Causal effects of closing businesses in a pandemic

We study whether state-level mandatory business closures implemented in response to the outbreak of the Covid-19 causally affect economic and health outcomes. Using plausibly exogenous variations in exposure to these restrictions, we find that they impose substantial losses to firms and workers, the former bearing approximately two thirds of the cost, consistent with firms partially insuring their workers. We show that mandatory business closures have a significant negative causal effect on mortality rates, particularly in areas featuring contact-intensive occupations. We discuss the assumptions under which the health benefits of business closures exceed their associated economic costs

Soluble Polymer Supported Synthesis of α-Amino Acid Derivatives

International audienceA Schiff base activated glycine supported on a soluble polymer (poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)) was readily alkylated with a wide variety of electrophiles in the presence of a carbonate base in acetonitrile. The presence of the polymer provided a phase-transfer catalysis environment which accelerated the reaction. Effects of various carbonate bases and leaving groups have been also studied. Completion of the PEG-supported reaction was obtained without using a large excess of reagents or an extra phase-transfer catalyst, even in the case of unreactive or hindered electrophiles. After cleavage from the polymer, α-amino esters are obtained in good yields

Dating and progradation of the Urgonian limestone from the Swiss Jura to South-East France

In SE-France and nearby Switzerland, biostratigraphic studies on the Urgonian limestone are conducted since decades, mainly using ammonites, echinoids, orbitolinids, and dasycladalean algae. The fundamental outcome, though called into question by other authors, is fully confirmed by the results of recent tests, using dinocysts and calcareous nannofossils: the Urgonian limestone is early Barremian in Ardeche; in the Subalpine Chains, it ranges from the latest Hauterivian to the early Aptian p.p.; in the French and adjacent Swiss Jura, the "Urgonien jaune" is late Hauterivian p.p., while the overlying "Urgonien blanc" is late Hauterivian p.p. and early Barremian p.p. Resulting from these dating elements and carbonate facies distribution, internal deposits including rudists evidently follow a prograding path, from the Jura in the direction of the SW, towards the Vocontian Basin. This progradation is on the contrary of a depositional model proposed by other authors, calling for the Urgonian limestone to be more or less isochronously transgressive in the opposite direction, on top of an emergent unconformity of regional extent, allegedly corresponding to the absence of early Barremian deposits

Comments on "Stratigraphic, sedimentological and palaeoenvironmental constraints on the rise of the Urgonian platform in the western Swiss Jura.", by Godet, A., K. B. Föllmi et al., in Sedimentology vol. 57 (2010), pp. 1088-1125.

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