La historia (económica) interminable del tiempo de Cervantes

De generación en generación, el Quijote, heraldo de las esencias patrias, ha sido devotamente releído y reinventado. Del mismo modo, Cervantes y su tiempo fueron recorridos hasta la extenuación por toda suerte de estudiosos dispuestos a arrancar del sepulcro del hidalgo manchego alguna clave explicativa del destino de España. Las páginas que siguen no se aplican a una lectura económica del texto. Desde la que hiciera Piernas Hurtado en 1874 hasta este mismo año, son demasiados los ensayos en tal dirección. Aquí se propone un recorrido alternativo que, partiendo de los doctores salmantinos y a través de los caminos del arbitrismo, de la Ilustración y de la historiografía económica liberal, agota su trayecto en «el tiempo de Pierre Vilar». Al final del viaje no debe desalentar constatar que «todo es según el color del cristal con que se mira»; los progresos ópticos, al corregir las distorsiones de las lentes, acaban por acercar los puntos de vista y suscitar así el acuerdo entre los observadores.Don Quixote, herald of patriotic essences, has been devotedly read and reinvented generation after generation. Likewise, Cervantes and his time have been studied until exhaustion by all kinds of scholars prepared to snatch a key from the grave of the nobleman from La Mancha, which could explain the destiny of Spain. In the following pages, the text will not be interpreted from the point of view of economics. Since the works of Piernas hurtado to this very year of the celebration of the centenary, a fair amount of essays have been produced from that perspective. An alternative analysis is proposed here which, starting with the School of Salamanca and going through Arbitrismo, Enlightenment and the liberal economic historiography, ends at «the time of Pierre Vilar». At the end of the journey one shouldn’t be disappointed at verifying that «all depends on the colour of the glass you look through at this matter». The advances in optics have adjusted the distortions caused by faulty lenses and have hence brought different points of view closer together. Today there is considerable agreement amongst scholars.Publicad

Treatment with tocilizumab or corticosteroids for COVID-19 patients with hyperinflammatory state: a multicentre cohort study (SAM-COVID-19)

Objectives: The objective of this study was to estimate the association between tocilizumab or corticosteroids and the risk of intubation or death in patients with coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) with a hyperinflammatory state according to clinical and laboratory parameters. Methods: A cohort study was performed in 60 Spanish hospitals including 778 patients with COVID-19 and clinical and laboratory data indicative of a hyperinflammatory state. Treatment was mainly with tocilizumab, an intermediate-high dose of corticosteroids (IHDC), a pulse dose of corticosteroids (PDC), combination therapy, or no treatment. Primary outcome was intubation or death; follow-up was 21 days. Propensity score-adjusted estimations using Cox regression (logistic regression if needed) were calculated. Propensity scores were used as confounders, matching variables and for the inverse probability of treatment weights (IPTWs). Results: In all, 88, 117, 78 and 151 patients treated with tocilizumab, IHDC, PDC, and combination therapy, respectively, were compared with 344 untreated patients. The primary endpoint occurred in 10 (11.4%), 27 (23.1%), 12 (15.4%), 40 (25.6%) and 69 (21.1%), respectively. The IPTW-based hazard ratios (odds ratio for combination therapy) for the primary endpoint were 0.32 (95%CI 0.22-0.47; p < 0.001) for tocilizumab, 0.82 (0.71-1.30; p 0.82) for IHDC, 0.61 (0.43-0.86; p 0.006) for PDC, and 1.17 (0.86-1.58; p 0.30) for combination therapy. Other applications of the propensity score provided similar results, but were not significant for PDC. Tocilizumab was also associated with lower hazard of death alone in IPTW analysis (0.07; 0.02-0.17; p < 0.001). Conclusions: Tocilizumab might be useful in COVID-19 patients with a hyperinflammatory state and should be prioritized for randomized trials in this situatio

Revista Integración & Comercio: Año 17: No. 36: Enero-junio, 2013

Este número aborda el tópico de la Cooperación Sur-Sur (CSS) y demuestra que es más que ¿mucho ruido y pocas nueces¿. La CSS se presenta como algo muy tangible y más complejo de lo que parece, reflejando nuevos mecanismos, nuevas maneras de pensar y un constante realineamiento económico. Se incluyen contribuciones sobre los siguientes temas: el papel de las instituciones en la provision de bienes públicos y sus implicaciones para el desarrollo sustentable, la CSS y su creciente contribución al diálogo internacional; la relevancia e implicaciones de la CSS entre ALC, China, Japón y Corea; el papel de las organizaciones de la sociedad civil (OSC) en la definición, ejecución y evaluación de las intervenciones de CSS en la región; comparaciones entre proveedores de CSS y donantes tradicionales, con énfasis en el sector privado; así como estudios de caso.