of self-reported reference wages, we propose a simple IV strategy that does not eliminate the lack of consistency but delivers a lower bound of the "true" effect.

The Relative Utility Hypothesis With and Without Self-reported Reference Wages

November 2010, Revised July 2012ISER discussion pape

Reportes financieros integrados, un enfoque de pensamiento holístico: propuesta teórica, como mecanismo para gestión del riesgo y la incertudumbre en las organizaciones

The integrated report (IR) is an innovative trend in the disclosure of sustainability reports, to disseminate financial and non-financial data produced by companies, although these practices have begun since the 2000s, these efforts have been recognized since the 2010 Eccles and Krzus (2014), Jensen and Berg, 2012; These practices tend to show a more complete scenario of value of the companies, which allows to manage their risks, that the basic financial results require complements, with financial information that identifies the social and environmental externalities to which the organization is exposed, originating to comprehensive financial reports with a systemic or holistic thinking that allows them to manage risk. A deep and analytical documentary review of the techniques and studies on the subject that is still incipient was carried out, as the main findings were identified elements that justify the adoption of this type of reports and that require regulations, as well as public policies on the part of national and international organizations in accounting, finance and auditing matters. The work is divided into 3 sections: 1.- introduction, 2.-background of the integrated financial reports, recent studies, perspectives, results and 3.-conclusions.El reporte integrado (IR) es una tendencia innovadora en materia de revelación de los informes de sostenibilidad, para divulgar los datos financieros y no financieros que producen las empresas, aunque estas prácticas comenzaron desde la década del 2000, estos esfuerzos se han reconocido desde el 2010 Eccles y Krzus (2014) ,Jensen y Berg, 2012; estas prácticas tienden a mostrar un escenario más completo del valor de las empresas, ya que permite gestionar sus riesgos a largo plazo, La investigación tiene como objetivo identificar los factores relevantes que justifiquen, porque los estados financieros básicos deben ser complementados, con información no financiera que identifique las externalidades sociales y ambientales a los que está expuesta la organización, dando origen a reportes financieros integrales con un pensamiento sistémico u holístico que les permita gestionar el riesgo. Se realizó una revisión documental profunda y analítica de teorías y estudios sobre el tema que aún es incipiente, como principales hallazgos se identificaron elementos que justifican la adopción de este tipo de informes y que requieren de normativas, así como de políticas públicas por parte de organismos nacionales e internacionales en materia de contabilidad, finanzas y auditoría.El trabajo se divide en 3 secciones: 1.- introducción, 2.-antecedentes de los reportes financieros integrados, estudios recientes, perspectivas, resultados y 3.-conclusiones

Giant lumbar polypoid tumor with bullae on its surface

No abstract availabl

Magnetic resonance based morphometric analysis of the tentorial notch

Background: The study of the tentorial notch can improve the understanding of brain injury mechanisms. Tentorial morphology has been analyzed primarily in cadaveric studies. However, the postmortem effect can cause variability in the measurements. The objective was to evaluate the morphometry of the tentorial notch and the third cranial nerve on living subjects using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Materials and methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed. Using consecutive cases, 60 MRI scans were analyzed for tentorial notch morphology. Maximum notch width (MNW), notch length (NL), interpedunculoclival (IC) distance, apicotectal (AT) distance, CN-III distance, and inter CN-III angle, were obtained. For the classification of the tentorial notch quartile distribution technique for MNW, NL, AT distance, and IC distance was used. Results: According to the quartile of the MNW, patients were stratified into narrow, midrange, and wide groups. Using the NL quartile groups, they were also classified as short, midrange, and long. With these, the tentorial notch could be classified into eight types. Statistical differences between genders in the MNW and inter CN-III angle were found, as well as a strong positive correlation between NL and AT distance, and between right and left CN-III distances. Conclusions: There were differences between the cadaveric samples and living subjects in the CN-III distances. This difference could be explained by the dehydration of brain volume in the postmortem process which may cause nerve elongation. Morphometry of the tentorial notch and its neurovascular relations allows a better understanding of the mechanisms of brain herniation

Association between convalescent plasma treatment and mortality in COVID-19: a collaborative systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials.

Funder: laura and john arnold foundationBACKGROUND: Convalescent plasma has been widely used to treat COVID-19 and is under investigation in numerous randomized clinical trials, but results are publicly available only for a small number of trials. The objective of this study was to assess the benefits of convalescent plasma treatment compared to placebo or no treatment and all-cause mortality in patients with COVID-19, using data from all available randomized clinical trials, including unpublished and ongoing trials (Open Science Framework, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/GEHFX ). METHODS: In this collaborative systematic review and meta-analysis, clinical trial registries (ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform), the Cochrane COVID-19 register, the LOVE database, and PubMed were searched until April 8, 2021. Investigators of trials registered by March 1, 2021, without published results were contacted via email. Eligible were ongoing, discontinued and completed randomized clinical trials that compared convalescent plasma with placebo or no treatment in COVID-19 patients, regardless of setting or treatment schedule. Aggregated mortality data were extracted from publications or provided by investigators of unpublished trials and combined using the Hartung-Knapp-Sidik-Jonkman random effects model. We investigated the contribution of unpublished trials to the overall evidence. RESULTS: A total of 16,477 patients were included in 33 trials (20 unpublished with 3190 patients, 13 published with 13,287 patients). 32 trials enrolled only hospitalized patients (including 3 with only intensive care unit patients). Risk of bias was low for 29/33 trials. Of 8495 patients who received convalescent plasma, 1997 died (23%), and of 7982 control patients, 1952 died (24%). The combined risk ratio for all-cause mortality was 0.97 (95% confidence interval: 0.92; 1.02) with between-study heterogeneity not beyond chance (I2 = 0%). The RECOVERY trial had 69.8% and the unpublished evidence 25.3% of the weight in the meta-analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Convalescent plasma treatment of patients with COVID-19 did not reduce all-cause mortality. These results provide strong evidence that convalescent plasma treatment for patients with COVID-19 should not be used outside of randomized trials. Evidence synthesis from collaborations among trial investigators can inform both evidence generation and evidence application in patient care