The Impact of Poor Health on Total Factor Productivity

A number of recent studies have illustrated the link between health and growth (Gallup and Sachs 2000, McCarthy et al. 2000, Bhargava et al. 2000). This paper argues that a key mechanism through which health affects growth is via total factor productivity (TFP). We first estimate TFP based on a production function and then estimate the determinants of TFP, paying particular attention to three indicators of health that are particularly problematic in developing regions: malnutrition, malaria and waterborne diseases. We find the impact of poor health on TFP to be negative, significant, and robust across a wide variety of specifications.Total factor productivity, disease, health, underdevelopment

Growth, Foreign Direct Investment and the Environment: Evidence from Chinese Cities

In this paper we investigate the relationship between economic growth and industrial pollution emissions in China using data for 112 major cities between 2001 and 2004. Using disaggregated data we separate FDI inflows from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan from those of other foreign economies. We examine four industrial water pollution indicators (wastewater, chemical oxygen demand, hexavalent chromium compounds, and petroleum-like matter) and four industrial air pollution indicators (waste gas, sulphur dioxide, soot and dust). Our results suggest that most air and water emissions rise with increases in economic growth at current income levels. The share of total output produced by firms from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan has a positive effect on emissions although this effect is only significant for three industrial water pollution emissions. The share of total output produced by firms from other foreign economies can be beneficial, detrimental or neutral, depending on the pollutants considered. --FDI,economic growth,pollution,cities

Algebraic properties of generalized Rijndael-like ciphers

We provide conditions under which the set of Rijndael functions considered as permutations of the state space and based on operations of the finite field \GF (p^k) ($p\geq 2$ a prime number) is not closed under functional composition. These conditions justify using a sequential multiple encryption to strengthen the AES (Rijndael block cipher with specific block sizes) in case AES became practically insecure. In Sparr and Wernsdorf (2008), R. Sparr and R. Wernsdorf provided conditions under which the group generated by the Rijndael-like round functions based on operations of the finite field \GF (2^k) is equal to the alternating group on the state space. In this paper we provide conditions under which the group generated by the Rijndael-like round functions based on operations of the finite field \GF (p^k) ($p\geq 2$) is equal to the symmetric group or the alternating group on the state space.Comment: 22 pages; Prelim0

Elliptic Reciprocity

The paper introduces the notions of an elliptic pair, an elliptic cycle and an elliptic list over a square free positive integer d. These concepts are related to the notions of amicable pairs of primes and aliquot cycles that were introduced by Silverman and Stange. Settling a matter left open by Silverman and Stange it is shown that for d=3 there are elliptic cycles of length 6. For d not equal to 3 the question of the existence of proper elliptic lists of length n over d is reduced to the the theory of prime producing quadratic polynomials. For d=163 a proper elliptic list of length 40 is exhibited. It is shown that for each d there is an upper bound on the length of a proper elliptic list over d. The final section of the paper contains heuristic arguments supporting conjectured asymptotics for the number of elliptic pairs below integer X. Finally, for d congruent to 3 modulo 8 the existence of infinitely many anomalous prime numbers is derived from Bunyakowski's Conjecture for quadratic polynomials.Comment: 17 pages, including one figure and two table

Identifying the Implications of most Warming Foods: A Pilot Analysis

The new found popular interest in sustainable development is highly skewed towards areas that are politically visible, such as transport and in particular the evils of air travel. This situation is mirrored in the academic community with an explosion of articles on sustainable transport (an EBSCO web search yielded 552 academic references to Sustainable Transport while for example Sustainable Livestock only found less than 10% of that number1). Nonetheless, only 14% of GHG’s actually result from transport, with as little as 2% coming from aviation, against 32% resulting from agriculture and land use – a major part of which can be directly attributed to the food chain (Stern, 2006). Moreover within the food system, certain areas such as livestock production are particularly problematic with meat and dairy products contributing more than 50% of the total GHG’s emitted (Kramer et al, 1999). Another recent study in the UK shows that GHG emissions attributable to meat and dairy consumption are about 4 times more than the GHG emissions generated from fruit and vegetable consumption (Garnett, 2007).Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

The Positive Effects of Task, Relation and Change Oriented Leadership Behavior on Employee Engagement

This research examined the relationship between task, relation-oriented, and change-oriented leadership behavior on employee engagement. This study employed a quantitative design and collected data from 117 participants in 13 countries through an online survey. Employee engagement and leadership behavior were evaluated using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and regression analyses. Results suggest that all three types of leadership behavior (task, relation, and change-oriented) have positive impact on employee engagement with change being the highest, and that the impact of leadership behavior on employee engagement is moderated by employee age and management status. Strategies for improving employee engagement are presented

Trade liberalisation, economic growth and the environment

This thesis analyses and quantifies the environmental impacts of trade liberalisation and economic growth. The history and development of the GATT/WTO's treatment of the environment is considered, together with the environmental implications of trade liberalisation in general. The thesis then considers the relationship between economic growth and the environment, particularly since economic growth is often claimed to be an environmentally damaging feature of trade liberalisation. The manner in which economists have treated the relationship between economic growth and the environment is examined and the relationship is then subjected to an empirical investigation. The thesis estimates the reduced form relationship between per capita GDP and a wide range of environmental indicators, using cross-country panel data sets and improves on the traditional methodology for estimating environmental Kuznets curves (EKCs). Results suggest that meaningful EKCs exist only for local air pollutants whilst indicators with a more global, or indirect, impact either increase monotonically with income, or else have predicted turning points at high per capita income levels with large standard errors - unless they have been subjected to a multilateral policy initiative. Two other findings are also made; that concentrations of local pollutants in urban areas peak at a lower per capita income level than total emissions per capita; and that transport generated local air pollutants peak at a higher per capita income level than total emissions per capita. The thesis also estimates the impact of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations on a wide range of environmental indicators. The impact is estimated in terms of the composition effect and combined scale and technique effects associated with the Uruguay Round. Results suggest that in the developing and transition regions most indicators will increase as a result of the Uruguay Round, whilst in the developed regions three local air pollutants will fall and all others increase. Finally, policy implications are discussed

Environmental Outsourcing

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of firms shifting stages of their production processes overseas. In this paper we investigate whether firms outsource the dirtier stages of production to minimise domestic environmental regulation costs - a process broadly consistent with the pollution haven hypothesis. We develop a theoretical model of environmental outsourcing that focuses on the roles played by firm size and productivity, transport costs and environmental regulations. We test the model's predictions using a firm-level data set for Japan. We find evidence of an 'environmental outsourcing' effect although this is mitigated by transport costs and other factors related to dirty good production.