What explains the uneven take-up of ISO 14001 at the global level?: a panel-data analysis

Since its release in the mid-1990s, close to 37 000 facilities have been certified to ISO 14001, the international voluntary standard for environmental management systems. Yet, despite claims that the standard can be readily adapted to very different corporate and geographic settings, its take-up has been highly geographically variable. This paper contributes to a growing body of work concerned with explaining the uneven diffusion of ISO 14001 at the global level. Drawing from the existing theoretical and empirical literature we develop a series of hypotheses about how various economic, market, and regulatory factors influence the national count of ISO 14001 certifications. These hypotheses are then tested using econometric estimation techniques with data for a panel of 142 developed and developing countries. We find that per capita ISO 14001 counts are positively correlated with income per capita, stock of foreign direct investment, exports of goods and services to Europe and Japan, and pressure from civil society. Conversely, productivity and levels of state intervention are negatively correlated. The paper finishes by offering a number of recommendations to policymakers concerned with accelerating the diffusion of voluntary environmental standards

The cost of health professionals' brain drain in Kenya

BACKGROUND: Past attempts to estimate the cost of migration were limited to education costs only and did not include the lost returns from investment. The objectives of this study were: (i) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of Kenyan doctors to the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA); (ii) to estimate the financial cost of emigration of nurses to seven OECD countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, UK, USA); and (iii) to describe other losses from brain drain. METHODS: The costs of primary, secondary, medical and nursing schools were estimated in 2005. The cost information used in this study was obtained from one non-profit primary and secondary school and one public university in Kenya. The cost estimates represent unsubsidized cost. The loss incurred by Kenya through emigration was obtained by compounding the cost of educating a medical doctor and a nurse over the period between the average age of emigration (30 years) and the age of retirement (62 years) in recipient countries. RESULTS: The total cost of educating a single medical doctor from primary school to university is US$65,997; and for every doctor who emigrates, a country loses about US$ 517,931 worth of returns from investment. The total cost of educating one nurse from primary school to college of health sciences is US$43,180; and for every nurse that emigrates, a country loses about US$ 338,868 worth of returns from investment. CONCLUSION: Developed countries continue to deprive Kenya of millions of dollars worth of investments embodied in her human resources for health. If the current trend of poaching of scarce human resources for health (and other professionals) from Kenya is not curtailed, the chances of achieving the Millennium Development Goals would remain bleak. Such continued plunder of investments embodied in human resources contributes to further underdevelopment of Kenya and to keeping a majority of her people in the vicious circle of ill-health and poverty. Therefore, both developed and developing countries need to urgently develop and implement strategies for addressing the health human resource crisis

TABADO: "Evaluation of a smoking cessation program among Adolescents in Vocational Training Centers": Study protocol

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Most of the efforts to reduce teenagers' tobacco addiction have focused on smoking prevention and little on smoking cessation. A smoking cessation program (TABADO study), associating pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioural strategy, on a particularly vulnerable population (vocational trainees), was developed. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the program which was offered to all smokers in a population aged 15 to 20 years in Vocational Training Centers (VTC). This paper presents the TABADO study protocol.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study is quasi-experimental, prospective, evaluative and comparative and takes place during the 2 years of vocational training. The final population will be composed of 2000 trainees entering a VTC in Lorraine, France, during the 2008-2009 period. The intervention group (1000 trainees) benefited from the TABADO program while no specific intervention took place in the "control" group (1000 trainees) other than the treatment and education services usually available. Our primary outcome will be the tobacco abstinence rate at 12 months.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>If the program proves effective, it will be a new tool in the action against smoking in populations that have been seldom targeted until now. In addition, the approach could be expanded to other young subjects from socially disadvantaged backgrounds in the context of a public health policy against smoking among adolescents.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Clinical trial identification number is NTC00973570.</p

Environmental pressure group strength and air pollution : an empirical analysis

There is an established theoretical and empirical case-study literature arguing that environmental pressure groups have a real impact on pollution levels. Our original contribution to this literature is to provide the first systematic quantitative test of the strength of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) on air pollution levels. We find that ENGO strength exerts a statistically significant impact on sulfur dioxide, smoke and heavy particulates concentration levels in a cross-country time-series regression analysis. This result holds true both for ordinary least squares and random-effects estimation. It is robust to controlling for the potential endogeneity of ENGO strength with the help of instrumental variables. The effect is also substantively important. Strengthening ENGOs represents an important strategy by which aid donors, foundations, international organizations and other stakeholders can try to achieve lower pollution levels around the world