French Decentralisation of the Performing Arts and Regional Economic Disparities

The standard deviation, the Gini coefficient, entropy measures and Atkinson's indexes are used to study French regional inequalities for per capita subsidies to the performing arts, as compared to GDP per worker, from 1992 to 2002. The two former indexes are more sensitive to transfers around the average, while the others are more sensitive to transfers at the lower end of the distribution scale. Whereas regional disparities remained stable for GDP per worker, they decreased for per capita subsidies to institutions and companies but increased for festivals. State subsidies are less unequal than local grants, so that a balanced decentralisation seems to rely upon some state control. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005decentralisation, inequality measures, performing arts, subsidies,

From R&D to innovation and economic growth in the EU

Over the last two decades many European governments have pursued ambitious research and development (R&D) policies with the aim of fostering innovation and economic growth in peripheral regions of Europe. The question is whether these policies are paying off. Arguments such as the need to reach a minimum threshold of research, the existence of important distance decay effects in the diffusion of technological spillovers, the presence of increasing returns to scale in R&D investments, or the unavailability of the necessary socio-economic conditions in these regions to generate innovation seem to cast doubts about the possible returns of these sort of policies. This paper addresses this question. A two-step analysis is used in order to first identify the impact of R&D investment of the private, public, and higher education sectors on innovation (measured as the number of patent applications per million population). The influence of innovation and innovation growth on economic growth is then addressed. The results indicate that R&D investment, as a whole, and higher education R&D investment in peripheral regions of the EU, in particular, are positively associated with innovation. The existence and strength of this association are, however, contingent upon region-specific socio-economic characteristics, which affect the capacity of each region to transform R&D investment into innovation and, eventually, innovation into economic growth. Copyright 2004 Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky..

Children's perceptions of other children with enamel defects

Background: Developmental enamel defects may affect an individual’s dento-facial appearance, impacting on their psycho-social status and on how other people view them. Aim: To determine whether, or not, young people make value judgements, or ascribe certain social attributes, to other young people with visible enamel defects. Methods: Initially, focus groups with children were used to determine what terminology or judgements they used in relation to people with visible differences to their dentition. Subsequently, year 7 (11-12 year-olds) and year 10 (14-15 year-olds) pupils were recruited from two contrasting schools. Half the participants were given full-face photographs of a male and female subject without an enamel defect and the other half were given the same two photographs with the subject’s incisors digitally modified to display enamel opacity. Participants completed a child-centred attribute questionnaire to rate the photographic subjects according to six positive and five negative descriptors using a four-point Likert scale. The potential total attribute score (TAS) ranged from 11 (most negative) to 44 (most positive). Results: 547 children took part in the study; test-retest reliability and internal consistency of the attribute questionnaire was excellent (ICC≥0.75 and Cronbach’s alpha≥0.8 respectively). Mean TAS was significantly lower for photographic subjects with an enamel defect compared to the same subject without an enamel defect (p<0.001, one sample t-test). Linear regression analysis showed that female raters gave a significantly higher mean TAS than their male counterparts for photographic subjects both with and without an enamel defect (p≤0.002). Age and socio-economic status did not predict TAS. Conclusion: Young people make negative psycho-social judgements about other young people on the basis of their having visible enamel defects. These may negatively impact on the affected individual’s self-esteem, social interactions and prospects. Public health funding should support dental interventions for children, where dental appearance is of aesthetic concern