Mental pictures: citizen or consumer?

This is a PDF version of an article published in Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health© 2008. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health, 128, July by SAGE Publications, Ltd, All rights reserved.This journal article discusses media images relating to health care

Regional impacts of Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization

In this paper we develop a computable general equilibrium model of the regions of Russia to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on the regions of Russia. We estimate that the average gain in welfare as a percentage of consumption for the whole country is 7.8 percent (or 4.3 percent of consumption); we estimate that three regions will gain considerably more: Northwest (11.2 percent), St. Petersburg (10.6 percent) and Far East (9.7 percent). We estimate that the Urals will gain only 6.2 percent of consumption, considerably less than the national average. The principal explanation in ourcentral analysis for the differences across regions is the ability of the different regions to benefit from a reduction in barriers against foreign direct investment. The three regions with the largest welfare gains are clearly the regions with the estimated largest shares of multinational investment. But the Urals has attracted relatively little FDI in the service sectors. An additional reason for differences across regions is quantified in our sensitivity analysis: regions may gain more from WTO accession if they can succeed in creating a good investment climate.Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies,Free Trade,Markets and Market Access,Investment and Investment Climate

Regional household and poverty effects of Russia's accession to the world trade organization

This paper develops a seven-region comparative static computable general equilibrium model of Russia to assess the impact of accession tothe World Trade Organization on these seven regions (the federal okrugs) of Russia. In order to assess poverty and distributional impacts, the model includes ten households in each of the seven federal okrugs, where household data are taken from the Household Budget Survey of Rosstat. The model allows for foreign direct investment in business services and endogenous productivity effects from additional varieties of business services and goods, which the analysis shows are crucial to the results. National welfare gains are about 4.5 percent of gross domestic product in the model, but in a constant returns to scale model they are only 0.1 percent. All deciles of the population in all seven federal okrugs can be expected to significantly gain from Russian World Trade Organization accession, but due to the capacity of their regions to attract foreign direct investment, households in the Northwest region gain the most, followed by households in the Far East and Volga regions. Households in Siberia and the Urals gain the least. Distribution impacts within regions are rather flat for the first nine deciles; but the richest decile of the population in the three regions that attract a lot of foreign investment gains significantly more than the other nine representative households in those regions.Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,Access to Finance,Debt Markets,Investment and Investment Climate

Estimating the Creation and Removal Date of Fracking Ponds Using Trend Analysis of Landsat Imagery

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process of introducing liquid at high pressure to create fractures in shale rock formations, thus releasing natural gas. Flowback and produced water from fracking operations is typically stored in temporary open-air earthen impoundments, or frack ponds. Unfortunately, in the United States there is no public record of the location of impoundments, or the dates that impoundments are created or removed. In this study we use a dataset of drilling-related impoundments in Pennsylvania identified through the FrackFinder project led by SkyTruth, an environmental non-profit. For each impoundment location, we compiled all low cloud Landsat imagery from 2000 to 2016 and created a monthly time series for three bands: red, near-infrared (NIR), and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). We identified the approximate date of creation and removal of impoundments from sudden breaks in the time series. To verify our method, we compared the results to date ranges derived from photointerpretation of all available historical imagery on Google Earth for a subset of impoundments. Based on our analysis, we found that the number of impoundments built annually increased rapidly from 2006 to 2010, and then slowed from 2010 to 2013. Since newer impoundments tend to be larger, however, the total impoundment area has continued to increase. The methods described in this study would be appropriate for finding the creation and removal date of a variety of industrial land use changes at known locations

Poverty effects of Russia's WTO accession : modeling"real"households and endogenous productivity effects

The authors use a computable general equilibrium comparative static model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. Their model is innovative in that they incorporate all 55,000 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as"real"households in the model. This is accomplished because they develop a new algorithm for solving general equilibrium models with a large number of agents. In addition, they include foreign direct investment and Dixit-Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects in their trade and poverty analysis. In the medium term, the authors find that virtually all households gain from Russian WTO accession, with 99.9 percent of the estimated gains falling within a range between 2 and 25 percent increases in household income. They show that their estimates are decisively affected by liberalization of barriers against foreign direct investment in business services sectors and endogenous productivity effects in business services and goods. The authors use their integrated model to assess the error associated with a"top down"approach to micro-simulation. They find that approximation errors introduced by failing to account for income effects in the conventional sequential approach are very small. However, data reconciliation between the national accounts and the household budget survey is important to the results. Despite the estimated gains for virtually all households in the medium term, many households may lose in the short term because of the costs of transition. So, safety nets are crucial for the poorest members of society during the transition.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Housing&Human Habitats,Economic Theory&Research,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Housing&Human Habitats,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Health Economics&Finance

Trade liberalization and endogenous growth in a small open economy : a quantitative assessment

The authors develop a numerical endogenous growth model approximating an infinite horizon, which allows them to investigate the relationship between trade liberalization and economic growth. Economic theory generally implies that trade liberalization will improve economic growth, and the two phenomena are positively correlated in empirical tests, but the connection is not well-substantiated in numerical general equilibrium models. In the authors'model, an intermediate input affects aggregate output through a Dixit-Stiglitz function. Additional varieties provide the engine of growth in this framework and the existence of this mechanism magnifies the welfare costs. In this model with lump sum revenue replacement, reducing a tariff from 20 percent to 10 percent produces a welfare increase (in terms of Hicksian equivalent variation over the infinite horizon) of 10.7 percent of the present value of consumption in their central model, where the economy is assumed to be unable to borrow on international financial markets. If macroeconomic and financial reforms are in place that would allow international borrowing, however, the same tariff cut is estimated to result in a 37 percent increase in Hicksian equivalent variation. On the other hand, if inefficient replacement taxes must be used in an economy without the capacity to borrow internationally, the gains would be reduced to 4.7 percent. Larger tariff cuts--typical of those in many developing countries over the past 30 years--produce larger estimated welfare gains at least proportionate to the size of the cut. The authors apply the model to five developing countries and estimate the impact of the tariff changes those countries plan to undertake as part of Uruguay Round commitments. Because of the dynamic effects, estimated gains are considerably larger than those found in the literature on the impact of the Uruguay Round.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Labor Policies,Inequality,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Trade and Regional Integration

The impact of liberalizing barriers to foreign direct investment in services - the case of Russian accession to the World Trade Organization

The authors use a computable general equilibrium model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), which encompasses improved market access, tariff reduction, and reduction of barriers against multinational service providers. They assume that foreign direct investment in business services is necessary for multinationals to compete well with Russian business service providers, but cross-border service provision is also present. The model incorporates productivity effects in both goods and services markets endogenously through a Dixit-Stiglitz framework. As a result, the estimated gains from WTO accession are much larger than would be obtained from a typical model with perfect competition. The ad valorem equivalent of barriers to foreign direct investment have been estimated based on detailed questionnaires completed by specialized research institutes in Russia. The authors estimate that Russia will gain about 7.2 percent of the value of Russian consumption in the medium run from WTO accession and up to 24 percent in the long run. They estimate that the largest gains to Russia will derive from liberalization of barriers againstmultinational service providers. Piecemeal and systematic sensitivity analysis shows that their results are robust.Environmental Economics&Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Decentralization,Economic Theory&Research,Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,Banks&Banking Reform,ICT Policy and Strategies

The impact on Russia of WTO accession and the Doha agenda : the importance of liberalization of barriers against foreign direct investment in services for growth and poverty reduction

Taking price changes from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model of world trade, the authors use a small open economy computable general equilibrium comparative static model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of global free trade and a successful completion of the Doha Agenda on the Russian economy, and especially on the poor. They compare those results with the impact of Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. The model incorporates all 55,000 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as"real"households. Crucially, given the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) liberalization as part of Russian WTO accession, the authors also include FDI and Dixit-Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects from liberalization of import barriers against goods and FDI in services. The authors estimate that Russian WTO accession in the medium run will result in gains averaged over all Russian households equal to 7.3 percent of Russian consumption (with a standard deviation of 2.2 percent of consumption), with virtually all households gaining. They find that global free trade would result in a weighted average gain to households in Russia of 0.2 percent of consumption, with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption, while a successful completion of the Doha Development Agenda would result in a weighted average gain to households of -0.3 percent of consumption (with a standard deviation of 0.2 percent of consumption). Russia, as a net food importer, loses from subsidy elimination, and the gains to Russia from tariff cuts in other countries are too small to offset these losses. The results strongly support the view that Russia's own liberalization is more important than improvements in market access as a result of reforms in tariffs or subsidies in the rest of the world. Foremost among the own reforms is liberalization of barriers against FDI in business services.Economic Theory&Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT,World Trade Organization,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Trade and Services

Telecommunications reform within Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization

In World Trade Organization (WTO) accession negotiations, telecommunications is always a sector that receives close scrutiny by the WTO Working Party, and the extent of market access and nondiscriminatory treatment of multinational telecommunications companies in Russia has been a significant issue in Russia’s accession negotiations. The authors use a computable general equilibrium model of the Russian economy to assess the role of telecommunications in the discussions regarding Russian accession to the WTO. The results show that reduction of barriers to foreign direct investment in telecommunications will bring substantial gains to the Russian economy, including an increase in the productivity of Russian labor and capital. Despite the fact that multinationals use Russian labor less intensively than Russian firms, demand for Russian labor employed in telecommunications should increase, following reductions in barriers to foreign direct investment that are included in the context of WTO accession. This is because the overall demand for telecommunication services should increase due to the growth effects of the liberalization of barriers against foreign direct investment generally and the reduction in tariffs. Russian capital owners in telecommunications will likely be sought as joint venture partners and can restructure and obtain gains as partners with foreign firms. Wholly owned Russian firms are likely to experience losses.International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Economic Theory&Research,Economic Theory&Research,ICT Policy and Strategies,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance

Free personal care for older people : a wider perspective on its costs

The paper comments on the so-called "Free Personal Care (FPC)" policy established in Scotland in 2002. FPC is the legal entitlement of people aged 65 and older, who have been assessed by the council as having personal care needs, to receive services that will assist them in their day-to-day activities. One view is that FPC may not be affordable in its current form because population ageing will increase dramatically the numbers eligible for assistance in the future. This paper discusses ways in which FPC may actually lower the total per-person cost of accommodating Scotland's ageing population