A study on fiscal policy and economic growth from an institutional perspective

This dissertation studies the interrelationship between fiscal policy and institutions (property right protection and economic freedom, in particular) in affecting economic growth. The vast literature on economic growth examines institutions and fiscal policy as separate determinants of economic growth, and has not established a theoretical basis or empirical link on the interaction between them. This dissertation takes a unique approach to the growth literature by studying a channel that institutions affect growth – the fiscal policy channel. Among the first ones who incorporate economic institutions into a growth model with fiscal policy, I construct a theoretical framework in Chapter 2 to illustrate the role of property rights protection in determining the growth impact of government spending. The analysis is based on the standard Solow growth model with some modifications where security of property rights is modeled to affect the so-called“effective aggregate capital level”, a new concept introduced in the dissertation. It is shown that the impact of government investment on the steady-state output level and the output growth rate depends on the level of property rights protection. Moreover,increase in security of property rights can either enhance or reduce the growth impact of government investment, depending on the relationship between private and public saving of a country. This theoretical framework provides a basis for testing the hypothesis about the determining role of institutions on the growth impact of fiscal policy. In Chapter 3, I test the hypothesis on the interrelationship between fiscal policy and institutions in affecting growth by employing the framework presented in Chapter 2 but extending the concept of institutions to a broader scope – economic freedom.Using a sample of 72 countries over the period of 1990 through 2015 in interactive growth regression models, and the economic freedom index of the Heritage Foundation, I find that is the level of economic freedom has a significant impact on the effectiveness of fiscal policy on economic growth. Public investment in infrastructure can enhance long-term growth better in countries with less degree of freedom. Meanwhile, public consumption does not benefit growth but its adverse impact is mitigated if a country enjoys greater economic freedom. Furthermore, the determining role of institutions in emerging countries is more prominent than that in advanced economies which are pretty homogenous in economic development and have already been at a high level of economic freedom. Chapter 4 extends the scope of this study by investigating institutional determinants of the short-term impact of fiscal policy – fiscal multipliers – with a three-step regression procedure for a sample of 72 countries from 1960 through 2015.I find significant and positive correlations between fiscal multipliers and economic institutions but weak evidence on the direct impact of political institutions on the multipliers. Countries with political stability, higher economic freedom, more efficiently regulatory system, and less corruption have greater government expenditure multipliers. The role of institutions is not the same to different components of fiscal stimulus. Institutional characteristics can explain variations in public consumption multipliers better than variations in public investment multiplier across countries. The size of fiscal multiplier across countries also depends on legal origin and level of economic development

Accomplishment of a protocol for simultaneous detection of 14 intestinal bacterial pathogens based on PCR-Reverse Dot Blot

Food poisoning, caused by a bacterial infection, consequently led to a wide range of infections and endanger to public health, has been considered as a big concern in the world. Therefore, it is an urgent demand for the clinical laboratory to exactly identify infectious bacteria. In our previous study, we successfully published a protocol based on the PCR-Reverse Dot Blot (PCR-RDB) to determine simultaneously 12 bacterial intestinal pathogens, including Bacillus cereus, Clostridium botulinum, Clostridium perfringen, Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Escherichia coli O157: H7, Salmonella spp., Shigella spp.., Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Yersinia enterocolitica and Brucella spp. In this study, we continuously developed our published protocol by designing additional probes: positive control probe, negative control probe, color control probe and background signal controller. Moreover, concerning the clinical demand, the supplement of two designed probes, which detected Campylobacter jejuni và Yersinia enterocolitica O:8 caused intestinal infected diseases mainly in children, was necessary. As a result, this completed PCR-RDB protocol can simultaneously detect a total of 14 intestinal bacterial pathogens within high specificity and the sensitivity of 102 copies/ml. For the protocol confirmation, it was tested by 30 fecal samples and the results completely match with the commercial kit PowerCheckTM 20 Pathogen Multiplex Real-time PCR Kit (Korea)

Establisment of realtime pcr protocol based on 16s rrna gene of mycobacterium tuberculosis

Currently, tuberculosis is still one of the most common infectious diseases, mainly caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacterium infection. PCR is a molecular biology technique used to detect infectious agents, especially viruses or bacteria with slowly culture as in the case of Mycobacterium tuberculosis because of its fastness, accurateness and high sensitivity. We carried out this study in order to develop a protocol based on Realtime PCR using 16S rRNA gene as a target sequence which is extensively used in taxonomy, molecular evolution and medical diagnostics. We have succeeded in designing the primers/probes on the 16S rRNA gene to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis by Realtime PCR; have identified the parameters of the specificity of the primers/probe, theoretically and experimentally; the sensitivity of the primers/probe in the Realtime PCR protocol reached to 102 copies/ml; the protocol was also tested on 30 samples given good results

Establishment of real-time rt-pcr assay for detection of mrna mycobacterium tuberculosis

Current laboratory methods for monitoring the response to therapy for tuberculosis (TB) rely on mycobacterial culture. Their clinical usefulness is therefore limited by the slow growth rate of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Rapid methods to reliably quantify the response to anti-TB drugs are desirable. We have developed a Real-time RT-PCR assay that uses hydrolysis probes to target mRNA for α antigen. Initially, this Real-time RT-PCR protocol has been used, combined with standard Ziehl–Neelsen staining technique and Real-time PCR based on16SrRNA gene and IS6110 as targets, on 30 samples obtained from patients who are in the process of treatment. There are 8 sputum samples showing completely negative results for all three methods. This Real-time RT-PCR assay found 9 out of 22 positive samples detected by Real-time PCR. It can be concluded on 9 cases positive for Real-time RT-PCR still remaining viable MTB bacteria in those samples and may predict that those patients do not respond well to MTB treatment. On the other hand, Real-time PCR method showed a high false-positive rate, more than 13 cases. This Real-time RT-PCR assay may allow rapid monitoring of the response to anti-MTB therapy

Application of real-time PCR to characterize the viral load, genotypes, resistance of hepatitis B virus at Dong Thap hospital

Hepatitis B is caused by the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and may be either acute or chronic. Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the major global cause of chronic hepatitis, as a result, which leads to cirrhosis and increases the risk of liver cancer development (hepatocellular carcinoma). Recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of hepatitis B have enormously contributed to reduce the side effects of this disease in which the real-time PCR technique had the significant contribution todiagnosis, monitoring and therapy. In the current study, therefore, our purpose is the application of real-time PCR method to detect hepatitis B viral load, genotypes as well as lamivudine (LAM) and adefovir (ADV) resistance in patients at Dong Thap Hospital. The results figured that the mean age of HBV patients was 37.0 ± 0.34, the proportion of male infected was 59.0%. In addition, our results also showed that the rate of the patients with the normal ALT level and HBeAg negative were 51.2% and 23.0%, respectively. Moreover, the patients who were not indicated for treatment were approximately 30.0%. Among the group of HBsAg positive, the rate of HBV-DNA positive was 82.0% and a majority rate of 59.1% was HBV genotype B. The group of high viral load in those samples was equal to or greater than 20,000 IU/ml (36.0%). The total rate resistant mutation occurred in 56.1%, the rate of LAM resistant mutations was the most value of 86.0% and ADV resistant mutations were 68.0%. LAM resistant mutation 204I occurred at 84.0%. ADV resistant mutation A181T was the highest rate of 68.0%. Resistance mutations often associated with a higher proportion of HBeAg positive and the high viral loads. Meanwhile, the influence of genotype infections on the clinical, para-clinical characteristics were not clear