Relative prices and inflation: new evidence from different inflationary contexts

This paper analyses the relationship between inflation and relative price variability, in the direction of the latter, in two countries with very different inflationary experiences: Argentina and Spain. To address this objective, using disaggregated price indexes (the Wholesale Price Index for Argentina and the Consumer Price Index for Spain), we delimitate different inflationary regimes and compute a set of regressions for each country. Our results suggest evidence in favour of the non-neutrality of inflation (mostly in hyperinflation periods) and do not support either the menu costs or the signal extraction approaches. We also detect significant structural changes in the relationship depending on the inflationary regime.     

International trade and factor productivity as determinants of the real effective exchange rate

Using panel time-series models that deal with the problems of potential endogeneity and cross-sectional dependence, while also allowing for cross-country heterogeneity in the parameters of interest, we demonstrate that trade openness produces a depreciation of the real effective exchange rate.     

Development as Dignity: Dissensus,Equality and Contentious Politics in Bihar,India

This article contributes to the literature on the finance–growth link by presenting new findings based on a new, larger dataset that is an improvement on earlier studies due to its greater coverage in terms of time periods and countries, as well as the incorporation of additional control variables such as institutional quality and the investment rate. Our results demonstrate that financial development does not have a statistically significant effect on economic growth, a finding that is robust to different model specification and estimation techniques. This suggests that the finance–growth link is not as strong as portrayed in the literature, being dependent on the sample of countries and time periods considered.     

Exposure to PAHs of workers on contaminated sites: a modelling approach to assess the occupational contribution – the SOLEX study

The SOLEX study sought to assess the occupational contribution to PAHs exposure among employees working on former gasworks sites. Four categories of volunteers were selected according to their job profile: office, mixed, outdoor, and remediation (workers close to a soil desorber); during each of the two study periods (November 1997 and June 1998) a reference group was also recruited. Personal exposure was estimated by 1‐HOP measurements in urine samples taken before and after the shift each day of the study week. All participants completed a questionnaire describing their PAH exposure from sources other than job‐related. Each exposure job category is described by the median of the individual medians of 1‐HOP concentrations across all subjects in the group. Multiple linear regression models assessed the association between 1‐HOP urine concentrations and the occupational and general environmental exposure variables. The statistical models' fit were good (R ²?=?0.87 in November 1997 and 0.75 in June 1998). Belonging to the outdoor and desorber job categories and smoking were the key exposure predictors for both periods. Physical activity while at work, and commuting time (using an automobile) were also predictive variables in November 1997. Compared to the reference group, working outdoors and near the soil desorber represented 70–99% of the total PAHs exposure among non‐smokers, and 54–97.6% among smokers. A measurable excess of PAH exposure was observed only among employees directly involved in the soil remediation process; soil pollution was responsible for nearly all the exposure of these subjects, smoking representing a smaller fraction.