Sufficiency, Comprehensiveness of Health Care Coverage, and Cost-Sharing Arrangements in the Realpolitik of Health Policy

This chapter explores two questions in detail: How should we determine the threshold for costs that individuals are asked to bear through insurance premiums or care-related out-of-pocket costs, including user fees and copayments? and What is an adequate relationship between costs and benefits? This chapter argues that preventing impoverishment is a morally more urgent priority than protecting households against income fluctuations, and that many health insurance plans may not adequately protect individuals from health care costs that threaten to drop their financial status below a decent minimum. A design that places greater emphasis on preventing impoverishment and finances the achievement of that goal by reducing unnecessary subsidies to better-off households would better accord with a sufficientarian approach to health care

Impact of prey field variability on early cod larval survival: a sensitivity study of a Baltic cod Individual-based Model

Existing coupled biophysical models for Baltic larval cod drift, growth and survival use idealised constructed mean prey fields of nauplius distributions. These simulations revealed the best feeding conditions for Baltic cod larvae longer than 6 mm. For shorter, first feeding larvae (between 4.5 and 6 mm) pronounced differences in growth and survival were observed, which depend on food availability and to a lesser degree on ambient temperature. We performed runs with an Individual-based Model (IBM) for Baltic cod larvae in order to demonstrate how natural variability in prey abundance influences the survival success of first feeding larvae. In the Baltic, this larval stage lives mainly between 20 and 40 m depth and feeds exclusively on the nauplii of different calanoid copepods (Acartia spp., Pseudocalanus acuspes, Temora longicornis and Centropages hamatus). Prey data obtained from vertically stratified samples in the Bornholm Basin (Baltic Sea) in 2001 and 2002 indicate a strong variability at spatial and temporal scales. We calculated larval survival and growth in relation to natural variation of prey fields, i.e. species-specific nauplius abundance. The results of the model runs yielded larval survival rates from 60 to 100% if the mean size of nauplii species was taken and lower survival if prey consisted of early nauplius stages only

Towards a regulatory agenda for banking in Europe

Although the world of banking and finance is becoming more integrated every day, in most aspects the world of financial regulation continues to be narrowly defined by national boundaries. The main players here are still national governments and governmental agencies. And until recently, they tended to follow a policy of shielding their activities from scrutiny by their peers and members of the academic community rather than inviting critical assessments and an exchange of ideas. The turbulence in international financial markets in the 1980s, and its impact on U.S. banks, gave rise to the notion that academics working in the field of banking and financial regulation might be in a position to make a contribution to the improvement of regulation in the United States, and thus ultimately to the stability of the entire financial sector. This provided the impetus for the creation of the “U.S. Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee”. In the meantime, similar shadow committees have been founded in Europe and Japan. The specific problems associated with financial regulation in Europe, as well as the specific features which distinguish the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee from its counterparts in the U.S. and Japan, derive from the fact that while Europe has already made substantial progress towards economic and political integration, it is still primarily a collection of distinct nation-states with differing institutional set-ups and political and economic traditions. Therefore, any attempt to work towards a European approach to financial regulation must include an effort to promote the development of a European culture of co-operation in this area, and this is precisely what the European Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (ESFRC) seeks to do. In this paper, Harald Benink, chairman of the ESFRC, and Reinhard H. Schmidt, one of the two German members, discuss the origin, the objectives and the functioning of the committee and the thrust of its recommendations

Heterogeneity in the Intergenerational Transmission of Alcohol Consumption – A Quantile Regression Approach

This paper addresses the question of whether the effect of parental drinking on children’s later consumption of alcohol – which is frequently found to be of positive sign – exhibits a certain pattern of heterogeneity. In particular, if this eff ect is more prominent in the upper tail than elsewhere in the distribution of children’s alcohol consumption, conventional regression analyses that focus on the mean eff ect may substantially underrate parental drinking as a risk factor for children’s later alcohol abuse. In our empirical application, we address this issue by applying censored quantile regression methods to German survey data. The supposed pattern of heterogeneity is indeed found in the data, at least for daily parental drinking. In addition, the intergenerational transmission of alcohol consumption exhibits gender-specific heterogeneity.Alcohol consumption; intergenerational transmission; heterogeneity; censored quantile regression

Effekte reduzierter Bodenbearbeitung auf Bodeneigenschaften in der Praxis des ökologischen Ackerbaus

Von 2007 bis 2008 wurden auf dreißig Feldern von fünfzehn Ökobetrieben mit reduzierter Bodenbearbeitung in drei Bodenschichten verschiedene Parameter untersucht. Acht Betriebe haben die Bodenbearbeitungstiefe deutlich reduziert, die anderen sieben Betriebe lockern den Boden krumentief mit nicht wendenden Verfahren. Im Durchschnitt wurde eine Anreicherung von organischer Substanz und von Nährstoffen in der Oberkrume festgestellt. Der Unterschied im Gehalt an organischer Substanz zwischen Ober- und Unterkrume war mit der Dauer des Bodenbearbeitungssystems positiv korreliert. Außerdem lag das Porenvolumen in der Oberkrume deutlich über dem der Unterkrume, stark korrelierte mit dem Gehalt an organischer Substanz. Die Ergebnisse bestätigen die Beobachtungen der Landwirte über die positive Entwicklung der bodenphysikalischen Eigenschaften

Carrots, Sticks and False Carrots: How high should weight control wellness incentives be? Findings from a population-level experiment

Employers are increasingly using wellness incentives, including penalties for unhealthy behavior. Survey data suggests that people are willing to accept the principle of penalizing those perceived to take health risks, but the equally relevant question of the magnitude of acceptable penalties is unclear. While the principle of penalizing overweight and obese people has some support, findings from a population-level experiment (n=1,000) suggest that the acceptable size of penalties is comparatively small, around $50: more than 10-fold below levels favored by advocates. Reward-based incentives are favored over penalty-based ones by a factor of 4. Of two different ways of framing penalty programs, poorer and higher weight groups appear to find the one that is more overtly penalizing less acceptable. Levels of incentives matter on effectiveness as well as on ethical grounds, as it cannot be assumed that it is equally easy for all to meet health targets to secure a benefit or avoid a penalty. Programs should be designed to engage, not to frustrate those most in need of health improvement. Employee involvement in determining incentive types and levels, and explicit justification for program design can help both employees and employers to reap benefits

Student Education During The REXUS/BEXUS Projects

The new DLR Institute of Space Systems in Bremen has established a project office to support and manage German student activities related to the preparation of the BEXUS and REXUS (Balloon/Rocket Experiments for University Students) flights. This paper primarily describes the student mentoring and the educational activities undertaken by DLR and SSC with the aim of encouraging and promoting student knowledge throughout the first year of the REXUS/BEXUS student programme