Globalization and Urban-Rural Migration in Taiwan

In this study, we examine the association of urban-to-rural migration with the deterioration of labor market in urban sector due to the globalization of markets and production. Two measures of the relative impacts of globalization on urban and rural labor markets: changes in rural-urban real earning differential and changes in the rural-urban probabilities of being employed. We, thus, address the following questions. What would be the changes in both rural-urban real earning differential and the rural-urban differential in the probabilities of being employed over the last decade? Can real earning differentials or employment differentials, or both significantly influence the urban-to-rural migration decisions? Which one plays a pivotal role in the analysis? What would be the roles of individual or family characteristics in determining the urban-to-rural migration decisions? The preliminary results show the following implications. First of all, the increasing the probabilities of getting a job in rural sector versus keeping a job in urban sector play a pivotal role in determining the urban-to-rural migration. As employment opportunities became persistently worsen in urban sector, job security in rural became attractive and play a more important role than real earning differential. Secondly, having a family member working in rural sector significantly influences the urban-to-rural migration.globalization, labor migration, agricultural sector, Community/Rural/Urban Development, J31, I20,

Disability Status as an Unobservable: Estimates From a Structural Model

We propose an index of "true disability" by treating disability status as an unobservable phenomenon which is both causally related to a number of exogenous characteristics of an individual and correlated with a number of observed indicators of health, impairment and qualifications for employment. First, we define true disability and distinguish it from related concepts. We then discuss the importance of an objective and reliable measure of disability for research on the determinants of behavior. Next, we present the specification of our structural model for estimating true disability as a latent variable. Finally, we report the results of our estimation in a simple model of Labor force participation, and compare the effect of using the constructed index and a self-reported disability measure on understanding the determinants of behavior and choice.

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Globalization and Urban-Rural Migration in Taiwan

In this study, we examine the association of urban-to-rural migration with the deterioration of labor market in urban sector due to the globalization of markets and production. Two measures of the relative impacts of globalization on urban and rural labor markets: changes in rural-urban real earning differential and changes in the rural-urban probabilities of being employed. We, thus, address the following questions. What would be the changes in both rural-urban real earning differential and the rural-urban differential in the probabilities of being employed over the last decade? Can real earning differentials or employment differentials, or both significantly influence the urban-to-rural migration decisions? Which one plays a pivotal role in the analysis? What would be the roles of individual or family characteristics in determining the urban-to-rural migration decisions? The preliminary results show the following implications. First of all, the increasing the probabilities of getting a job in rural sector versus keeping a job in urban sector play a pivotal role in determining the urban-to-rural migration. As employment opportunities became persistently worsen in urban sector, job security in rural became attractive and play a more important role than real earning differential. Secondly, having a family member working in rural sector significantly influences the urban-to-rural migration

The Economic Value of Education in Agricultural Production: A Switching Regression Analysis of Selected East Asian Countries

The emphasis of education as a driving force for the growth of agricultural productivity can be dated back to the early 1960s. However, most empirical work failed to take into account of the fact that production technology changes with time and consequently obscure the true contribution of education in agricultural production. This study presents a more efficient version to testing the hypothesis that education plays a key role in agricultural development using a switching regression model. Because farmers’ ability to deal with disequilibria is allowed to change with education in the present setting, a concrete evidence of the key role of education is provided in the empirical analysis of eight East Asian countries. The results suggest that there exists a threshold for the effects of education on agricultural productivity change. For the group of countries where education constitutes a major determinant of productivity growth in both the technical progress and stagnation regimes, we found the effect of education varies from country to country and from regime to regime. Moreover, our results also suggest technological improvement can defer the starting point of the descending stage whereas advance the time for taking off

Efficiency change and productivity growth in agriculture: A comparative analysis for selected East Asian economies

This study focuses on identifying the sources of agricultural growth for eight East Asian economies - with special emphasis on factors that can better explain different components of growth. The Malmquist productivity growth index and its two components are calculated and regressed on variables including the human capital endowment, domestic R&D, international spillovers, and country-specific farming characteristics to characterize the differential patterns of growth. Our empirical evidence suggests that domestic R&D and its interaction with human capital constitute the major determinant of individual economy's progress in agricultural technology, whereas the human capital endowment is crucial for the catching up effect. Furthermore, for foreign knowledge to contribute to productivity growth either through innovation or through catching up, the host economy has to develop a sufficient learning capacity from education. Countries that do not attempt to develop the learning capability to assimilate and exploit the freely available knowledge may not benefit from international spillovers of agricultural R&D.East Asian agriculture International spillovers Cross-country comparison

Analyzing the Relationship between CO2 Emission and Economic Efficiency by a Relaxed Two-Stage DEA Model

This article modifies the conventional two-stage DEA model to construct an analytical model for energy-related efficiency with undesirable outputs. Our proposed model relaxes the constraint that the inputs of the second process must come from the first process. As a result, our proposed model is more flexible than the original model in terms of the application of energy-related efficiency measurement analysis, and more policy implications may thus be provided by the decomposition of efficiencies for different processes. For demonstration purposes, the proposed model is applied to measure the energy use efficiency and the economic efficiency of 28 OECD countries during 2005 to 2007. The demonstration results reveal the following three findings. First, the average values of energy use efficiency are smaller than those of the average economic efficiency during the three-year period. It is shown that the OECD countries are only interested in economic development and are not concerned about energy use efficiency. Second, a tradeoff relationship exists between energy use efficiency and economic development for the OECD countries. Third, the differences of the initial carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the optimal CO2 emissions as well as the average economic efficiency increase year by year. These results indicate that the OECD countries still discharge too much CO2. Finally, this article establishes a managerial decision-making matrix to divide 28 OECD countries into different positions according to thei