AIDS and economic growth: A human capital approach

Using a model that combines growth and health capital equations this study analyses the impact of HIV/AIDS on economic growth. The econometric results indicate that the epidemic's effects have been substantial; in Africa the marginal impact on income per capita of a 1% increase in HIV prevalence rate is minus 0.59%. Even in countries with lower HIV prevalence rates the marginal impacts are non-trivial. Hence while the human and social costs of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are major causes for concern, these results indicate that the macroeconomic affects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are important.     

IMPORTATION AND INNOVATION

Importation of drugs into the US may soon become legal. Since prices of drugs are lower in most other countries than they are in the US, importation would result in a decline in US drug prices. The purpose of this paper is to assess the consequences of importation for new drug development. First, the author presents a simple theoretical model of drug development which suggests that the elasticity of innovation with respect to the expected price of drugs should be at least as great as the elasticity of innovation with respect to expected market size (disease incidence). Then, the cross-sectional relationship between pharmaceutical innovation and market size among a set of diseases (different types of cancer) exhibiting substantial exogenous variation in expected market size is examined. Two different measures of pharmaceutical innovation are analysed: the number of distinct chemotherapy regimens for treating a cancer site and the number of articles published in scientific journals pertaining to drug therapy for that cancer site. Both analyses indicate that the amount of pharmaceutical innovation increases with disease incidence. The elasticity of the number of chemotherapy regimens with respect to the number of cases is 0.53. The elasticity of MEDLINE drug cites with respect to cancer incidence throughout the world is 0.60. In the long run, a 10% decline in drug prices would therefore be likely to cause at least a 5–6% decline in pharmaceutical innovation. Evidence suggests that pharmaceutical industry employment would also decline (by at least 3.5–4%) in response to an exogenous 10% decline in drug prices.     

THEY DON'T INVENT THEM LIKE THEY USED TO: AN EXAMINATION OF ENERGY PATENT CITATIONS OVER TIME

This article uses patent citation data to study flows of knowledge across time and across institutions in the field of energy research. Popp [2002, Induced Innovation and Energy Prices. American Economic Review, 92(1), 160–180.] finds that the level of energy-saving research and development (R&D) depends not only on energy prices, but also on the quality of the accumulated knowledge available to inventors. Patent citations are used to represent this quality. This article explores the pattern of citations in these fields more carefully. Evidence for diminishing returns to research inputs, both across time and within a given year is found. To check whether government R&D can help alleviate potential diminishing returns, special attention is paid to citations to government patents. The government patents filed in or after 1981 are more likely to be cited. More importantly, descendants of these government patents are 30% more likely to be cited by subsequent patents. Earlier government research was more applied in nature and is not cited more frequently.     

Risky Sex in a Risky World: Sexual Behavior in an HIV/AIDS Environment

In spite of increased awareness of HIV/AIDS, unprotected casual sex is still widespread in many HIV‐infected countries. In this paper, a two‐period model for sexual decisions under uncertainty is developed. The results suggest that, for individuals with limited access to HIV treatment, the uncertainty about their future health could be an important factor driving unsafe sexual practices. The results support the empirical finding of a weak link in poor countries between sexual behavior, HIV frequency, and HIV knowledge. Therefore, this suggests that an AIDS policy needs to be calibrated in order to fit within different social contexts.     

Human Capital and the Convergence Process Among Countries

This paper examines the convergence process across countries for the period 1980–2000, giving special attention to the role of human capital as a conditioning factor. The originality of the study is in the use of new proxies for human capital, such as publications and patents ratio and the patents/articles ratio which reflect the efficiency of the scientific work, in contrast to the quantitative measures usually used in the growth literature. The analysis suggests that: (i) convergence is conditional on structural factors, population growth, human and physical capital; (ii) the new proxies of human capital control fairly well the different steady‐states among countries; (iii) the different levels of human capital affect countries differently, according to their levels of development. Higher levels of human capital are suitable to differentiate the convergence process among developed countries, and basic or intermediate levels are more suitable to differentiate convergence among the less developed countries.     

Aid for AIDS in Africa

This article applies a two-tiered contribution model to ascertain the determinants of donors?? participation and contribution levels to giving aid for controlling HIV/AIDS in Africa. Bayesian spatial estimates for the two-tiered model are presented for 22 donor countries that gave aid to 48 recipient countries during 2000?C2007. We account for the public nature of HIV/AIDS contributions by including the contributions of other donors as a determinant at both participation and expenditure stages, along with standard determinants of general assistance. Independent variables account for altruistic, political, economic, location, institutional, and environmental factors. Donor??s reaction to spillovers differs in the two stages, thereby supporting the two-tiered estimates over the single-stage Tobit estimates. Aid for AIDS in Africa is motivated by a complex mix of strategic (publicness), altruistic, and donor self-interests. Key factors at both stages include donors?? spillovers, rule of law, past colonial ties, sharing a common language, trade, and people living with HIV. A host of robustness tests are presented.     

Income Elasticities at different price vectors

Cross-country data are used to evaluate the income elasticities of the demand for ten broad groups of goods at two different price vectors: the observed prices of separate countries and the geometric means of these prices across all countries. The major effect is on the income elasticity of the demand for food; using observed rather than geometric mean prices results in lower elasticity values for the more affluent countries.     

Differences in exchange rate pass-through in the euro area

This paper focuses on the pass-through of exchange rate changes into the prices of imports made by euro area countries originating outside the area. Using data on import unit values for 13 different product categories for each country, we estimate industry-specific rates of pass-through across and within countries for all euro members. In the short-run, pass-through rates differ across industries and countries and are less than one. In the long-run neither full pass-through nor equality of pass-through rates across industries and countries can be rejected. Differences exist across euro area countries in the degree that a common exchange rate movement gets transmitted into consumer prices and costs of production indices. Most of these differences in transmission rates are due to the distinct degree of openness of each country to non-euro area imports rather than to the heterogeneity in the structure of imports.     

AIDS mortality and its effect on the labor market: Evidence from South Africa

This paper investigates how HIV/AIDS has impacted the labor market in South Africa, focusing on its effect on wages and employment. This is done by matching individual level data with group specific cumulative AIDS mortality rates. Exploiting the panel nature of the data, I remove individuals whose productivity is most likely impacted by HIV/AIDS, and find evidence that cumulative AIDS mortality has led to reductions in wages of between 3 and 6% for the African population group (Black South Africans). Furthermore, I also find evidence that the epidemic has lowered employment in South Africa. This result is concentrated among those with the lowest levels of education and employment. Although not large in magnitude, these effects are widespread across a significant portion of the population, contributing to a substantial loss of income throughout the South African economy.     

TECHNOLOGY SPECIALIZATION AND THE MAGNITUDE AND QUALITY OF EXPORTS

Abstract

This paper examines how technology specialization, measured by citation-weighed patents, affects trade flows. The paper analyzes the relationship between (i) technology specialization and export specialization across regions and (ii) the technology specialization of origin and destination and the quality of export flows. We find that the export specialization of regions corresponds to their technology specialization. Regions with higher technology specialization export products of higher quality, as indicated by higher prices. Moreover, export flows to destination countries with a high technology specialization consist of products of higher quality in the specific technology. The results are consistent with knowledge and technology being important for export performance and with regions with higher specialization in a technology being better equipped to produce high-quality products. They are also consistent with destinations of higher technology specialization, having a more pronounced demand for products of higher quality in the same technology.     

Trends and determinants of energy innovations: patents,environmental policies and oil prices

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between energy innovations, environmental policies and oil prices. With a panel of 19 OECD countries over the period 1990–2013, we test how the stringency of environmental policies has affected the intensity of energy patents, while controlling for the effect of oil prices and other country-level variables. We found that the overall level of policy stringency has exerted a more significant impact than individual country measures. Moreover, the recent reduction of energy patenting is discussed, especially in the light of the staggering drop of oil prices.     

Pricing dynamics and product quality: the case of antidepressant drugs

The rising prices of pharmaceuticals have generated considerable, and often acrimonious, debate. Yet, there is little conceptual work or empirical evidence on pharmaceutical pricing strategies or on the time paths of these prices. This study provides a conceptual framework describing the interplay between quality and product differentiation in determining the preferred pricing strategy. We hypothesize that higher quality products will engage in price skimming strategies in markets where products are sufficiently differentiated, but will choose a market penetration strategy in markets that are less differentiated. We apply an empirical analysis to brand name antidepressants during the years 1999–2002, a market where differences in quality are modest. A nationally representative data set on drug utilization and expenditures is combined with a physician survey on the quality attributes of drugs to examine the effect of drug quality on pharmaceutical pricing strategies. Results indicate that higher quality antidepressants engage in a market penetration strategy, charging initially lower prices that rise over time. At approximately 6–7 years post-entry, prices of the antidepressant drugs examined converge. Prices of higher quality antidepressants continue to increase thereafter, eventually becoming the highest priced drugs in the therapeutic class. These findings are consistent with a market in which product differentiation is modest and consumers learn which drug works best for them through experience.     

The relationship between R&D,investment and patents: a panel data analysis

This paper estimates the effect of research and investment activities on patents across countries, industries and over time, using Poisson and negative binomial distribution models. The first result of the paper is the recognition of the importance of investment activities in contributing to technical change. The positive role of research expenditures is also confirmed but its elasticity is found to be lower than in previous studies. Important differences across sectors emerge: research expenditures are found to be more effective in generating patents in science based industries, while investment is particularly significant in supplier dominated and production intensive industries. Finally, in most sectors, the estimated R&D and investment coefficients lie outside the confidence intervals calculated around the pooled coefficients.     

The short- and long-run relationship between the illicit drug business and terrorism

We study the effect of the illicit drug business on terrorism for a sample of 58 countries for the 1984–2007 period. Consistent with the notion of a crime-terror nexus, we find that in the long run, higher drug prices are associated with more terrorism. In the short run, however, increases in drug prices lead to less terrorism, potentially because terrorist groups respond to higher drug business attractiveness by prioritizing criminal over terrorist activity.     

Private value of European patents

I examine the joint patent designation-renewal behavior of the European Patent Office (EPO) patent applicants during 1978-1996, using both nonparametric techniques and a parametric model. The European patents granted through the EPO are substantially more valuable than those through the national route. Value distribution of patents is highly skewed, and even more so for the EPO patent families. The value of patent rights increases with the economic size of the country and exhibits modestly increasing returns to scale. Model estimation also reveals significant institutional differences across EPO member countries in patent protection.     

The impact of monetary policy on financial markets in small open economies: More or less effective during the global financial crisis?

This paper estimates the impact of monetary policy on exchange rates and stock prices of eight small open economies: Australia, Canada, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. On average across these countries in the full sample, a one percentage point surprise rise in official interest rates leads to a 1% appreciation of the exchange rate and a 0.5–1% fall in stock prices, with somewhat stronger effects in OECD countries than non-OECD countries (though differences are sometimes not significant). We find little robust evidence of a change in the effect of monetary policy surprises during the recent financial crisis.     

Firms’ location decision across asymmetric countries and employment inequality

This paper analyzes the effect of globalization (lower trade costs) on production and trade patterns if, firms are vertically linked, stages of production differ in labor-factors intensity and countries differ in labor-factors prices. In order to reflect the “Continental Europe” experience, relative wages are assumed fixed and spatial changes in production are translated into changes in relative (skilled to unskilled) employment levels. The asymmetry in factors prices across countries results in a unique agglomeration equilibrium for a broad range of trade costs. At low trade costs, firms’ location depends on production costs—vertical specialization occurs. This paper also provides a consistent explanation of the observed increase in employment inequality between skilled and unskilled workers in relatively high-unskilled wage countries.     

How much of a threat to economic growth is a mature AIDS epidemic?

The article models the impact on economic growth of HIV/AIDS when the epidemic is in a mature phase, in contrast with previous studies focused on periods of expansion as it is typically the case in African countries. Simulations for Honduras, the epicentre of the epidemic in Central America, show that AIDS is not likely to threaten economic growth neither through labour nor capital accumulation channels. Impacts are estimated between 0.007 and 0.27% points of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth annually for the period 2001 to 2010. Increasing spending on prevention, higher public treatment subsidies and increasing treatment access will not jeopardize economic growth prospects. Critical factors that slash economic growth in Africa (such as human capital reductions and shifts in relative skills) are not strong in Honduras.     

The impact of electricity prices on foreign direct investment: evidence from the European Union

We examine the impact of electricity price variation on net FDI (%GDP) inflows in countries of the European Union. We use panel data of 27 EU countries for a period of 2003 – 2013. We show that electricity prices of south-western and north-eastern EU countries did not converge to one price until now. Dynamic panel data analysis using system GMM shows that besides unit labour costs, tax rates and competitive disadvantage in secondary education, also higher electricity prices reduce countries’ ability to attract FDI. The immediate effects are statistically significant across both sub-regions analysed: in the short run, a 10% increase in electricity prices leads to a decrease in net FDI inflows as a share of GDP by 0.4 percentage points for the south-western and 0.33 for the north-eastern region. In the long run, the response is 0.60 percentage points for south-western and 0.48 for north-eastern regions. Policies should aim at reducing electricity market price differences on the European level through investment in transborder transmission capacity; reductions in FDI, when environmental policy increases after-tax electricity prices, should be countered by other tax reductions as well as harmonization of property rights, absence of corruption and labour market regulations at best-practice level.