Endogenous Women's Autonomy and the Use of Reproductive Health Services: Empirical Evidence from Tajikistan

Though gender equity is widely considered to be a key to improving maternal health in developing countries, little empirical evidence has been presented to support this claim. This paper investigates whether or not and how female autonomy within the household affects women's use of reproductive health care in Tajikistan, where the situation of maternal health and gender equity is worse compared with neighbouring countries. Estimation is performed using bivariate probit models in which woman's use of health services and the level of female autonomy are recursively and simultaneously determined. Empirical results reveal that female autonomy measured by women's decision-making on child wellbeing and on economic affairs within the household increases the probability of receiving both antenatal and delivery care. Policymakers need to address women's empowerment in the household in addition to implementing direct health interventions towards improvement of maternal health.Female autonomy; Antenatal care; Delivery care; Reproductive health services; Tajikistan; Bivariate probit model

Magnetic vortex crystals in frustrated Mott insulator

Quantum fluctuations become particularly relevant in highly frustrated quantum magnets and can lead to new states of matter. We provide a simple and robust scenario for inducing magnetic vortex crystals in frustrated Mott insulators. By considering a quantum paramagnet that has a gapped spectrum with six-fold degenerate low energy modes, we study the magnetic field induced condensation of these modes. We use a dilute gas approximation to demonstrate that a plethora of multi-$\mathbf{Q}$ condensates are stabilized for different combinations of exchange interactions. This rich quantum phase diagram includes magnetic vortex crystals, which are further stabilized by symmetric exchange anisotropies. Because magnetic skyrmion and domain wall crystals have already been predicted and experimentally observed, this novel vortex phase completes the picture of emergent crystals of topologically nontrivial spin configurations.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures; published in Phys. Rev.

"Real Indeterminacy of Stationary Equilibria in Matching Models with Media of Exchange"

In this paper, it is shown that real indeterminacy of stationary equilibria generically arises in most matching models with perfectly divisible media of exchange. In other words, the real indeterminacy follows from the condition for stationarity of holdings of media of exchange. Moreover, we present a new technique to prove the existence of stationary equilibria; especially, it is applicable to the case that both money and goods are perfectly divisible.