Impact of behavioral health problems on access to care and health services utilization

Access to specialists for treatment of behavioral health problems has become restricted in this era of capped budgets and reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. Patients with multiple mental health problems may face additional barriers to obtaining needed health care services. The study's aim was to measure the impact of behavioral health problems on access to care and health services utilization for veterans and non-veterans and to determine the contribution of health system characteristics in the prediction of self-reported health services utilization. The study sample consisted of Vietnam veterans who participated in both the Vietnam Drug User Study (September 1971 Army discharges) and the Vietnam Era Study (25-year follow-up) (N=642), as well as a non-veteran cohort (N=197).     

Poland and the euro zone enlargement: Monetary policy,ERM II,and other issues

In this paper, Poland's preparations to introduce the euro and discussions surrounding them are briefly analyzed. Its first part deals with legal and macroeconomic developments before Poland's accession to the EU in May 2004. The second part considers Poland's official position and possible future scenarios. The main conclusions are twofold. Firstly, it is argued that after finishing successfully the disinflation process, Poland's monetary integration is above all subject to fiscal and exchange rate developments. In both cases, they are a function of the economy's structural changes. Secondly, as a consequence, fulfilling the Maastricht Treaty nominal convergence criteria by Poland will imply enough degree of real convergence for its successful participation in the euro zone. The opinions expressed in the paper are of the author and should not be attributed to any institution he is working for. He would like to expresshis gratitude to Witold Grostal and Robert Woreta for providing the graphs. Helpful comments were made by Michal Brzoza-Brzezina, Tomasz Chmielewski, and by Eduard Hochreiter. Language assistance was provided by Barton D. Raven. Any remaining errors are solely the author's responsibility.     

Divorce and female labor force participation: Evidence from times-series data and cointegration

The divorce rate in the United States has increased over the last 40 years. This increase was accompanied both by growing female labor force participation and rising female income. These changes were accompanied by a significant reduction in the birth rate for married women. This article uses time-series data and cointegration techniques to determine the direction of causality between these variables. Analysis of the impulse functions show that the divorce rate will increase if either female labor force participation or income increases. Positive innovations to the divorce rate increase the labor force participation rate of married women. Rising levels of income lead to greater female participation in the labor market.     

Exporting and Productivity in the United Kingdom

This paper investigates various aspects of the links betweenexporting and productivity for a large sample of firms in theUnited Kingdom. We find evidence to support the propositionthat sunk costs are important. Self selection takes place, withlarger and more productive firms entering export markets, andfirms have to become more productive in order to enter. Industrycharacteristics also affect the likelihood of entry—bothindustrial and spatial agglomeration are important. When werely on an unmatched sample of firms we can find some evidenceof further productivity improvement after entry, but this disappearswhen we use a matched sample. Our results suggest that policyshould avoid simply subsidizing firms that may self select intoexport promotion policies and focus instead on reducing informationasymmetries and supporting development of clusters.     

Globalization and real wages in New Zealand 1873-1913

This paper reports annual real wage indexes for laborers and for workers more generally in New Zealand, adjusted for purchasing power parity, for the years 1873-1913. These data are used to include New Zealand in the debates surrounding international wage convergence. On the basis of time series tests we find evidence of an integrated trans-Tasman labor market. Productivity, the terms of trade, and swings in labor’s income share, rather than immigration, shaped New Zealand’s wage growth.