Income development of General Practitioners in eight European countries from 1975 to 2005

Background: This study aims to gain insight into the international development of GP incomes over time through a comparative approach. The study is an extension of an earlier work (1975-1990, conducted in five yearly intervals). The research questions to be addressed in this paper are: 1) How can the remuneration system of GPs in a country be characterized? 2) How has the annual GP income developed over time in selected European countries? 3) What are the differences in GP incomes when differences in workload are taken into account? And 4) to what extent do remuneration systems, supply of GPs and gate-keeping contribute to the income position of GPs? Methods: Data were collected for Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Written sources, websites and country experts were consulted. The data for the years 1995 and 2000 were collected in 2004-2005. The data for 2005 were collected in 2006-2007. Results: During the period 1975-1990, the income of GPs, corrected for inflation, declined in all the countries under review. During the period 1995-2005, the situation changed significantly: The income of UK GPs rose to the very top position. Besides this, the gap between the top end (UK) and bottom end (Belgium) widened considerably. Practice costs form about 50% of total revenues, regardless of the absolute level of revenues. Analysis based on income per patient leads to a different ranking of countries compared to the ranking based on annual income. In countries with a relatively large supply of GPs, income per hour is lower. The type of remuneration appeared to have no effect on the financial position of the GPs in the countries in this study. In countries with a gate-keeping system the average GP income was systematically higher compared to countries with a direct-access system. Conclusion: There are substantial differences in the income of GPs among the countries included in this study. The discrepancy between countries has increased over time. The income of British GPs showed a marked increase from 2000 to 2005, due to the introduction of a new contract between the NHS and GPs

What determines women's participation in collective action? Evidence from a western Ugandan coffee cooperative

Women smallholders face greater constraints than men in accessing capital and commodity markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Collective action has been promoted to remedy those disadvantages. Using survey data of 421 women members and 210 nonmembers of a coffee producer cooperative in Western Uganda, this study investigates the determinants of women's participation in cooperatives and women's intensity of participation. The results highlight the importance of access to and control over land for women to join the cooperative in the first place. Participation intensity is measured through women's participation in collective coffee marketing and share capital contributions. It is found that duration of membership, access to extension services, more equal intrahousehold power relations, and joint land ownership positively influence women's ability to commit to collective action. These findings demonstrate the embeddedness of collective action in gender relations and the positive value of women's active participation for agricultural-marketing cooperatives

Promoting Human Capital Development: A Typology of International Scholarship Programs in Higher Education

This article sheds light on the availability and characteristics of international scholarship programs that are sponsored by national and federal governments worldwide and that are intended to promote student mobility. Utilizing descriptive and cluster analyses, the article produces a framework for organizing the population of these programs. The analyses take into account both the central characteristics of programs and economic and political characteristics of the nations sponsoring the program. The typology produced in this analysis may be used by policy makers and researchers to facilitate cross-national comparisons of program design, implementation, and outcomes. © 2014 AERA

Bracing for the Typhoon: Climate Change and Sovereign Risk in Southeast Asia

This article investigates and empirically tests the link between climate change and sovereign risk in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian countries are among those most heavily affected by climate change. The number and intensity of extreme weather events in the region have been increasing markedly, causing severe social and economic damage. Southeast Asian economies are also exposed to gradual effects of global warming as well as transition risks stemming from policies aimed at mitigating climate change. To empirically examine the effect of climate change on the sovereign risk of Southeast Asian countries, we employ indices for vulnerability and resilience to climate change and estimate country-specific OLS models for six countries and a fixed effects panel using monthly data for the period 2002–2018. Both the country-specific and the panel results show that greater climate vulnerability appears to have a sizable positive effect on sovereign bond yields, while greater resilience to climate change has an offsetting effect, albeit to a lesser extent. A higher cost of debt holds back much-needed investment in public infrastructure and climate adaptation, increases the risk of debt sustainability problems, and diminishes the development prospects of Southeast Asian countries

Predicting the cost of the consequences of a large nuclear accident in the UK

Nuclear accidents have the potential to lead to significant off-site effects that require actions to minimise the radiological impacts on people. Such countermeasures may include sheltering, evacuation, restrictions on the sale of locally-grown food, and long-term relocation of the population amongst others. Countries with nuclear facilities draw up emergency preparedness plans, and put in place such provisions as distributing instructions and iodine prophylaxis to the local population. Their plans are applied in simulated exercises on a regular basis. The costs associated with emergency preparedness and the safety provisions to reduce the likelihood of an accident, and/or mitigate the consequences, are justified on the basis of the health risks and accident costs averted. There is, of course, only limited actual experience to indicate the likely costs so that much of the costing of accidents is based on calculations. This paper reviews the methodologies used, in particular the approach that has been developed in the UK, to appraise the costs of a hypothetical nuclear accident. Results of analysing a hypothetical nuclear accident at a fictitious reactor site within the United Kingdom are discussed in relation to the accidents at Three Mile Island 2, Chernobyl and Fukushima Dai-ichi

Growth in Environmental Footprints and Environmental Impacts Embodied in Trade: Resource Efficiency Indicators from EXIOBASE3

Most countries show a relative decoupling of economic growth from domestic resource use, implying increased resource efficiency. However, international trade facilitates the exchange of products between regions with disparate resource productivity. Hence, for an understanding of resource efficiency from a consumption perspective that takes into account the impacts in the upstream supply chains, there is a need to assess the environmental pressures embodied in trade. We use EXIOBASE3, a new multiregional input-output database, to examine the rate of increase in resource efficiency, and investigate the ways in which international trade contributes to the displacement of pressures on the environment from the consumption of a population. We look at the environmental pressures of energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, material use, water use, and land use. Material use stands out as the only indicator growing in both absolute and relative terms to population and gross domestic product (GDP), while land use is the only indicator showing absolute decoupling from both references. Energy, GHG, and water use show relative decoupling. As a percentage of total global environmental pressure, we calculate the net impact displaced through trade rising from 23% to 32% for material use (1995¿2011), 23% to 26% for water use, 20% to 29% for energy use, 20% to 26% for land use, and 19% to 24% for GHG emissions. The results show a substantial disparity between trade-related impacts for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries. At the product group level, we observe the most rapid growth in environmental footprints in clothing and footwear. The analysis points to implications for future policies aiming to achieve environmental targets, while fully considering potential displacement effects through international trade

Solar hydrogen system for cooking applications: Experimental and numerical study

This paper describes the development of a semi-empirical numerical model for a solar hydrogen system consisting of a proton exchange membrane electrolyser (PEM) powered by photovoltaic panels to produce hydrogen as fuel for cooking applications, focussing on Jamaica as a suitable case-study. The model was developed in TRNSYS and includes a novel numerical component based on FORTRAN to model the operation of the PEM electrolyser. The numerical component was developed based on operational data from a purpose constructed small-scale experimental rig. The numerical model was calibrated using data from the experimental rig powered by operational data from a photovoltaic panel system in the UK and predicted photovoltaic panel power data from Jamaica. For the test conditions, experiments indicated an electrolysis maximum efficiency of 63.6%. The calibrated model was used to develop a case study analysis for a small community in Jamaica with a daily cooking demand of 39.6kWh or 1.7kg of H2 gas. Simulations indicate that the H2 production plan is sufficient for the cooking needs of the case-study.This project is partly funded by ACP Caribbean & Pacific Research Programme for Sustainable Development of the European Union (EuropeAid/130381/D/ACT/ACP)

Global Implications of China’s Future Food Consumption

Rapid economic growth and urbanization in China have led to a substantial change in consumption patterns and diet structure of Chinese consumers over the past few decades. A growing demand for feed, fuel and fiber also places intense pressure on land resources. With continuing growth of China’s economy and migration from rural to urban, the increase in food consumption and change in diet structure will likely continue, which will not only impose pressure on domestic land resources but also exert impact on land resources in other countries through import. This article applies a global multi-region input-output (MRIO) model to trace agricultural land use along global supply chains and examines the impact of China’s future food consumption on global land use in 2030 against different socio-economic and technological scenarios. Our result shows that by 2030, China would need an additional 21% of cropland to support its increasing food demand driven by population growth, urbanization and income growth and the associated diet structure change. Almost a third of cropland associated with household consumption (34 Mha) will be “outsourced” to foreign countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, United States and Thailand, for the consumption of cereal grains, soybeans and paddy rice. China also consumes 2.4 Mha cropland from Africa for its consumption of cereal grains and oil seeds. The dependence of domestic consumption on significant amounts of foreign cropland shows that China would face serious challenges to meet its grain self-sufficiency policy in the future, and at the same time this dependence would contribute to environmental and food security problems elsewhere

Informal and Formal Care among Single-living Elderly in Europe

The aims of this study were (1) to analyse whether informal care, provided by children or grandchildren to their elderly parents, and formal care are substitutes or complements, and (2) whether this relationship differs across Europe. The analyses were based on the newly developed SHARE (Survey of Health, Age, and Retirement in Europe) database. We found (1) that informal- and formal home care are substitutes, while informal care is a complement to doctor- and hospital visits, and (2) that these relationships in some cases differ according to a north-south gradient