No-shirking Conditions in Frictional Labor Markets

A matching model, combined with a shirking model of efficiency wages, is examined. It depends on sources of unemployment variation whether the no-shirking condition (NSC) tends to be binding as the unemployment rate is lower. When only productivity varies, the NSC tends to be binding as the unemployment rate is higher, as in Rocheteau (2001). However, when only matching efficiency varies, the NSC tends to be binding as the unemployment rate is lower.

Can disaggregated indicators identify governance reform priorities ?

Many highly-disaggregated cross-country indicators of institutional quality and the business environment have been developed in recent years. The promise of these indicators is that they can be used to identify specific reform priorities that policymakers and aid donors can target in their efforts to improve institutional and regulatory quality outcomes. Doing so however requires evidence on the partial effects of these many very detailed variables on outcomes of interest, for example, investor perceptions of corruption or the quality of the regulatory environment. In this paper we use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to systematically document the partial correlations between disaggregated indicators and several closely-related outcome variables of interest using two leading datasets: the Global Integrity Index and the Doing Business indicators. We find major instability across outcomes and across levels of disaggregation in the set of indicators identified by BMA as important determinants of outcomes. Disaggregated indicators that are important determinants of one outcome are on average not important determinants of other very similar outcomes. And for a given outcome variable, indicators that are important at one level of disaggregation are on average not important at other levels of disaggregation. These findings illustrate the difficulties in using highly-disaggregated indicators to identify reform priorities.Statistical&Mathematical Sciences,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Governance Indicators,Econometrics

The Size of Government and U.S.-European Differences in Economic Performance

An influential strand of recent research has claimed that large governments in European countries explain their weaker long-term economic performance compared to the U.S. On the other hand, despite these alleged costs, large governments have been popular with electorates. This paper seeks to shed light on this apparent inconsistency; it confirms an adverse effect of taxes on labor supply, but also finds evidence of efficiency-increasing government intervention. However, and especially in the core "Rhineland-model" European countries, actual government policies often depart from such efficient interventions, pointing to the possibility that voters prefer redistribution even at the cost of allocational efficiency.Public finance;National income;Government expenditures;Economic models;labor supply, labor market, unemployment, employment, labor market policies, employment protection, job search, unemployed, unemployment rate, labor share, long-term unemployment, labor market institutions, jobs, labor market efficiency, unemployment ratio, unemployed worker, labor markets, active labor, job opening, labor economics, labor productivity, labor market friction, job-seekers, active labor market policies, job seekers, labor market policy, employment rate, unemployment spells, labor supplies, employment protection legislation, labor market participants, active labor market, unemployment insurance

Discovery of Interacting Molecular Gas toward the TeV Gamma-Ray Peak of the SNR G 347.3-0.5

Supernova remnants ( = SNR) are suggested to be sites of cosmic-ray acceleration. In particular, it has been an issue of keen interest whether cosmic ray protons are being accelerated in a SNR which emits TeV γ-rays. A crucial observational test for this is to find dense molecular gas towards the SNR, because such molecular gas can best verify the existence of cosmic-ray protons via pion decay to γ-rays. Here, we show that new high-resolution mm-wave observations of interstellar CO molecule have revealed molecular gas at 1kpc distance interacting with the TeV γ-ray SNR G 347.3 - 0.5, and that a molecular cloud of ˜ 200 solar masses is clearly associated with the TeV γ-ray peak, providing strong evidence for proton acceleration. We have estimated the total energy of accelerated protons to be ˜ 1048 erg, which corresponds to an acceleration efficiency of ˜ 0.001, posing an observational constraint on the proton acceleration

Renal papillary tip extract stimulates BNP production and excretion from cardiomyocytes

<div><p>Background</p><p>Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is an important biomarker for patients with cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure, hypertension and cardiac hypertrophy. It is also known that BNP levels are relatively higher in patients with chronic kidney disease and no heart disease; however, the mechanism remains unclear.</p><p>Methods and results</p><p>We developed a BNP reporter mouse and occasionally found that this promoter was activated specifically in the papillary tip of the kidneys, and its activation was not accompanied by <i>BNP</i> mRNA expression. No evidence was found to support the existence of BNP isoforms or other nucleotide expression apart from BNP and tdTomato. The pBNP-tdTomato-positive cells were interstitial cells and were not proliferative. Unexpectedly, both the expression and secretion of BNP increased in primary cultured neonatal cardiomyocytes after their treatment with an extract of the renal papillary tip. Intraperitoneal injection of the extract of the papillary tips reduced blood pressure from 210 mmHg to 165 mmHg, the decrease being accompanied by an increase in serum BNP and urinary cGMP production in stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive (SHR-SP) rats. Furthermore the induction of BNP by the papillary extract from rats with heart failure due to myocardial infarction was increased in cardiomyocytes.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>These results suggested that the papillary tip express a substance that can stimulate BNP production and secretion from cardiomyocytes.</p></div

Mild activation of the BNP promoter in the heart, with no activation in the other organs, of pBNP-tdTomato Tg mice.

<p>The pictures are representative of three mice.</p

Characterization of papillary extracts by proteolysis and molecular weight fractionation.

<p>A, Papillary extracts were digested with 0.3 μg/ml Proteinase K for each indicated time and loaded into 10% and 15% gel. The pictures are representative of three experiments. B, BNP mRNA expression was examined by Northern blot analysis in cardiomyocytes treated with control buffer (MOCK) or each digested extract of the papillary tip. *P < 0.05 vs. cardiomyocytes treated with the buffer alone (MOCK). n = 4. C, Papillary extracts were fractionated according to their molecular weight range. The pictures are representative of three experiments. D, BNP mRNA expression was examined by Northern blot analysis in cardiomyocytes treated with control buffer or each molecular-weight-fractionated extract of the papillary tip. *P < 0.05 vs. cardiomyocytes treated with the buffer alone (MOCK). n = 3.</p

tdTomato was expressed specifically in cardiomyocytes from pBNP-tdTomato transgenic mice.

<p>A, Transgenic (Tg) vector of pBNP-tdTomato. B, Isolated cardiomyocytes expressing tdTomato and mixed fibroblasts with no expression of tdTomato in a BNP reporter mouse. The pictures are representative of five mice.</p

Effects of extracts of the papillary tip (●) and inner medulla (○) of the kidneys on stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR-SP).

<p>A, Each extract was intraperitoneally administered to SHR-SP rats and their systolic blood pressure was followed for 24 h using the tail-cuff method. *P < 0.05 vs. basal blood pressure (at 0 h). n = 4 to 6. B, Measurement of serum BNP (n = 4 to 8) and C, cGMP in the urine 4h and 24 h after intraperitoneal injection of buffer alone or the extract of the papillary tip or the inner medulla. *P < 0.05 or n.s. = no significant difference vs. serum from SHR-SP rats treated with buffer alone (MOCK). n = 4 to 8. D, The ratio of urine volume to MOCK 4h and 24h after the injection. n.s. = no significant difference vs. the urine from SHR-SP rats treated with buffer alone (MOCK). n = 4 to 8. E, urine sodium excretion for 4h (0-4h) and 20h (4–24 h) after the injection of control buffer or extract of the papillary tip or the inner medulla into SHR-SP rats. n.s. = no significant difference vs. the urine from SHR-SP rats treated with buffer alone (MOCK). n = 4 to 8. For all figures, data indicate the mean +/- standard error of the mean.</p