Suicide attempts and related factors in patients admitted to a general hospital: a ten-year cross-sectional study (1997-2007)

[Abstract] Background: Suicide and suicide attempts represent a severe problem for public health services. The aim of this study is to determine the socio-demographic and psychopathological variables associated with suicide attempts in the population admitted to a General Hospital. Methods: An observational-descriptive study of patients admitted to the A Coruña University Hospital (Spain) during the period 1997-2007, assessed by the Consultation and Liaison Psychiatric Unit. We include n = 5,234 admissions from 4,509 patients. Among these admissions, n = 361 (6.9%) were subsequent to a suicide attempt. Admissions arising from a suicide attempt were compared with admissions occurring due to other reasons.Multivariate generalised estimating equation logistic regression models were used to examine factors associated with suicide attempts. Results: Adjusting by age, gender, educational level, cohabitation status, being employed or unemployed, the psychiatric diagnosis at the time of the interview and the information on previous suicide attempts, we found that the variables associated with the risk of a suicide attempt were: age, psychiatric diagnosis and previous suicide attempts. The risk of suicide attempts decreases with age (OR = 0.969). Psychiatric diagnosis was associated with a higher risk of suicide attempts, with the highest risk being found for Mood or Affective Disorders (OR = 7.49), followed by Personality Disorders (OR = 7.31), and Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders (OR = 5.03).The strongest single predictive factor for suicide attempts was a prior history of attempts (OR = 23.63). Conclusions: Age, psychopathological diagnosis and previous suicide attempts are determinants of suicide attempts

Identifiability of Structural Singular Vector Autoregressive Models

We generalize well‐known results on structural identifiability of vector autoregressive (VAR) models to the case where the innovation covariance matrix has reduced rank. Singular structural VAR models appear, for example, as solutions of rational expectation models where the number of shocks is usually smaller than the number of endogenous variables, and as an essential building block in dynamic factor models. We show that order conditions for identifiability are misleading in the singular case and we provide a rank condition for identifiability of the noise parameters. Since the Yule‐Walker (YW) equations may have multiple solutions, we analyse the effect of restricting system parameters on over‐ and underidentification in detail and provide easily verifiable conditions.Peer reviewe

Re-examination of the long-run purchasing power parity: further evidence from Turkey

In this article, we re-examine the empirical validity of the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) theory for the Turkish economy. For this purpose, an empirical model is constructed using some contemporaneous estimation techniques such as multivariate co-integration and vector error correction methodology. Our estimation results reveal that the PPP can strongly be supported as a long-run stationary steady-state relationship for the Turkish economy.

The Impact of the USD/EUR Exchange Rate on Inflation in the Central and East European Countries

This paper explores the impact of the USD/EUR exchange rate on inflation in the Central and East European countries (CEEC). In particular, we analyse which portion of the variation in inflation in the CEEC can be attributed to the USD/EUR exchange rate, as an external shock. In addition, we study to what extent USD/EUR exchange rate shocks influence inflation in the CEEC. A vector autoregression model with block exogeneity restrictions is employed to trace the impact of the USD/EUR exchange rate fluctuations on inflation at each stage along the distribution chain. We find that the USD/EUR exchange rate has different levels of impact on inflation among the CEEC with different exchange rate regimes. Our empirical exercise shows that the USD/EUR exchange rate accounts for the largest share of inflation volatility in the CEEC with stable exchange rates of the domestic currency against the euro. Furthermore, the extent of the USD/EUR exchange rate's influence on inflation in the CEEC is the largest in the economies with stable exchange rate regimes. These results might be important in the context of the price stability requirement of the Maastricht Criteria: in addition to the internal challenge of keeping low inflation and dealing with the difficulties of the price convergence process, the applicant countries could face problems beyond their influence. Comparative Economic Studies (2008) 50, 646–662. doi:10.1057/ces.2008.37

Time-Series Based Empirical Assessment of Random Urban Growth: New Evidence from France

Modern urban growth literature frequently uses unit-root tests in order to check the empirical relevance of Gibrat’s law of random growth. The contradictory nature of the test results provided by this literature is most likely linked to the low power of unit-root tests. To address this problem, we apply unit-root testing to a large-sized sample of high-quality French census data covering an exceptionally long time span of more than two centuries. We add subsequent cointegration tests in order to detect the possible presence of cointegrated random growth, which may reflect the fact that cities with a similar economic structure react fairly similarly to exogenous growth shocks. According to the test results, the random growth hypothesis cannot be rejected for a very large majority of the tested French cities; on the other hand, the null hypothesis of absence of cointegration cannot be rejected in more than 95% of the cases. Our findings therefore provide empirical support for non-cointegrated random growth