Foreign Direct Investment and Enterprise Performance in Transition Countries: Evidence from Russia and Ukraine

This study compares the performance of foreign firms with domestic ones in Russia and Ukraine, using recent survey data of 450 enterprises. We find that foreign owned firms are less prone to inter-enterprise arrears and wage arrears, have a better export performance, and use more sophisticated competition strategies. Foreign investment appears to enhance entrepreneurial know-how. In case of de novo firms foreign investment often led to a 'jump start' of the enterprise, rather than a gradual adjustment over time. Foreign firms have a positive spill-over effect. They introduce healthy financial management methods, and proliferate badly needed market oriented entrepreneurial know-how through the managerial market.foreign direct investment, transition economies, entrepreneurship, growth.

Essays on intertemporal consumption and portfolio choice

This dissertation consists of two parts, preceded by an introductory chapter. Part I (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) considers optimal consumption and portfolio choice using preference models. Chapter 2 analyzes optimal consumption and portfolio choice under loss aversion and endogenous updating of the reference level. I find that loss aversion triggers a demand for ‘‘guarantee like’’ features in pension products, and endogenous updating justifies a mechanism for smoothing the change in consumption due to financial shocks. Chapter 3 extends Chapter 2 by including probability weighting. I show that if the agent substantially distorts small probabilities, the model generates an endogenous floor on consumption. Chapter 4 considers a consumption and portfolio choice model that combines the ratio model of habit formation with stochastic differential utility. I show that the agent gradually adjusts consumption to financial shocks, justifying a return smoothing mechanism. Part II (Chapters 5, 6 and 7) explores the modelling of pension plans. Chapter 5 formalizes a new pension contract, a so-called personal pension plan with risk sharing (PPR). This chapter explores a consumption approach and an investment approach to a PPR. Chapter 6 explores the pricing and risk management of variable annuities for which the payouts respond gradually to financial shocks. I show that the market-consistent discount rate rises with the investment horizon. Finally, Chapter 7 explores the pricing and risk management of variable annuities in an economy with multiple risk factors

Is individual educational level related to end-of-life care use? : results from a nationwide retrospective cohort study in Belgium

Background: Educational level has repeatedly been identified as an important determinant of access to health care, but little is known about its influence on end-of-life care use. Objectives: To examine the relationship between individual educational attainment and end-of-life care use and to assess the importance of individual educational attainment in explaining differential end-of-life care use. Research Design: A retrospective cohort study via a nationwide sentinel network of general practitioners (GPs; SENTI-MELC Study) provided data on end-of-life care utilization. Multilevel analysis was used to model the association between educational level and health care use, adjusting for individual and contextual confounders based upon Andersen's behavioral model of health services use. Subjects: A Belgian nationwide representative sample of people who died not suddenly in 2005-2007. Results: In comparison to their less educated counterparts, higher educated people equally often had a palliative treatment goal but more often used multidisciplinary palliative care services (odds ratios [OR] for lower secondary education 1.28 [1.04-1.59] and for higher [secondary] education: 1.31 [1.02-1.68]), moved between care settings more frequently (OR: 1.68 [1.13-2.48] for lower secondary education and 1.51 [0.93-2.48] for higher [secondary] education) and had more contacts with the GP in the final 3 months of life. Conclusions: Less well-educated people appear to be disadvantaged in terms of access to specialist palliative care services, and GP contacts at the end of life, suggesting a need for empowerment of less well-educated terminally ill people regarding specialist palliative and general end-of-life care use

Pollen viability and membrane lipid composition

In this thesis membrane lipid composition is studied in relation to pollen viability during storage. Chapter 1 reviews pollen viability, membranes in the dry state and membrane changes associated with cellular aging. This chapter is followed by a study of age-related changes in phospholipid composition in Typha latifolia L. pollen.Typha pollen was stored at room temperature, with internal moisture contents of respectively 0.06 and 0.15 g H 2 O g -1dry weight. In the course of the storage period, imbibition was accompanied by increased leakage of endogenous K +and germination declined. Simultaneously, phospholipids were deesterified in situ, leading to the accumulation of lysophospholipids and free fatty acids in the membranes. Viability declined much faster at the higher internal moisture content. An analysis of the fatty acid composition of the pollen phospholipids after aging indicated that the membrane degradation was not mediated by phospholipase A2. When stored with 0.06 g H 2 O g -1dry weight, the level of polyunsaturated fatty acids remained constant, at the higher internal moisture content a slight decline in the level of linolenic acid content was found. The observed phospholipid degradation could be mediated by an unspecific lipid acyl hydrolase, but free-radical activity is more likely because of the low metabolic activity at the studied moisture levels. The pollen lipids were purified for liposome studies. These revealed that the lysophospholipids and the free fatty acids, accumulated during aging, enhanced the leakage of entrapped solutes from the liposomes (Chapter 2).The phase behaviour of liposomal membranes containing lysophospholipids was studied after drying, to investigate the effect of these compounds in dried and in reimbibed phospholipid bilayers. Liposome studies, using Differential scanning calorimetry and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, showed that the lysophospholipids caused a dehydration dependent lateral phase separation. Membrane phase behaviour was also studied in Typha pollen and isolated pollen membranes. After aging the pollen membranes also exhibited lateral phase separation. The phase separation clearly coincided with the above described deesterification of membrane lipids in situ after aging, and caused an extremely fast leakage of endogenous K +upon imbibition (Chapter 3).Two other pollen species were studied to assess whether the observed phospholipid deesterification is a general characteristic of pollen aging. In the course of storage with an internal moisture level 0.06 g H 2 O g -1dry weight, germination declined and the leakage of endogenous K +upon imbibition was increased in pollen from Papaver rhoeas L. and Narcissus poeticus L. At the same time phospholipid deesterification was observed in these species and lysophospholipids and free fatty acids accumulated. The degradation was again accelerated when the pollen was stored with an internal moisture content of 0.15 g H 2 O g -1dry weight. In pollen species with high levels of linolenic acid such as Papaver and Narcissus the deesterification occurred at a higher rate than in pollen species such as Typha in which linoleic acid is predominant. However, no selective loss of polyunsaturated fatty acids was observed. The degradation of the phospholipids in the pollen during dry storage was again most likely free radical-mediated (Chapter 4).Although there was no large preferential degradation of linolenic acid, longevity was somehow correlated with the linolenic acid content. To study whether membrane fluidity in general determines longevity, attempts were undertaken to manipulate the level of linolenic acid in situ . Unfortunately catalytic hydrogenation, using Pd-alizarine as the catalyst, failed to result in saturation of the phospholipids in intact pollen, owing to an inhibition of the activity of the catalyst in viable pollen (Chapter 5).Because catalytic hydrogenation was unsuccessful, an in situ modification of the level of linolenic acid during the germination process was not possible. So, to study the role of linolenic acid in relation to pollen germination, Arabidopsis thaliana L. Heynh. mutants exhibiting desaturase-deficiencies were used. Pollen tube growth rate was severely decreased in pollen from the mutant fad2, in which the activity of the 16:0/18:1 desaturase located in the endoplasmatic reticulum is suppressed. In pollen from this mutant line the level of polyunsaturated fatty acids was decreased, confirming the correlation between membrane fluidity and pollen tube growth rate. In the other mutants in which chloroplast located enzymes were affected, pollen tube growth rate was unaffected (Chapter 6).The results from these studies show that with respect to aging and storage of pollen, the key factor in controling viability is the fluidity of the phospholipid bilayer. When the pollen membranes are in the high fluidity liquid crystalline phase during storage, aging is much more rapid than when the membranes are in the low fluidity gel phase. So for storage gel phase is preferable, but for rapid tube growth, on the contrary the liquid crystalline phase is required. Thus for both proper storage and germination conditions, membrane fluidity has to be carefully monitored, for instance with the aid of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (Chapter 7)

Cytochrome P450, peroxisome proliferation, and cytoplasmic fatty acid-binding protein content in liver, heart and kidney of the diabetic rat

Diabetes mellitus generally results in an increased systemic fatty acid mobilization which can be associated with an increase in mitochondrial and peroxisomal beta-oxidation of fatty acids in selected tissues. The latter is usually accompanied by a concomitant increase in the tissue content of cytoplasmic fatty acid-binding protein (FABP) which functions in the intracellular translocation of fatty acids. It was previously found that in liver clofibrate-induced proliferation of peroxisomes and increase in FABP expression each are dependent on the induction by cytochrome P4504A1 -mediated (CYP4A1) formation of dicarboxylic acids. We studied whether peroxisome proliferation and an increase of FABP contents in liver, heart and kidney of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats are also accompanied by an increase of CYP4A1 activity, as this would indicate a possible regulatory role for dicarboxylic acids in peroxisome proliferation and FABP induction in diabetic organs other than liver. In livers of the diabetic rat, a concomitant increase was observed of the activities of CYP4A1 and the peroxisomal key enzyme fatty acyl-CoA oxidase (FACO) and of the FABP content. In the diabetic heart FACO activity and FABP content also increased, but there was no induction of CYP4A1 activity. Conversely, in diabetic kidney there was no increase in FACO activity nor FABP content in spite of a marked induction of CYP4A1 activity. It is concluded that streptozotocin-induced diabetes leads to increased peroxisome proliferation and increased levels of FABP in both liver and heart, which only in liver is accompanied by an induction of the cytochrome P450 system. Consequently, it is not likely that dicarboxylic acids are involved in the induction of peroxisome proliferation in the heart