Alkoholabhängigkeit und Public Health — Soziale und arbeitsmedizinische Aspekte

On the basis of epidemiological estimations the number of alcohol addicts in Germany is estimated at 1.6 million, the number of patients abusing alcoholic drinks at 2.7 million. The diagnosis is often difficult due to aspersion and adulteration tendencies by the affected persons. Particularly psychosocial impairments are crucial for the diagnosis besides an increased quantity of drinking and alcohol related somatic and neurological consequential damages. Different questionnaire tests and clinical-chemical parameters such as GGT and CDT can relieve the diagnosis. Impairments of social environment and industrial world are substantial. The overall consequential damages by alcoholism are estimated at 20 billion € per annum. In this regard indirect costs of alcohol associated diseases are higher than direct costs. Alcohol addiction is often diagnosed at a rather late stage. However, at the beginning of an adequate therapy prognoses are often better than expected. Most of the withdrawal therapies are still conducted at a hospital. Abstinence rates of more than 40 % seem to be achievable. Furthermore a short survey of success rates of ambulant and stationary therapies is given.     

LAND MARKETS AND THE EFFECT OF REGULATION ON FORMAL-SECTOR DEVELOPMENT IN URBAN INDONESIA

Until recently, urban land and housing markets in Indonesia seemed to function well. Informal-sector development provided low-income housing affordably. Through government programs, formal-sector developers could build housing for all but the poor. Since 1989, however, daily conversation pictures land speculation as rampant and formal-sector housing as rising beyond the means of the middle class. Newspapers carry stories of conflicts between small landowners and large developers with government officials in between. This article investigates this situation by addressing two related questions: are urban land prices rising “too fast?”; how do land regulations and development practices affect costs, and who pays these costs? The article includes quantitative estimates of urban land prices, changes in urban land supply, movement of land through the permitting process, and the effect of development regulations on costs. Data come from a literature survey and interviews of some of the largest formal-sector developers in Indonesia. A principal finding concerns a development regulation called a “location permit” and the “social function” of land in Indonesian law. Although helpful as a means of assembling land in Indonesia's highly fragmented land markets, location permits allow formal-sector developers to hold land off the market and pay low prices to small landowners. Ultimately, the “social function” of land under Indonesian law holds down the price formal-sector developers pay for land, but not at the price at which they sell their product. The article concludes by proposing reforms to the regulatory process.     

Can segmentation improve predictive accuracy in conjoint analysis?

His interests focus on new product development, including both how marketing can achieve more accurate forecasts and communicate those forecasts credibly to other departments on the new product team. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, has taught at U.C. Berkeley and at M.I.T., and has published in such journals as theJournal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, andInternational Journal of Forecasting.     

Scarcity effects on value: A quantitative review of the commodity theory literature

Commodity theory (Brock, 1968) deals with the psychological effects of scarcity. According to the theory, scarcity enhances the value (or desirability) of anything that can be possessed, is useful to its possessor, and is transferable from one person to another. This article introduces commodity theory to the marketing literature, reports a meta-analysis of studies designed to test the theory, and discusses the marketing implications of the theory along with suggestions for future marketing research.     

A Strategy for Controlling Groundwater Depletion in the Sa'dah Plain,Yemen

Over-exploitation of the groundwater resources is the major problem leading to groundwater depletion in the Sa'dah Plain, one of the major semi-arid highland basins of Yemen. Groundwater-irrigated agriculture is the chief economic activity in the Plain. Consequently, depletion places socioeconomic development in jeopardy. Owing to the lack of institutional arrangements and management instruments, government intervention is not likely to alleviate the crisis. One non-governmental approach that takes advantage of the existing local sociopolitical structure and customary law would be to adopt an annual abstraction quota. Approaching the crisis at a grass-roots level and relying on the conformity of the local citizens with customary law are the main characteristics of this strategy, the optimum objective of which is sustainable utilization of water resources.     

Farmer Decision‐Making with Conflicting Goals: A Recursive Strategic Programming Analysis

This paper concerns the analysis of farmers' goal trade‐offs using a series of representative dairying and beef/sheep farm models. The models employ an adaptive feedback structure and expectations model to track adjustment processes over a seven‐year planning horizon, 1991/92 to 1997/98. Model solutions, under a conventional profit maximising objective function, and using a weighted goal programming formulation, under a series of empirically specified alternative goal orientations, are examined and compared. The paper identifies significant variation among farm families in terms of ability to attain key goals concerning farm profitability, family consumption, farm investment, growth and cash flow. The results quantify the trade‐off between family consumption and farm investment/growth goals.     

Do Price Discreteness and Transactions Costs Affect Stock Returns? Comparing Ex‐Dividend Pricing before and after Decimalization

By the end of January 2001, all NYSE stocks had converted their price quotations from 1/8s and 1/16s to decimals. This study examines the effect of this change in price quotations on ex‐dividend day activity. We find that abnormal ex‐dividend day returns increase in the 1/16 and decimal pricing eras, relative to the 1/8 era, which is inconsistent with microstructure explanations of ex‐day price movements. We also find that abnormal returns increase in conjunction with a May 1997 reduction in the capital gains tax rate, as they should if relative taxation of dividends and capital gains affects ex‐day pricing.     

Explaining economic growth in the Soviet Union, 1950–86

Production function estimates are provided for Soviet industrial production and gross national product for the period 1950–86. A variety of alternative specifications is tested, including Cobb-Douglas, constant elasticity of substitution and variable elasticity of substitution production functions, and an error correction mechanism is used to investigate the long-run properties of the estimated equation. The structural stability of the estimates is also examined. Constant-returns-to-scale Cobb-Douglas production functions suggest that the rate of total factor productivity growth in the Soviet economy has declined steadily over time, becoming negative sometime in the period between 1970 and 1980. However the extensive statistical tests can doubt on the validity of any production function estimated on Soviet data.     

Why Free Trade May Hurt Developing Countries

This paper builds a general equilibrium trade model where a country produces two traded goods and one nontraded public consumption good. The government finances the provision of the public good by taxing the incomes of factors of production, and/or by imposing tariffs. Within this framework, the paper (i) shows that a small tariff or an income tax improves the country's welfare if there is an undersupply of public good, and (ii) identifies the circumstances in which an improvement in the country's terms of trade may reduce its welfare, and free trade can be inferior to autarky. A terms of trade improvement, or the movement from autarky to free trade, definitely improves the country's welfare if the government imposes a tariff that leaves the domestic relative price of the imported good unchanged.