Road traffic injuries in Colombia

Road traffic injuries are a leading public health problem in Colombia. Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users, especially in the main urban centers of Bogotá, Medellin and Cali. Data analyzed in this report include official statistics from the National Police and the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences for 1996-2000, and results of a study conducted at the National University of Colombia in 2000. Methods from the Highway Capacity Manual were used for determining physical and technical variables, and a Geographical Information System tool was used for the location and spatial analysis of the road traffic crashes. Pedestrians accounted for close to 32% of injuries and 40% of the deaths from road traffic crashes. The problem of road traffic crashes existed predominately in urban areas. In the main urban centers, pedestrians constituted nearly 68% of road traffic crash victims. The high level of risky road use behaviors demonstrated by pedestrians and drivers, and inadequate infrastructure for safe mobility of pedestrians in some sections of the road network were the main contributing factors. Major improvements were achieved in Bogotá following enhancements to the municipal transport system and other policies introduced since 1995. In conclusion, policies and programs for improving road safety, in particular pedestrian safety, and strengthening urban planning are top priority.     

Towards a new business history?

This article calls for a discussion about business history research. We advocate that the current typical approach in business history – dominantly case study analysis – maintains its prominent position, but the purpose and relevance of this type of research in the scientific method for business history is made more explicit. Moreover, the article proposes the application of additional approaches in business history, which specifically aim to develop theory and test hypotheses. These approaches are well established in the social sciences, but require adaptation to the particular needs of business history. The purpose of this article is to argue that opportunities for scientific explanations in business history are enhanced by engagement with the circle of knowledge creation where theory is confronted with empirical evidence and empirical observations feed back into theory formation.     

Impacts of increased bioenergy demand on global food markets: an AgMIP economic model intercomparison

Integrated Assessment studies have shown that meeting ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation targets will require substantial amounts of bioenergy as part of the future energy mix. In the course of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), five global agro‐economic models were used to analyze a future scenario with global demand for ligno‐cellulosic bioenergy rising to about 100 ExaJoule in 2050. From this exercise a tentative conclusion can be drawn that ambitious climate change mitigation need not drive up global food prices much, if the extra land required for bioenergy production is accessible or if the feedstock, for example, from forests, does not directly compete for agricultural land. Agricultural price effects across models by the year 2050 from high bioenergy demand in an ambitious mitigation scenario appear to be much smaller (+5% average across models) than from direct climate impacts on crop yields in a high‐emission scenario (+25% average across models). However, potential future scarcities of water and nutrients, policy‐induced restrictions on agricultural land expansion, as well as potential welfare losses have not been specifically looked at in this exercise.     

Interest rate dispersion and volatility in the market for daily funds

The purpose of this paper is to study the determinants of equilibrium in the market for daily funds. We use the EONIA panel database which includes daily information on the lending rates applied by contributing commercial banks. The data clearly show an increase in both the time series volatility and the cross-section dispersion of rates towards the end of the reserve maintenance period. These increases are highly correlated. We design a model to account for these empirical facts. Our theoretical model shows how the operational framework of monetary policy causes a reduction in the elasticity of the supply of funds by banks throughout the reserve maintenance period. This reduction in the elasticity together with market segmentation and heterogeneity is able to generate distributions for the interest rates and quantities traded with the same properties as in the data. We also investigate the effects of the changes in the Eurosystem's operational framework, enacted on March 2004, for interest rate behaviour.     

An extension of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition to a continuum of comparison groups

This paper proposes an extension of the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition from two to a continuum of comparison groups. The proposed decomposition is then estimated for racial wage differences in urban Peru, exploiting a novel data set that allows the capturing of different degrees of mestizaje (racial mixtures).     

Ethical Reflections on Company-Owned Life Insurance

COLI – company owned life insurance – is often purchased by firms on employees in whom the firm has no demonstrable insurable interest. Though no immediate harm comes to individuals insured in this way, purchasing such policies raises moral questions. From a Kantian framework, questions arise about reciprocity and fairness, the deception of employees, the generation of mistrust, and the use of the employee’s life as a means to profit. No compensating social good is served by the sale of these policies.     

Tecnología,deslocalización y tareas definitorias de las ocupaciones en el Reino Unido

Los autores analizan los cambios de las tareas definitorias (margen intensivo) y de los niveles de empleo (margen extensivo) de las ocupaciones en el Reino Unido de 1997 a 2006 con datos de la Encuesta nacional sobre calificaciones (Skills Survey). Encuentran que las tareas definitorias de las ocupaciones cambiaron significativamente, y que la magnitud del cambio fue similar a la encontrada en el margen extensivo. Según sus resultados econométricos, este cambio de las tareas definitorias puede explicarse por los avances tecnológicos, pero no por la deslocalización.     

Selection and Reporting Bias in Household Surveys of Child Labor: Evidence from Tanzania

Abstract: Studies of child labor in developing countries have largely relied on data collected through national household surveys. But government‐sponsored household surveys are arguably prone to both sample selection bias and reporting bias. In this paper, we compare the demographic and labor market characteristics of working street children obtained from the 2000 Tanzanian Integrated Labor Force Survey, a government‐sponsored household survey, with the results obtained in a 2004 survey of working street children in the city of Mwanza in northern Tanzania. Our comparisons help illumine the potential biases introduced when child labor studies rely on household samples; specifically, we show that children in the non‐household based survey work longer hours, have lower educational attainment and suffer worse health outcomes than their counterparts in the government‐sponsored household survey. This suggests that studies based on national household surveys may significantly underestimate both the extent and the consequences of child labor.     

A leader in an emerging new international market: the determinants of French wine exports, 1848–1938

The objective of this article is to provide an in-depth study of France's performance in the new international wine market that began to take shape from the middle of the nineteenth century. We analyse the main determinants of its success in exporting ordinary and high-quality wine using a gravity model for both types of wine. The article shows how France lost foreign markets in the ordinary wine sector, due to difficulties in maintaining its exports, which resulted from the decrease in production caused by the phylloxera plague and increasing competition from growing numbers of producers who were more efficient at producing these types of wines. However, in the high-quality wine market, French exporters enjoyed considerable success, increasing their exports thanks to their efforts to offer a product that was highly valued abroad and the use of modern marketing and sales techniques. The exports benefited from the fall in transport costs and French colonial expansion. However, exports of both products were severely affected by a series of major events, including the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Prohibition in the US, and the Great Depression. This case study of the wine market shows that the collapse of the first globalization was not the same for all products.