Bridging the economic divide within nations : a scorecard on the performance of regional development policies in reducing regional income disparities

Regional inequalities represent a continuing development challenge in most countries, especially those with large geographic areas. Globalization heightens these challenges because it places a premium on skills: since rich regions typically also have better educated and better skilled labor, the gulf between rich and poor regions widens. While central governments in unitary states are relatively unconstrained in their choice of policies for reducing regional disparities, in a federation the division of powers curtails federal flexibility in policy choice. Thus in federal states large regional disparities can represent serious threats, with the state's inability to deal with such inequities creating potential for disunity and, in extreme cases, for disintegration. Inequalities beyond a threshold may lead to calls for separation by both the richest and the poorest regions. While the poorest regional may consider the inequalities a manifestation of regional injustice, the richest regions may view the union with the poorest regions as holding them back in their drive toward prosperity. Under these circumstances, there is a presumption in development economics that decentralized fiscal arrangements would lead to ever widening regional inequalities. The authors provide an empirical test of this hypothesis. The authors conclude that regional development policies have failed in almost all countries, federal and unitary alike. Among 10 countries with high or substantial regional income inequality, only one (Thailand) has experienced convergence in regional incomes. Still, federal countries do better in restraining regional inequalities, because of the greater political risk these disparities pose for such countries. The authors classify countries by degree of convergence in regional incomes: a) Countries experiencing regional income divergence - Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Romania, the Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. b) Countries experiencing no significant change in regional income variation - Canada and Mexico. c) Countries experiencing regional income convergence - Chile, Pakistan, Thailand, the United States, and Uzbekistan. Regional development outcomes observed in these countries provide a revealing look at the impact of regional development policies. While countries experiencing divergence tend to focus on interventionist policies, those experiencing convergence have taken a hands-off approach to regional development and instead focused on promoting an economic union by removing barriers to factor mobility and ensuring minimum standards in basic services across the nation. In Chile, for example, convergence in regional incomes is largely attributable to liberalizing the economy and removing distortions so that regions could discover their own comparative advantage. In Pakistan and the United States convergence is attributable to greater factor mobility. Paradoxically, creating a level playing field helps disadvantaged regions more than do paternalistic protectionist policies.Poverty Impact Evaluation,Economic Conditions and Volatility,Economic Theory&Research,Services&Transfers to Poor,Environmental Economics&Policies,Inequality,Poverty Impact Evaluation,Achieving Shared Growth,Economic Theory&Research,Governance Indicators

Lessons from European Union policies for regional development

Regional disparities present an ever present development challenge in most countries, especially those with large geographic areas under their jurisdiction. A neglect of these inequities may create the potential for disunity and, in extreme cases, for disintegration. In view of this, most countries actively pursue policies with a view to helping lagging regions catch up with faster growing regions. These policies have at best a mixed record of success. It is therefore useful to discern what type of policies work and why? In this context learning from the experience of the European Union (EU) may be particularly instructive as, over the years, it has provided significant support to assist poorer regions achieve convergence with the richer regions. This paper reviews the impact of EU policies for regional development to draw lessons of interest to other countries pursuing similar goals. The paper concludes that policies that serve to create an internal common market by creating a level playing field that enables poorer regions to integrate with the broader national and global economies have the best potential to advance regional income convergence. In this context, removal of barriers to trade and factor mobility and providing enhanced access to information and technology to the lagging regions should be main policy priorities for regional development.Regional Rural Development,Trade and Regional Integration,Political Economy,Economic Theory&Research,Debt Markets

Incorporating Agile with MDA Case Study: Online Polling System

Nowadays agile software development is used in greater extend but for small organizations only, whereas MDA is suitable for large organizations but yet not standardized. In this paper the pros and cons of Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and Extreme programming have been discussed. As both of them have some limitations and cannot be used in both large scale and small scale organizations a new architecture has been proposed. In this model it is tried to opt the advantages and important values to overcome the limitations of both the software development procedures. In support to the proposed architecture the implementation of it on Online Polling System has been discussed and all the phases of software development have been explained.Comment: 14 pages,1 Figure,1 Tabl

A case of synchronous papillary and clear cell carcinoma in the same kidney

Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) comprises 2-3% of all cancers. Bilateral coexistent benign and malignant renal tumors have been defined in many reports. However, unilateral synchronous malignant tumors of different histologic subtypes are very rare and only a few such cases have been reported. Herein we describe a 56 year old male patient with coexistent clear cell RCC and papillary RCC in his left kidney that were successfully treated with radical nephrectomy

Giant popliteal aneurysm presenting with foot drop

Popliteal aneurysms are the most common peripheral arterial aneurysm and occur most commonly among older men with established cardiovascular disease. Popliteal aneurysms are asymptomatic or otherwise present with intermittent claudication, pressure symptoms in the popliteal fossa, distal embolization, and, rarely, rupture. We present a patient with a remarkably large popliteal aneurysm of 10 cm presenting as a popliteal swelling with foot drop and no signs of limb ischemia. According to our literature search, it is the largest reported popliteal aneurysm, and its corresponding symptoms are unusual. The diagnostic workup and treatment are presented

A study to determine the knowledge of pharmacovigilance among pharmacy students from Mumbai university

Background: Pharmacovigilance (PV); also known as drug safety surveillance, is the science of enhancing patient care and patient safety regarding the use of medicines by collecting, monitoring, assessing, and evaluating information from healthcare providers and patients. Pharmacists are pivotal players in adverse drug event (ADE) monitoring and reporting. However, most pharmacists are unaware or not knowledgeable about the guidelines used by their respective countries’ drug regulatory bodies. It is the need of the hour to train pharmacy students on the concept of pharmacovigilance.Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among pharmacy students from Mumbai University, India during May-June 2017. On the basis of the eligibility criterion 352 students were selected for the present study. Four hundred students were approached to participate in the study of which 201 agreed to participate (males: 179; females: 173). Pretested questionnaire was distributed and collected data was analyzed using IBM SPSS version 23.Results: Overall pharmacovigilance knowledge (44%) and perception (58%) was low among the participants of the present study. Seventy four percent of the participants felt that adverse drug reaction (ADR) reporting should be made compulsory for healthcare professionals. And only 21% agreed that the topic of Pharmacovigilance is well covered in pharmacy curriculum.Conclusions: Pharmacy council of India, pharmacy teacher’s association and respective pharmacy college should take necessary steps to increase the knowledge and create awareness regarding pharmacovigilance and adverse drug reaction reporting among pharmacy students.

γ-H2AX+CD8+ T lymphocytes cannot respond to IFN-α, IL-2 or IL-6 in chronic hepatitis C virus infection

Background & AimsAge is the dominant prognostic factor influencing the natural history of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and treatment response. Accelerated lymphocyte telomere shortening in HCV infection correlates with adverse clinical outcomes. Critical telomere shortening generates double-stranded DNA breaks (DSB) inducing the DNA damage response, leading to replicative senescence. The phenotype and function of CD8+ T lymphocytes and the in vitro response to IFN-α in relation to the DNA damage response were investigated in patients with chronic HCV infection.MethodsCD8+ T lymphocytes with DSB were identified by expression of γ-H2AX (Ser-139) in 134 HCV-exposed subjects and 27 controls. Telomere length was determined by flow-FISH; cytokine expression by intracellular cytokine staining; in vitro responses to IFN-α, IL-2 or IL-6 by phospho-STAT1 (Y701) or phospho-STAT5 (Y694) expression.ResultsThe proportion of circulating CD8+γ-H2AX+ T lymphocytes rose with increasing fibrosis stage (p=0.0023). CD8+γ-H2AX+ T lymphocytes were enriched in liver compared to blood (p=0.03). CD8+γ-H2AX+ T lymphocytes demonstrated increased IFN-γ (p=0.02) and reduced IL-2 expression (p=0.02). CD8+γ-H2AX+ T lymphocytes failed to phosphorylate STAT1 in response to IFN-α compared to unfractionated CD8+ T lymphocytes (p <0.0001). More widespread failure of Jak/Stat signalling in CD8+γ-H2AX+ T lymphocytes was suggested by impaired phosphorylation of STAT1 with IL-6 (p=0.002) and STAT5 with IL-2 (p=0.0039) compared to unfractionated CD8+ T-lymphocytes.ConclusionsIn chronic HCV infection, CD8+γ-H2AX+ T lymphocytes are highly differentiated with shortened telomeres, are more frequent within the liver, are associated with severe fibrosis and fail to activate Jak/Stat pathways in response to IFN-α, IL-2 or IL-6, perhaps explaining treatment failure in those with severe fibrosis