Employment consequences of restrictive permanent contracts: Evidence from Spanish labor market reforms

Temporary employment contracts allowing unrestricted dismissals were introduced in Spain in 1984 and quickly came to account for most new jobs. As a result, temporary employment increased from around 10% in the mid-eighties to more than 30% in the early nineties. In 1997, however, the Spanish government attempted to reduce the incidence of temporary employment by reducing payroll taxes and dismissal costs for permanent contracts. In this paper, we use individual data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey to estimate the effects of reduced payroll taxes and dismissal costs on the distribution of employment and worker flows. We exploit the fact that recent reforms apply only to certain demographic groups to set up a natural experiment research design that can be used to study the effects of contract regulations. Our results show that the reduction of payroll taxes and dismissal costs increased the employment of young workers on permanent contracts, although the effects for young women are not always significant. Results for older workers show insignificant effects. The results suggest a moderately elastic response of permanent employment to non-wage labor costs for young men. We also find positive effects on the transitions from unemployment and temporary employment into permanent employment for young and older workers, although the effects for older workers are not always significant. On the other hand, transitions from permanent employment to non-employment increased only for older men, suggesting that the reform had little effect on dismissals.Temporary employment, dismissal costs, payroll taxes, European unemployment

Identification of genetic variants associated with Huntington's disease progression: a genome-wide association study

Background Huntington's disease is caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene, HTT. Age at onset has been used as a quantitative phenotype in genetic analysis looking for Huntington's disease modifiers, but is hard to define and not always available. Therefore, we aimed to generate a novel measure of disease progression and to identify genetic markers associated with this progression measure. Methods We generated a progression score on the basis of principal component analysis of prospectively acquired longitudinal changes in motor, cognitive, and imaging measures in the 218 indivduals in the TRACK-HD cohort of Huntington's disease gene mutation carriers (data collected 2008–11). We generated a parallel progression score using data from 1773 previously genotyped participants from the European Huntington's Disease Network REGISTRY study of Huntington's disease mutation carriers (data collected 2003–13). We did a genome-wide association analyses in terms of progression for 216 TRACK-HD participants and 1773 REGISTRY participants, then a meta-analysis of these results was undertaken. Findings Longitudinal motor, cognitive, and imaging scores were correlated with each other in TRACK-HD participants, justifying use of a single, cross-domain measure of disease progression in both studies. The TRACK-HD and REGISTRY progression measures were correlated with each other (r=0·674), and with age at onset (TRACK-HD, r=0·315; REGISTRY, r=0·234). The meta-analysis of progression in TRACK-HD and REGISTRY gave a genome-wide significant signal (p=1·12 × 10−10) on chromosome 5 spanning three genes: MSH3, DHFR, and MTRNR2L2. The genes in this locus were associated with progression in TRACK-HD (MSH3 p=2·94 × 10−8 DHFR p=8·37 × 10−7 MTRNR2L2 p=2·15 × 10−9) and to a lesser extent in REGISTRY (MSH3 p=9·36 × 10−4 DHFR p=8·45 × 10−4 MTRNR2L2 p=1·20 × 10−3). The lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRACK-HD (rs557874766) was genome-wide significant in the meta-analysis (p=1·58 × 10−8), and encodes an aminoacid change (Pro67Ala) in MSH3. In TRACK-HD, each copy of the minor allele at this SNP was associated with a 0·4 units per year (95% CI 0·16–0·66) reduction in the rate of change of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Total Motor Score, and a reduction of 0·12 units per year (95% CI 0·06–0·18) in the rate of change of UHDRS Total Functional Capacity score. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age of onset. Interpretation The multidomain progression measure in TRACK-HD was associated with a functional variant that was genome-wide significant in our meta-analysis. The association in only 216 participants implies that the progression measure is a sensitive reflection of disease burden, that the effect size at this locus is large, or both. Knockout of Msh3 reduces somatic expansion in Huntington's disease mouse models, suggesting this mechanism as an area for future therapeutic investigation

Employment Consequences of Restrictive Permanent Contracts: Evidence from Spanish Labour Market Reforms

Temporary employment contracts allowing unrestricted dismissals were introduced in Spain in 1984 and quickly came to account for most new jobs. In 1997, however, the Spanish government attempted to reduce the incidence of temporary employment by reducing payroll taxes and dismissal costs for permanent contracts. In this Paper, we exploit the fact that recent reforms apply only to certain demographic groups to set up a natural experiment research design to study the effects of contract regulations on employment and worker flows. Using data from the Spanish Labor Force Survey, we find that the reduction of payroll taxes and dismissal costs increased the employment of young men and women on permanent contracts, although the effects for young women are marginally significant. The results suggest a moderately elastic response of permanent employment to non-wage labour costs. We also find positive effects on the transitions from unemployment and temporary employment into permanent employment for young and older workers and from permanent employment to non-employment only for older men, suggesting that the reform had little effect on dismissals.Dismissal costs; european unemployment; payroll taxes; temporary employment

Employment consequences of restrictive permanent contracts Evidence from Spanish labour market reforms

Includes bibliographical references. Also available via the InternetAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:3597. 9512(no 3724) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Coffee antioxidants in chronic diseases

Oxidative stress is associated to the risk of developing chronic diseases. A diet rich in antioxidants has been proposed as a habit to achieve an effective reduction of chronic diseases. Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide. The regular intake of coffee (three cups per day) may provide 0.5–1 g of chlorogenic acid, which is a powerful dietary antioxidant. Other natural compounds which resist roasting conditions also contribute to the overall antioxidant properties of the beverage prepared from roasted beans. In addition, the roasting process dramatically affects the chemical composition of green beans giving rise to coffee processing antioxidants. The present chapter provides an overview of the antioxidant compounds so far identified in the coffee beverage, as well as their potential impact in the in vivo antioxidant defense and in chronic diseases. Considering its high antioxidant content, drinking coffee may contribute to the reduction of the risk of developing some chronic diseases and, therefore, this habit should be considered in healthy lifestyle recommendations. In this way, this common behavior in many countries may be of significance to public health.The SUSCOFFEE Project (AGL2014-57239-R): Sustainable coffee production and consumption: Valorization of coffee waste into food ingredients funded this work. Fernandez-Gomez, B. is a fellow of the FPI predoctoral program of MINECO (BES-2011-046827). Martinez-Saez, N. thanks the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Spain, for her FPI-predoc fellowship. Iriondo-DeHond, A. is a fellow of the FPI predoctoral program of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (BES-2015-072191). Rebollo-Hernanz, M. thanks the JAE Intro fellowship (JAEINT_15_00086) and the FPU predoctoral program of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (FPU15/04238).Peer reviewe