Export-Oriented FDI, the Euro, and EU Enlargement

Since 1999, the UK’s share of FDI heading into Europe has declined dramatically, while the Euro-Zone’s share has increased. I argue that the timing of this divergence is not coincidental. The formation of the Euro-Zone has eliminated nominal exchange rate volatility between member-states, increasing export market access intra-union. For source countries outside of Europe, Euro-Zone countries have become more attractive destinations for export-oriented FDI, as operations within the union are insulated from currency fluctuations. As exchange rate volatility between a non-Euro country and local export markets increases, or as the market size of the euro-zone increases, more and more investment will be diverted towards Euro-Zone countries. This theory is tested in two stages using detailed data on the operations of foreign affiliates of US multinationals across seventeen European countries from 1983 – 2004. A host country’s export market access is first estimated with an augmented gravity model. This export series is then included in a dynamic panel with US to host market exchange rate volatility and a range of FDI determinants to explain inflows of FDI from the US to European countries. Potential endogeneity issues are addressed using the Arellano and Bond (1991) GMM procedure. The ability to export from a particular host country has a positive and significant effect on inflows of FDI. Additionally, unobserved features of Euro-Zone membership (beyond the elimination of currency risk) have a positive effect on inflows. A counterfactual experiment sheds light on how much FDI the UK “lost” by not adopting the euro in 1999. Re-estimating the trade and FDI relations under the assumption that the UK had adopted the euro, I estimate that the UK has lost approximately $33 billion (2% of GDP) worth of FDI from the US. Similarly, the flight of FDI to the new EU accession countries has been slowed by these countries staying out of the Euro-Zone.

Noise vs. News in Equity Returns

What role does noise play in equity markets? Answering this question usually leads immediately to specifying a model of fundamentals and hence the pervasive joint hypothesis quagmire. We avoid this dilemma by measuring noise volatility directly by focusing on the behavior of country closed-end funds (CCEF’s) during foreign (i.e., non-U.S.) holidays – for example, the last days of Ramadan in Islamic countries. These holiday periods are times when the flow of fundamental information relevant to foreign equity markets is substantially reduced and hence trading of CCEF’s in U.S. markets can be responding only weakly, if at all, to fundamental information. We find that, controlling for the effects of industry and global shocks and of the overall U.S. market, there remains a substantial amount of noise in the equity returns of U.S. CCEF’s. In the absence of noise, the noise ratio statistic would be near zero. However, our results indicate statistically significant departures from zero, with values averaged over all U.S. CCEF’s ranging from 76-84% depending on assumptions about the leakage of information during holiday periods and kurtosis. Noise is negatively related to institutional ownership of U.S. CCEF's and is much less important for U.K. CCEF's. The lower levels of noise for matched U.K. and U.S. CCEF’s suggest that the U.K. securities transaction tax is effective in reducing stock market noise.equity market noise, inefficient markets, institutional ownership, securities transaction tax, closed-end funds

Noise vs. News In Equity Returns

What role does noise play in equity markets? Answering this question usually leads immediately to specifying a model of fundamentals and hence the pervasive joint hypothesis quagmire. We avoid this dilemma by measuring noise volatility directly by focusing on the behavior of country closed-end funds (CCEF’s) during foreign (i.e., non-U.S.) holidays – for example, the last days of Ramadan in Islamic countries. These holiday periods are times when the flow of fundamental information relevant to foreign equity markets is substantially reduced and hence trading of CCEF’s in U.S. markets can be responding only weakly, if at all, to fundamental information. We find that, controlling for the effects of industry and global shocks and of the overall U.S. market, there remains a substantial amount of noise in the equity returns of U.S. CCEF’s. In the absence of noise, the noise ratio statistic would be near zero. However, our results indicate statistically significant departures from zero, with values averaged over all U.S. CCEF’s ranging from 76-84%xx depending on assumptions about the leakage of information during holiday periods and kurtosis. Noise is negatively related to institutional ownership of U.S. CCEF's and is much less important for U.K. CCEF's. The lower levels of noise for matched U.K. and U.S. CCEF’s provide some initial evidence that the U.K. securities transaction tax is effective in reducing stock market noise.

The Generation 2.5Curse? ComparingEducationalOutcomes for Children of Immigrant Intermarriages in the United States

Is having one native-born parent an advantage for the child of an immigrant? Much of the classical literature on immigrant assimilation would suggest that children with one native-born and one foreign-born parent (generation 2.5) should fare better than those whose parents are bothforeign-born (generation 2.0) Generation 2.5 individuals should have greater access to native networks, face less discrimination, and better bicultural awareness. Despite these seeming advantages, recent studies suggestthe opposite,withgeneration2.5havingworse educational outcomes thantheirgeneration 2.0 counterparts. Inthis paper,weutilize propensityscore matching to evaluate differences in educational outcomes between these two groups. We estimate that on average, generation2.5havenearlyhalfayearlesseducationthantheirgeneration2.0counterpartsdespite having better-educated parents onaverage. A number of explanations for this are explored, witha higher degree of bilingualism for generation 2.0,foreign-bornparents investing more inchildren\u27s education, and access to highly skilled immigrant networks being the most promising explanations

Noise vs. news in equity returns

What role does noise play in equity markets? Answering this question usually leads immediately to specifying a model of fundamentals and hence the pervasive joint hypothesis quagmire. We avoid this dilemma by measuring noise volatility directly by focusing on the behavior of country closed-end funds (CCEF's) during foreign (i.e., non-U.S.) holidays - for example, the last days of Ramadan in Islamic countries. These holiday periods are times when the flow of fundamental information relevant to foreign equity markets is substantially reduced and hence trading of CCEF's in U.S. markets can be responding only weakly, if at all, to fundamental information. We find that, controlling for the effects of industry and global shocks and of the overall U.S. market, there remains a substantial amount of noise in the equity returns of U.S. CCEF's. In the absence of noise, the noise ratio statistic would be near zero. However, our results indicate statistically significant departures from zero, with values averaged over all U.S. CCEF's ranging from 76-84% depending on assumptions about the leakage of information during holiday periods and kurtosis. Noise is negatively related to institutional ownership of U.S. CCEF's and is much less important for U.K. CCEF's. The lower levels of noise for matched U.K. and U.S. CCEF's suggest that the U.K. securities transaction tax is effective in reducing stock market noise

Measuring routine childhood vaccination coverage in 204 countries and territories, 1980-2019 : a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2020, Release 1

Background Measuring routine childhood vaccination is crucial to inform global vaccine policies and programme implementation, and to track progress towards targets set by the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP) and Immunization Agenda 2030. Robust estimates of routine vaccine coverage are needed to identify past successes and persistent vulnerabilities. Drawing from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2020, Release 1, we did a systematic analysis of global, regional, and national vaccine coverage trends using a statistical framework, by vaccine and over time. Methods For this analysis we collated 55 326 country-specific, cohort-specific, year-specific, vaccine-specific, and dosespecific observations of routine childhood vaccination coverage between 1980 and 2019. Using spatiotemporal Gaussian process regression, we produced location-specific and year-specific estimates of 11 routine childhood vaccine coverage indicators for 204 countries and territories from 1980 to 2019, adjusting for biases in countryreported data and reflecting reported stockouts and supply disruptions. We analysed global and regional trends in coverage and numbers of zero-dose children (defined as those who never received a diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis [DTP] vaccine dose), progress towards GVAP targets, and the relationship between vaccine coverage and sociodemographic development. Findings By 2019, global coverage of third-dose DTP (DTP3; 81.6% [95% uncertainty interval 80.4-82 .7]) more than doubled from levels estimated in 1980 (39.9% [37.5-42.1]), as did global coverage of the first-dose measles-containing vaccine (MCV1; from 38.5% [35.4-41.3] in 1980 to 83.6% [82.3-84.8] in 2019). Third- dose polio vaccine (Pol3) coverage also increased, from 42.6% (41.4-44.1) in 1980 to 79.8% (78.4-81.1) in 2019, and global coverage of newer vaccines increased rapidly between 2000 and 2019. The global number of zero-dose children fell by nearly 75% between 1980 and 2019, from 56.8 million (52.6-60. 9) to 14.5 million (13.4-15.9). However, over the past decade, global vaccine coverage broadly plateaued; 94 countries and territories recorded decreasing DTP3 coverage since 2010. Only 11 countries and territories were estimated to have reached the national GVAP target of at least 90% coverage for all assessed vaccines in 2019. Interpretation After achieving large gains in childhood vaccine coverage worldwide, in much of the world this progress was stalled or reversed from 2010 to 2019. These findings underscore the importance of revisiting routine immunisation strategies and programmatic approaches, recentring service delivery around equity and underserved populations. Strengthening vaccine data and monitoring systems is crucial to these pursuits, now and through to 2030, to ensure that all children have access to, and can benefit from, lifesaving vaccines. Copyright (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.Peer reviewe

Mapping geographical inequalities in access to drinking water and sanitation facilities in low-income and middle-income countries, 2000-17

Background: Universal access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is an essential human right, recognised in the Sustainable Development Goals as crucial for preventing disease and improving human wellbeing. Comprehensive, high-resolution estimates are important to inform progress towards achieving this goal. We aimed to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of access to drinking water and sanitation facilities. Methods: We used a Bayesian geostatistical model and data from 600 sources across more than 88 low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) to estimate access to drinking water and sanitation facilities on continuous continent-wide surfaces from 2000 to 2017, and aggregated results to policy-relevant administrative units. We estimated mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subcategories of facilities for drinking water (piped water on or off premises, other improved facilities, unimproved, and surface water) and sanitation facilities (septic or sewer sanitation, other improved, unimproved, and open defecation) with use of ordinal regression. We also estimated the number of diarrhoeal deaths in children younger than 5 years attributed to unsafe facilities and estimated deaths that were averted by increased access to safe facilities in 2017, and analysed geographical inequality in access within LMICs. Findings: Across LMICs, access to both piped water and improved water overall increased between 2000 and 2017, with progress varying spatially. For piped water, the safest water facility type, access increased from 40·0% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 39·4–40·7) to 50·3% (50·0–50·5), but was lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, where access to piped water was mostly concentrated in urban centres. Access to both sewer or septic sanitation and improved sanitation overall also increased across all LMICs during the study period. For sewer or septic sanitation, access was 46·3% (95% UI 46·1–46·5) in 2017, compared with 28·7% (28·5–29·0) in 2000. Although some units improved access to the safest drinking water or sanitation facilities since 2000, a large absolute number of people continued to not have access in several units with high access to such facilities (>80%) in 2017. More than 253 000 people did not have access to sewer or septic sanitation facilities in the city of Harare, Zimbabwe, despite 88·6% (95% UI 87·2–89·7) access overall. Many units were able to transition from the least safe facilities in 2000 to safe facilities by 2017; for units in which populations primarily practised open defecation in 2000, 686 (95% UI 664–711) of the 1830 (1797–1863) units transitioned to the use of improved sanitation. Geographical disparities in access to improved water across units decreased in 76·1% (95% UI 71·6–80·7) of countries from 2000 to 2017, and in 53·9% (50·6–59·6) of countries for access to improved sanitation, but remained evident subnationally in most countries in 2017. Interpretation: Our estimates, combined with geospatial trends in diarrhoeal burden, identify where efforts to increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities are most needed. By highlighting areas with successful approaches or in need of targeted interventions, our estimates can enable precision public health to effectively progress towards universal access to safe water and sanitation

Global, regional, and national incidence of six major immune-mediated inflammatory diseases: findings from the global burden of disease study 2019

BACKGROUND: The causes for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) are diverse and the incidence trends of IMIDs from specific causes are rarely studied. The study aims to investigate the pattern and trend of IMIDs from 1990 to 2019. METHODS: We collected detailed information on six major causes of IMIDs, including asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and atopic dermatitis, between 1990 and 2019, derived from the Global Burden of Disease study in 2019. The average annual percent change (AAPC) in number of incidents and age standardized incidence rate (ASR) on IMIDs, by sex, age, region, and causes, were calculated to quantify the temporal trends. FINDINGS: In 2019, rheumatoid arthritis, atopic dermatitis, asthma, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease accounted 1.59%, 36.17%, 54.71%, 0.09%, 6.84%, 0.60% of overall new IMIDs cases, respectively. The ASR of IMIDs showed substantial regional and global variation with the highest in High SDI region, High-income North America, and United States of America. Throughout human lifespan, the age distribution of incident cases from six IMIDs was quite different. Globally, incident cases of IMIDs increased with an AAPC of 0.68 and the ASR decreased with an AAPC of −0.34 from 1990 to 2019. The incident cases increased across six IMIDs, the ASR of rheumatoid arthritis increased (0.21, 95% CI 0.18, 0.25), while the ASR of asthma (AAPC = −0.41), inflammatory bowel disease (AAPC = −0.72), multiple sclerosis (AAPC = −0.26), psoriasis (AAPC = −0.77), and atopic dermatitis (AAPC = −0.15) decreased. The ASR of overall and six individual IMID increased with SDI at regional and global level. Countries with higher ASR in 1990 experienced a more rapid decrease in ASR. INTERPRETATION: The incidence patterns of IMIDs varied considerably across the world. Innovative prevention and integrative management strategy are urgently needed to mitigate the increasing ASR of rheumatoid arthritis and upsurging new cases of other five IMIDs, respectively. FUNDING: The Global Burden of Disease Study is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The project funded by Scientific Research Fund of Sichuan Academy of Medical Sciences & Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital (2022QN38)

Burden of disease scenarios for 204 countries and territories, 2022–2050: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Future trends in disease burden and drivers of health are of great interest to policy makers and the public at large. This information can be used for policy and long-term health investment, planning, and prioritisation. We have expanded and improved upon previous forecasts produced as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) and provide a reference forecast (the most likely future), and alternative scenarios assessing disease burden trajectories if selected sets of risk factors were eliminated from current levels by 2050. Methods: Using forecasts of major drivers of health such as the Socio-demographic Index (SDI; a composite measure of lag-distributed income per capita, mean years of education, and total fertility under 25 years of age) and the full set of risk factor exposures captured by GBD, we provide cause-specific forecasts of mortality, years of life lost (YLLs), years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by age and sex from 2022 to 2050 for 204 countries and territories, 21 GBD regions, seven super-regions, and the world. All analyses were done at the cause-specific level so that only risk factors deemed causal by the GBD comparative risk assessment influenced future trajectories of mortality for each disease. Cause-specific mortality was modelled using mixed-effects models with SDI and time as the main covariates, and the combined impact of causal risk factors as an offset in the model. At the all-cause mortality level, we captured unexplained variation by modelling residuals with an autoregressive integrated moving average model with drift attenuation. These all-cause forecasts constrained the cause-specific forecasts at successively deeper levels of the GBD cause hierarchy using cascading mortality models, thus ensuring a robust estimate of cause-specific mortality. For non-fatal measures (eg, low back pain), incidence and prevalence were forecasted from mixed-effects models with SDI as the main covariate, and YLDs were computed from the resulting prevalence forecasts and average disability weights from GBD. Alternative future scenarios were constructed by replacing appropriate reference trajectories for risk factors with hypothetical trajectories of gradual elimination of risk factor exposure from current levels to 2050. The scenarios were constructed from various sets of risk factors: environmental risks (Safer Environment scenario), risks associated with communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional diseases (CMNNs; Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination scenario), risks associated with major non-communicable diseases (NCDs; Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario), and the combined effects of these three scenarios. Using the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways climate scenarios SSP2-4.5 as reference and SSP1-1.9 as an optimistic alternative in the Safer Environment scenario, we accounted for climate change impact on health by using the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change temperature forecasts and published trajectories of ambient air pollution for the same two scenarios. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy were computed using standard methods. The forecasting framework includes computing the age-sex-specific future population for each location and separately for each scenario. 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) for each individual future estimate were derived from the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles of distributions generated from propagating 500 draws through the multistage computational pipeline. Findings: In the reference scenario forecast, global and super-regional life expectancy increased from 2022 to 2050, but improvement was at a slower pace than in the three decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic (beginning in 2020). Gains in future life expectancy were forecasted to be greatest in super-regions with comparatively low life expectancies (such as sub-Saharan Africa) compared with super-regions with higher life expectancies (such as the high-income super-region), leading to a trend towards convergence in life expectancy across locations between now and 2050. At the super-region level, forecasted healthy life expectancy patterns were similar to those of life expectancies. Forecasts for the reference scenario found that health will improve in the coming decades, with all-cause age-standardised DALY rates decreasing in every GBD super-region. The total DALY burden measured in counts, however, will increase in every super-region, largely a function of population ageing and growth. We also forecasted that both DALY counts and age-standardised DALY rates will continue to shift from CMNNs to NCDs, with the most pronounced shifts occurring in sub-Saharan Africa (60·1% [95% UI 56·8–63·1] of DALYs were from CMNNs in 2022 compared with 35·8% [31·0–45·0] in 2050) and south Asia (31·7% [29·2–34·1] to 15·5% [13·7–17·5]). This shift is reflected in the leading global causes of DALYs, with the top four causes in 2050 being ischaemic heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, compared with 2022, with ischaemic heart disease, neonatal disorders, stroke, and lower respiratory infections at the top. The global proportion of DALYs due to YLDs likewise increased from 33·8% (27·4–40·3) to 41·1% (33·9–48·1) from 2022 to 2050, demonstrating an important shift in overall disease burden towards morbidity and away from premature death. The largest shift of this kind was forecasted for sub-Saharan Africa, from 20·1% (15·6–25·3) of DALYs due to YLDs in 2022 to 35·6% (26·5–43·0) in 2050. In the assessment of alternative future scenarios, the combined effects of the scenarios (Safer Environment, Improved Childhood Nutrition and Vaccination, and Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenarios) demonstrated an important decrease in the global burden of DALYs in 2050 of 15·4% (13·5–17·5) compared with the reference scenario, with decreases across super-regions ranging from 10·4% (9·7–11·3) in the high-income super-region to 23·9% (20·7–27·3) in north Africa and the Middle East. The Safer Environment scenario had its largest decrease in sub-Saharan Africa (5·2% [3·5–6·8]), the Improved Behavioural and Metabolic Risks scenario in north Africa and the Middle East (23·2% [20·2–26·5]), and the Improved Nutrition and Vaccination scenario in sub-Saharan Africa (2·0% [–0·6 to 3·6]). Interpretation: Globally, life expectancy and age-standardised disease burden were forecasted to improve between 2022 and 2050, with the majority of the burden continuing to shift from CMNNs to NCDs. That said, continued progress on reducing the CMNN disease burden will be dependent on maintaining investment in and policy emphasis on CMNN disease prevention and treatment. Mostly due to growth and ageing of populations, the number of deaths and DALYs due to all causes combined will generally increase. By constructing alternative future scenarios wherein certain risk exposures are eliminated by 2050, we have shown that opportunities exist to substantially improve health outcomes in the future through concerted efforts to prevent exposure to well established risk factors and to expand access to key health interventions