Search results for "330"
showing 10 items of 432 documents
Who cares? Evidence on informal and formal home care use in Estonia
2019
Despite increasing attention to long-term care (LTC) and related challenges in the Estonian social policy agenda, the distributional fairness of LTC services in the country has received very limited attention. Using SHARE data, we address informal and formal home care services and identify the socio-economic factors that drive or hinder their use among the Estonian elderly. The relationship between informal and formal home care utilization is estimated applying the new approach to instrumental variable method proposed by Lewbel [2012. Using heteroscedasticity to identify and estimate mismeasured and endogenous regressor models. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 30(1), 67–80]. We …
Management of Cultural Landscapes: What Does this Mean in the Former Soviet Union? A Case Study from Latvia
2009
Concern about changing cultural landscapes has increased recently, with the advent of the European Landscape Convention placing signatory countries in a position of having to develop action for protecting and managing cultural landscapes. In countries of the former Soviet Union the landscape underwent many changes as a result of agricultural collectivisation and its aftermath. This situation has been analysed for six sample rural municipalities (pagasts) in Latvia, one of the three former Soviet countries to join the European Union (EU), using maps from the period 1901 to 1927 (to represent the ‘traditional landscape’) and 1997 orthophotographs updated to 2000 (to represent the ‘post-Soviet…
Instrumental calculation, cognitive role-playing, or both?: self-perceptions of Seconded National Experts in the European Commission
2011
This is the authors’ final, accepted and refereed manuscript to the article Most work studying micro-processes of integration – i.e. how agents develop identities and decision-making behaviours within a particular institution – offers explanations based on either instrumental rationality or socialisation. This article proposes a two-dimensional framework that allows analysing under which conditions both logics of social action co-exist. Our empirical analysis employs a unique dataset from a 2011 survey of all 1098 currently active Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the European Commission. We find that a) instrumental cost-benefit calculation and cognitive role-playing (as semi-reflexive s…
Social media as a strategic marketing tool in the Sicilian wine industry: Evidence from Facebook
2017
Abstract Over the last few years, many companies have integrated social media, and social networking sites in particular, into their communication and media plan, leading to a deep transformation of the organizational models and changing the companies׳ marketing dynamics. This study has dual aims: first, to recognize and validate the firm׳s social media (SM) efforts in its use of the Facebook platform; second, to examine the relationships among the firm׳s SM efforts and some firm and managerial characteristics. In order to achieve these research aims, data on 45 wineries were collected and analysed, using a model that considers three different dimensions of the firms׳ activity on the social…
Like it or not? How the economic and institutional environment shapes individual attitudes towards multinational enterprises
2018
The integration of goods and factor markets has affected the lives of individuals all over the world. While some agents have reaped enormous benefits from this process, others have lost in terms of income and welfare. It is usually argued that individuals are aware of the distributional effects of globalization, and that this knowledge shapes their preferences over various policy issues such as protection, financial market regulation etc. In this chapter, we use a large surveybased data set to explore whether this conjecture is correct when it comes to individuals’ attitudes towards multinational enterprises (MNEs).
A cost and performance comparison of Public Private Partnership and public hospitals in Spain
2016
Public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives are extending around the world, especially in Europe, as an innovation to traditional public health systems, with the intention of making them more efficient. There is a varied range of PPP models with different degrees of responsibility from simple public sector contracts with the private, up to the complete privatisation of the service. As such, we may say the involvement of the private sector embraces the development, financing and provision of public infrastructures and delivery services. In this paper, one of the oldest PPP initiatives developed in Spain and transferred to other European and Latin American countries is evaluated for first ti…
The international debt problem: An analysis of the Brady plan
1989
Recently the American Treasury Secretary, Nicholas Brady, launched a new initiative in which he proposed reducing the developing countries’ bank debt. What are the elements of the plan, and which countries would benefit? What problems does it entail? Can it bring about a decisive improvement in the international debt situation of the developing countries? The following two articles attempt to answer these questions.
Does the EMU Need a Fiscal Transfer Mechanism?
2004
Summary: The aim of this paper is to investigate how the birth of a central fiscal authority or the creation of a fiscal transfer mechanism could improve the action of fiscal policy in terms of stabilization in the EMU. In particular, the paper examines the theoretical reasons to support this conclusion and provides empirical evidence that shows how the EMU is not able to face asymmetric and symmetric idiosyncratic shocks. Zusammenfassung: Die zentrale Frage des Aufsatzes lautet: Ob und wie kann eine zentrale Fiskalbehorde oder ein fiskalischer Transfermechanismus die fiskalpolitische Stabilisierung in der EWU verbessern? Dazu werden theoretische Argumente und empirische Evidenz prasentiert…
The Impact of Fiscal Consolidation on Human Development
2018
We find that fiscal austerity is associated with a reduction of human development standards, with the negative effect being particularly severe in the case of spending-driven consolidation episodes. Fiscal adjustments are especially damaging for human development in developing countries (namely, African and Latin American countries). Additionally, the empirical evidence shows that (i) government stability is a crucial institutional determinant of human development, and (ii) while investment in physical capital can boost human development, government consumption and inflation are detrimental to it.
Nanoencapsulation of promising bioactive compounds to improve their absorption, stability, functionality and the appearance of the final food products
2021
The design of functional foods has grown recently as an answer to rising consumers’ concerns and demands for natural, nutritional and healthy food products. Nanoencapsulation is a technique based on enclosing a bioactive compound (BAC) in liquid, solid or gaseous states within a matrix or inert material for preserving the coated substance (food or flavor molecules/ingredients). Nanoencapsulation can improve stability of BACs, improving the regulation of their release at physiologically active sites. Regarding materials for food and nutraceutical applications, the most used are carbohydrate-, protein- or lipid-based alternatives such as chitosan, peptide–chitosan and β-lactoglobulin nanopart…