Corruption: Transcending Borders

Is Corruption Contagious? An Econometric Analysis

Trends in time allocation: A cross-country analysis

Does telecommunications infrastructure promote entrepreneurship in developing countries? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment in China

Productivity and Tax Evasion

Spectre-type attacks have exposed a major class of vulnerabilities arising from speculative execution of instructions, the main performance enabler of modern CPUs. These attacks speculatively leak secrets that have been either speculatively loaded (seen in sand-boxed programs) or non-speculatively loaded (seen in constant-time programs). Various hardware-only defenses have been proposed to mitigate both speculative and non-speculative secrets via all potential transmission channels. However, limited program knowledge is exposed to the hardware and these solutions conservatively restrict the execution of all instructions that can potentially leak.

IntroductionIn August 2017, a cholera outbreak started in Muna Garage Internally Displaced Persons camp, Borno state, Nigeria and >5000 cases occurred in six local government areas. This qualitative study evaluated...

La especialización en recursos naturales y sus desafíos inherentes han sido dos de los temas más estudiados y discutidos por la literatura de la economía del desarrollo. El presente trabajo pretende sistematizar los ejes del debate en torno a la maldición de los recursos naturales, poniendo énfasis en sus cuatro potenciales canales de transmisión y tratando de identificar las peculiaridades del petróleo y del gas natural que llevan a los países exportadores de estas materias primas a tener tendencia a sufrir los síntomas de dicha maldición. Se insiste en la variable institucional, clave para el diseño de políticas que mitiguen sus canales de transmisión.

This paper analyzes the effect of remittance inflows on external debt in developing countries, by identifying international reserves as a potential transmission channel. Using panel data over the period 1970–2017 and covering 50 low-and middle-income countries worldwide, we find a positive and significant effect of remittance inflows on the external debt-to-GDP ratio. We also find a negative and significant effect of international reserves on external debt. After controlling for international reserves, the effect of remittance inflows on external debt increases; it remains positive and significant. The results suggest that the role of international reserves as a self-insurance mechanism, and the Dutch disease effect related to remittance inflows are at play. In addition, we find negative and significant effects of economic growth and savings-investment gap on external debt. We also find positive and significant effects of the nominal exchange rate and the United States lending interest rate on external debt. We discuss the policy implications of these findings, while highlighting factors that policymakers should focus on for containing external debt in developing countries in the post-COVID-19.

Towards a sustainable environment: Examining the spatial VARIATIONS of renewable energy, environmental pollution, and economic growth in Europe

This article advances research into mass Euroscepticism by investigating the role of distributive justice. Drawing on cross-national survey data from 23 countries, the study shows that perceived injustice of individual opportunities (i.e. educational and job opportunities) and outcomes (i.e. earnings) nourish Eurosceptic sentiments, independent of objective inequalities. However, the public response to distributive injustice varies across European Union (EU) member states, as high domestic corruption levels dampen the apparent link to EU accountability. Perceptions of injustice concerning earnings provide a potential breeding ground for Euroscepticism in member states with low levels of corruption, while EU scapegoating regarding earnings injustice does not manifest itself in member states with the highest levels of corruption. These results are supportive of a justice-based approach in understanding varieties of Euroscepticism across Europe.

BackgroundSince the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was introduced in Norway in 2009, the vaccine uptake has increased. Whether this increase is similar regardless of the girls’ country background is unknown. We examined changes in HPV vaccine uptake from 2009 to 2014 and studied the impact of parental education and income on HPV vaccine uptake according to country background.MethodsGirls in the first six birth cohorts (1997–2002) eligible for HPV vaccination were identified through the National Registry. Information on HPV vaccination, country background and socioeconomic factors was extracted from the Norwegian Immunisation Registry and Statistics Norway. Risk differences (RDs) and confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated with linear binomial regression. A total of 177,387 girls were included in the study.ResultsThe HPV vaccine uptake increased from 72.5% in 2009 to 87.3% in 2014. The uptake increased for girls in all country background categories. Highest vaccine uptake was observed in girls with East−/South-East Asian background, 88.9% versus 82.5% in the total population. Vaccine uptake decreased slightly with increasing parental education, RD = − 1.6% (95% CI: − 2.3% to − 0.8%) for highest compared with lowest education level. In contrast, the uptake increased with increasing household income, RD = 4.9% (95% CI, 4.3 to 5.5%) for highest compared with lowest quintile. Parental education had largest impact in girls with Asian background, RD = − 8.1% (95% CI − 10.5% to − 5.6%) for higher vs lower education. The largest impact of household income was observed in girls with background from Middle East/Africa, RD for a 200,000 NOK increase in income was 2.1% (95% CI 1.2 to 3.0%).ConclusionsThe HPV vaccine uptake differed with country background but increased over time in all country background categories. Moreover, the impact of education and income on vaccine uptake differed with country background.

This paper assesses the effect of openness on corruption, using foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows as a measure of openness, after trade intensity is accounted for.We use a broad cross section of countries over the period 1970 to 1994 and address the issue of causality with a new set of instrumental variables relying on geographical and cultural distance between the FDI exporting and recipient countries.The economics literature has demonstrated that higher corruption levels discourage FDI.Here we study the reverse link, that is, how foreign direct investment impacts corruption.We find that FDI as a share of GDP is significantly associated with lower corruption levels, irrespective of import intensity levels.The quantitative impact of FDI on corruption appears to be of the same order of magnitude as that of per capita GDP.

Republic of Macedonia is one of the poorest countries in Europe. The health care and health education have been profoundly impacted by the economic shortages in the country since gaining independence in 1991. Of two million population, 29 % are unemployed and 31 % live below poverty level (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/theworld-factbook/geos/mk.html). The only health insurance is the Universal Health Insurance, which is grossly underfunded leading to chronic shortages of resources. The limited health care resources have especially impacted care for patients with chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). There are 17 practicing rheumatologists in Macedonia, all employed at the university clinic in the capital city Skopje. The rheumatologic care outside of the capital city is very limited and provided by commuting rheumatologists from the university. In many communities, the rheumatologic care is provided by primary care physicians, orthopedists, and physiatrists. Even in the capital, the standard of care lags behind that of neighboring European Union countries [1]. The average DAS-28 score was 5.2. Methotrexate was the most commonly used disease-modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) with average dose of 10 mg/week. Combination therapy of DMARDS is seldom used. The only biological agents available is rituximab and tocilizumab, and the government sponsored health fund allows treatment with biologics for about 100 patients per year. Anti-TNF therapy is not covered by the only health insurance. Macedonia has one of the more restrictive policies in Europe on the utilization of biologics [2, 3]. Pediatric rheumatology does not exist in Macedonia. The current model of training rheumatologists in Macedonia is centralized. Employment in the university rheumatology clinic is a prerequisite for training. This model is a barrier for training rheumatologists outside of the capital, thus compromising the provision of rheumatologic care to more than 50 % of the country’s population. In an effort to improve rheumatologic care and education, we proposed a new model for training and provision of rheumatologic care in Macedonia. This model decentralizes training and provision of care by training individuals from regions outside of the capital. This model would improve patient access, and it would provide early diagnosis and care. We partnered with a local academic center, a community hospital, and a patient advocacy group in a project that would improve access and rheumatologic care in the town of Bitola.

This paper examines the time-varying conditional correlations among Crude oil. EUR/USD and major ETS markets. We apply a trivariate dynamic conditional correlation (cDCC) GARCH models in order to capture potential contagion effects between the markets for the period 2013-2017. Empirical results reveal contagion during the under investigation period regarding the trivariate models, showing potential volatility transmission channels among the markets. Findings have crucial implications for policymakers who provide regulations for the above derivative markets.

The Merchants of Wall Street: Banking, Commerce, and Commodities