Social Interaction in Regional Labour Markets

Social interaction, i.e. the interdependence of agents' behaviour via non-market activities, has recently become the focus of economic analysis. Social interaction has been used to explain various labour market outcomes. An important result arising from the literature is the proposition that labour markets are characterised by multiple equilibria. Thus, social interaction is used as an explanation for regional unemployment disparities. Building on this, we construct a Pissarides (2000) type search model with social interaction. Despite social interaction, this type of model is characterised by only one stable equilibrium. Using a unique data set on un-/employment spell data for Germany we analyse whether multiple equilibria in regional labour markets exist. After controlling for structural differences we are able to show that the data supports the assumption of a unique equilibrium. As such, social interaction cannot explain regional unemployment disparities.

General Equilibrium Effects of Insurance Expansions: Evidence from Long-Term Care Labor Markets

Arrow (1963) hypothesized that demand-side moral hazard induced by health insurance leads to supply-side expansions in healthcare markets. Capturing these effects empirically has been challenging, as non-marginal insurance expansions are rare and detailed data on healthcare labor and capital is sparse. We combine administrative labor market data with the geographic variation in the rollout of a universal insurance program—the introduction of long-term care (LTC) insurance in Germany in 1995—to document a substantial expansion of the inpatient LTC labor market in response to insurance expansion. A 10 percentage point expansion in the share of insured elderly leads to 0.05 (7%) more inpatient LTC firms and four (13%) more workers per 1,000 elderly in Germany. Wages did not rise, but the quality of newly hired workers declined. We find suggestive evidence of a reduction in old-age mortality. Using a machine learning algorithm, we characterize counterfactual labor market biographies of potential inpatient LTC hires, finding that the reform moved workers into LTC jobs from unemployment and out of the labor force rather than from other sectors of the economy. We estimate that employing these additional workers in LTC is socially efficient if patients value the care provided by these workers at least at 25% of the market price for care. We show conceptually that, in the spirit of Harberger (1971), in a second-best equilibrium in which supply-side labor markets do not clear at perfectly competitive wages, subsidies for healthcare consumption along with the associated demand-side moral hazard can be welfare-enhancing

The potential of minipigs in the development of anti-cancer therapeutics: species comparison and examples of special applications

Minipigs are increasingly being used as an alternative to dog or monkey in non-clinical safety testing of pharmaceuticals since they share similar anatomical and physiological characteristics in cardiovascular, urinary, integumentary, ocular and digestive systems to humans. Integrative assessment of pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic data sets of drug candidates from in silico, in vitro and in vivo investigations form the basis for selecting the most relevant non-rodent species for toxicology studies. Developing anti-cancer therapeutics represents a special challenge for species selection due to their effects on multiple organ systems, especially those with high cell turnover. The toxicological profile of anti-cancer drugs can be associated with steep dose-response curves, especially due to dose-limiting toxicity on the alimentary, hematopoietic and immune systems. Selection of an appropriate species for toxicology studies is of importance to avoid underestimation of the clinical starting dose without benefit for the late-stage cancer patient or overestimation of this dose with a risk of unexpected adverse reactions. Although the minipig has been the preferred species supporting the development of drugs applied topically, it is only rarely used in anti-cancer drug development compared to dog and monkey. In this context we discuss the potential of the minipig in anti-cancer drug development with examples of programs for oral and dermal administration, intravascular application in drug-eluting stents and local chemotherapy (chemoembolization)

Firms and Labor Market Inequality: Evidence and Some Theory

We review the literature on firm-level drivers of labor market inequality. There is strong evidence from a variety of fields that standard measures of productivity — like output per worker or total factor productivity — vary substantially across firms, even within narrowly defined industries. Several recent studies not that rising trends in the dispersion of productivity across firms mirror the trends in the wage inequality across workers. Two distinct literatures have searched for a more direct link between these two phenomena. The first examines how wages are affected by differences in employer productivity. Studies that focus on firm-specific productivity shocks an control for the non-random sorting of workers to more and less productive firms typically find that a 10% increase in value=added per worker leads to somewhere between a 0.5% and 1.5% increase in wages. A second literature focuses on firm-specific wage premiums, using the wage outcomes of job changers. This literature also concludes that firm pay setting is important for wage inequality, with many studies finding that firm wage effects contribute approximately 20% of the overall variance of wages. To interpret these findings, we develop a model where workplace environments are viewed as imperfect substitutes by workers and firms set wages with some degree of market power. We shoe that simple versions of this model can readily match the stylized empirical finding s in the literature regarding rent-sharing elasticities and the structure of rim=specific pay premium

Firms and labor market inequality: evidence and some theory

We synthesize two related literatures on firm-level drivers of wage inequality. Studies of rent sharing that use matched worker-firm data find elasticities of wages with respect to value added per worker in the range of 0.05–0.15. Studies of wage determination with worker and firm fixed effects typically find that firm-specific premiums explain 20% of overall wage variation. To interpret these findings, we develop a model of wage setting in which workers have idiosyncratic tastes for different workplaces. Simple versions of this model can rationalize standard fixed effects specifications and also match the typical rent-sharing elasticities in the literature.Ana Rute Cardoso acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in Research and Development grant SEV-2015-0563) and the Research Council of Norway (Europe in Transition funding scheme project 227072/F10 at the Centre for the Study of Equality, Social Organization, and Performance).Peer reviewe

Interactive Guidance System for C-Arm Repositioning without Radiation Visual Servoing for Camera Augmented Mobile C-arm (CAMC)

Abstract. The problem of repositioning mobile C-arms to defined target locations during surgical procedures currently requires not only time, but also skill and additional radiation exposure. This paper shows a guidance system based on the previously introduced camera augmented mobile C-arm (CAMC). Techniques of visual servoing are applied in order to present the repositioning task in the parameter space of the C-arm. Here we describe a representation for the estimated parameters in order to provide an easy to use interface that helps to speed up relocation procedure in the surgery room. The system which is based on an interactive 3D model, is controlled by tracking visible markers on the patient’s skin using an optical camera attached to the X-ray housing. The visual servoing methods are used to guide the C-arm to target positions by the representation of the interactive visual guidance system. Addititionally, the system provides a number of tools for feedback to assess the required accuracy of the repositioning task. First tests for C-arm repositioning were performed in a laboratory environment.