Societal views on orphan drugs: cross sectional survey of Norwegians aged 40 to 67

Objective To determine whether a general societal preference for prioritising treatment of rare diseases over common ones exists and could provide a justification for accepting higher cost effectiveness thresholds for orphan drugs

Determinants of fertility in rural Ethiopia: the case of Butajira Demographic Surveillance System (DSS)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Fertility is high in rural Ethiopia. Women in the reproductive age group differed in various characteristics including access to food and encounter to drought which requisite the assessment of determinants of fertility.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Reproductive age women were recruited from a DSS, the Butajira DSS database. A DHS maternity history questionnaire was administered on 9996 participants. Data quality was assured besides ethical clearance. Poisson regression crude and adjusted Incidence Rate Ratio with 95 Confidence Interval were used to identify determinants of fertility.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Delayed marriage, higher education, smaller family, absence of child death experience and living in food-secured households were associated with small number of children. Fertility was significantly higher among women with no child sex preference. However, migration status of women was not statistically significant.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Policy makers should focus on hoisting women secondary school enrollment and age at first marriage. The community should also be made aware on the negative impact of fertility on household economy, environmental degradation and the country's socio-economic development at large.</p

Energy conservation more effective with rebound policy

This article sketches the problem of indirect energy use effects, also known as rebound, of energy conservation. There is widespread support for energy conservation, especially when it is voluntary, as this seems a cheap way to realize environmental and energy-climate goals. However, this overlooks the phenomenon of rebound. The topic of energy rebound has mainly attracted attention from energy analysts, but has been surprisingly neglected in environmental economics, even though economists generally are concerned with indirect or economy-wide impacts of technical change and policies. This paper presents definitions and interpretations of energy and environmental rebound, as well as four fundamental reasons for the existence of the rebound phenomenon. It further offers the most complete list of rebound pathways or mechanisms available in the literature. In addition, it discusses empirical estimates of rebound and addresses the implications of uncertainties and difficulties in assessing rebound. Suggestions are offered for strategies and public policies to contain rebound. It is advised that rebound evaluation is an essential part of environmental policy and project assessments. As opposed to earlier studies, this paper stresses the relevance of the distinction between energy conservation resulting from autonomous demand changes and from efficiency improvements in technology/equipment. In addition, it argues that rebound is especially relevant for developing countries. © 2010 The Author(s)

Economics of Land Degradation Initiative: Methods and Approach for Global and National Assessments

Healthy land ecosystems are essential to sustainable development, including food security and improved livelihoods. Yet, their key services have usually been taken for granted and their true value underrated, leading to land degradation becoming a critical global problem. This pattern of undervaluation of lands is about to change in view of the rapidly rising land prices, which is the result of increasing shortage of land and high output prices. Despite the urgent need for preventing and reversing land degradation, the problem has yet to be appropriately addressed. Policy actions for sustainable land management are lacking, and a policy framework for action is missing. Such a framework for policy action needs to be supported by evidence-based and action-oriented research. The Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) initiative seeks to develop such a science basis for policy actions to address land degradation. The purpose of this methodological paper is to provide with sound and feasible standards for ELD assessment at global and national levels. Only if some basic standards are identified and adhered to, comparative assessments can be conducted between countries and useful aggregation of findings, based on these case studies, can be achieved. Therefore, using the Total Economic Value (TEV) framework, the paper identifies minimum core standards that need to be adhered to in all country case studies to generate comparable material for international assessment and ELD policy guidance. It also identifies additional and desirable areas of information and analyses that would add value to the country case study material. The proposed framework is also intended as a forward-looking agenda which can guide future research

Initial and Ongoing Mystery Shopper Motivations: An Empirical Investigation By Experience Level and an Application of the Theory of Motivational Crowding

Mystery shopping has become an accepted method of performance measurement in many industries. This study contributes to the mystery shopping research stream by empirically testing the initial and ongoing motivations of mystery shoppers. Simultaneously, the study also examines whether the theory of motivational crowding is applicable to the mystery shopping industry. Motivations, analyzed with a mixed between-within split plot analysis of variance mostly affirmed the psychoeconomic theory of motivation crowding in the mystery shopping industry. Practical implications of the results indicate a need for optimization of compensation in mystery shopping and a need to analyze mystery shoppers based on experience level to further insure validity of mystery shopping reports. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

An integrated agro-ecosystem and livelihood systems approach for the poor and vulnerable in dry areas

More than 400 million people in the developing world depend on dryland agriculture for their livelihoods. Dryland agriculture involves a complex combination of productive components: staple crops, vegetables, livestock, trees and fish interacting principally with rangeland, cultivated areas and watercourses. Managing risk and enhancing productivity through diversification and sustainable intensification is critical to securing and improving rural livelihoods. The main biophysical constraints are natural resource limitations and degradation, particularly water scarcity and encroaching desertification. Social and economic limitations, such as poor access to markets and inputs, weak governance and lack of information about alternative production technologies also limit the options available to farmers. Past efforts to address these constraints by focusing on individual components have either not been successful or are now facing a declining rate of impact, indicating the need for new integrated approaches to research for development of dryland systems. This article outlines the characteristics of such an approach, integrating agro-ecosystem and livelihoods approaches and presents a range of empirical examples of its application in dryland contexts. The authors draw attention to new insights about the design of research required to accelerate impact by integrating across disciplines and scales