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Background Value-based healthcare (VBHC) is a conceptual framework to improve the value of healthcare by health, care-process and economic outcomes. Benchmarking should provide useful information to identify best practices and therefore a good instrument to improve quality across healthcare organizations. This paper aims to provide a proof-of-concept of the feasibility of an international VBHC benchmarking in breast cancer, with the ultimate aim of being used to share best practices with a data-driven approach among healthcare organizations from different health systems. Methods In the VOICE community—a European healthcare centre cluster intending to address VBHC from theory to practice—information on patient-reported, clinical-related, care-process-related and economic-related outcomes were collected. Patient archetypes were identified using clustering techniques and an indicator set following a modified Delphi was defined. Benchmarking was performed using regression models controlling for patient archetypes and socio-demographic characteristics. Results Six hundred and ninety patients from six healthcare centres were included. A set of 50 health, care-process and economic indicators was distilled for benchmarking. Statistically significant differences across sites have been found in most health outcomes, half of the care-process indicators, and all economic indicators, allowing for identifying the best and worst performers. Conclusions To the best of our knowledge, this is the first international experience providing evidence to be used with VBHC benchmarking intention. Differences in indicators across healthcare centres should be used to identify best practices and improve healthcare quality following further research. Applied methods might help to move forward with VBHC benchmarking in other medical conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alzheimer's disease (AD), breast cancer (BC) and prostate cancer (PC) continue to be high in the research and innovation agenda of the European Commission (EC). This is due to their exceptionally large burden to the national health systems, the profound economic effects of opportunity costs attributable to decreased working ability, premature mortality and the ever-increasing demand for both hospital and home-based medical care. Over the last two decades, the EC has been steadily increasing both the number of proposals being funded and the amounts of financial resources being allocated to these fields of research. This trend has continued throughout four consecutive science funding cycles, namely framework programme (FP)5, FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020 (H2020). We performed a retrospective assessment of the outputs and outcomes of EC funding in AD, BC and PC research over the 1999–2019 period by means of selected indicators. These indicators were assessed for their ability to screen the past, present and future for an array of causal relationships and long-term trends in clinical, epidemiological and public health sphere, while considering also the broader socioeconomic impact of funded research on the society at large. This analysis shows that public–private partnerships with large industry and university-based consortia have led to some of the most impactful proposals being funded over the analysed time period. New pharmaceuticals, small molecules and monoclonal antibodies alike, along with screening and prevention, have been the most prominent sources of innovation in BC and PC, extending patients' survival and enhancing their quality of life. Unlike oncology, dementia drug development has been way less successful, with only minor improvements related to the quality of supportive medical care for symptoms and more sensitive diagnostics, without any ground-breaking disease-modifying treatment(s). Significant progresses in imaging diagnostics and nanotechnology have been largely driven by the participation of medical device industry multinational companies. Clinical trials funded by the EC were conducted, leading to the development of brand-new drug molecules featuring novel mechanisms of action. Some prominent cases of breakthrough discoveries serve as evidence for the European capability to generate cutting-edge technological innovation in biomedicine. Less productive areas of research may be reconsidered as priorities when shaping the new agenda for forthcoming science funding programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim This study examined the outputs of research papers in diabetes from 31 European countries between 2002 and 2013, and their funding. Methods Diabetes research papers in the Web of Science were identified by means of a filter based on journals and title words. For 2009-2013 papers, the funders were coded to show their sector and nationality. Results Europe published 40 547 diabetes papers in the 12 years between 2002 and 2013. Denmark, Sweden and Finland published the most relative to their wealth, but the UK published the most absolutely despite an apparently low burden (as measured by disability-adjusted life years). The largest source of funding was government (30%), followed by the non-profit sector (18%) and industry (13%). The European Commission supported 2.7% of papers, but more in Latvia (33%) and Estonia (16%). Based on an estimated cost per paper of €260 000, the annual research expenditure in Europe was approximately €986 million in 2013. Conclusions The European diabetes burden in disability-adjusted life years increased by one third between 2002 and 2012, but its output of research papers has decreased from 44% to 36% of the world total. This decrease needs to be reviewed in the context of European non-communicable disease research policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes an adaptive network fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) based decision support system that can provide European policy makers with systematic guidance in allocating and prioritizing scant public resources, whilst accomplishing the best growth performance at a regional level. We do so by taking the stance of the Smart Specialization Strategies, which aim at consolidating the regional strengths and make effective and efficient use of public investment in R&D. By applying the ANFIS method, we were able to understand how—and to what extent—the competitiveness drivers promoted technological development and how the latter contributes to the economic growth of European regions. We used socio–economic, spatial, and patent-based data to train, test, and validate the models. What emerges is that an increase of R&D investments enhances the regional employment rate and the number of patents per capita; in turn, by taking into account the several combinations of specialization and diversification indicators, this leads to an increase of the regional gross domestic product (GDP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic crises carry a substantial impact on population health and health systems, but little is known on how these transmit to health workers (HWs). Addressing such a gap is timely as HWs are pivotal resources, particularly during pandemics or the ensuing recessions. Drawing from the empirical literature, we aimed to provide a framework for understanding the impact of recessions on HWs and their reactions. We use a systematic review and best-fit framework synthesis approach to identify the relevant qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods evidence, and refine an a priori, theory-based conceptual framework. Eight relevant databases were searched, and four reviewers employed to independently review full texts, extract data and appraise the quality of the evidence retrieved. A total of 57 peer-reviewed publications were included, referring to six economic recessions. The 2010-15 Great Recession in Europe was the subject of most (52%) of the papers. Our consolidated framework suggests that recessions transmit to HWs through three channels: (1) an increase in the demand for services; (2) the impacts of austerity measures; and (3) changes in the health labour market. Some of the evidence appeared specific to the context of crises; demand for health services and employment increased during economic recessions in North America and Oceania, but stagnated or declined in Europe in connection with the austerity measures adopted. Burn-out, lay-offs, migration and multiple jobholding were the reactions observed in Europe, but job opportunities never dwindled for physicians during recessions in North America, with nurses re-entering labour markets during such crises. Loss of motivation, absenteeism and abuse of health systems were documented during recessions in low-income countries. Although the impacts of recessions may vary across economic events, health systems, labour markets and policy responses, our review and framework provide an evidence base for policies to mitigate the effects on HWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quality & Quantity was established in 1967 and in 2017 it completed its half century. The journal is interdisciplinary in nature and it mainly discusses methodological application of mathematics and statistics in the social sciences, particularly sociology, economics, and social psychology. It was created with the idea of advancing methodology of the various social studies. This study looks back journey of the journal from 1967 to 2017 aims to develop a bibliometric analysis of all the publications of the journal. Web of Science Core Collection database is used to collect data. The present study discovered the significant contributions of the journal in terms of impact, topics, authors, universities and countries. Utrecht University of Netherlands is the most productive university. Asian Universities are emerging and growing quickly in the recent years. Although USA leads among the countries but Europe leads among the six supranational regions. Finally, the visualization of similarities viewer software is used to present network visualization of the bibliographic coupling, co-citation, citation, co-authorship and co-occurrence of keywords. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of TEME: Casopis za Društvene Nauke is the property of TEME: Casopis za Drustvene Nauke and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This special issue presents seven selected papers from the 5th Symposium of the European Association of Research in Transportation (hEART) which was held in September 2016 in Delft, The Netherlands, and was organised by Delft University of Technology. The contributions cover a wide range of topics in transportation, reflecting the broad scope of the hEART symposium series, including but not limited to travel behaviour, travel survey methods, railway freight as well as (terminal) logistics. As editors of this special issue we are very grateful for the efforts made by the authors, in particular their enduring efforts to push the quality of their contributions to a higher level during the review process. Also, we like to take the opportunity to thank all the reviewers for their constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement. This editorial provides a brief overview of the hEART2016 symposium. After that, an overview is given of the seven contributions that form this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on resilience by focusing on coping with hardship during the Great Recession, drawing upon primary data gathered through household and key informant interviews in nine European countries. As the resilience approach highlights agency, the paper examines the nature of household responses to hardship during this period on the basis of the 'structure-agency problem'. An important contribution of this paper is to identify different forms of agency and discuss their implications. More specifically, we conceptualise three different types of agency in coping with hardship: absorptive, adaptive and transformative. Analysis of the findings indicates that structural constraints remain prominent. Most coping mechanisms fall under the category of absorptive and adaptive agency characterised here as burden-bearing actions that 'conform' to changing circumstances rather than shaping those circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Schizophrenia is a chronic disease associated with significant and long-lasting effects on health, and it is also a social and financial burden, not only for patients but also for families, other caregivers, and the wider society. It is essential to conduct the assessment of indirect costs, to understand all the effects of the disease on society. Our aim is to gain a better understanding of the indirect costs of schizophrenia in Europe. Methods We conducted a comprehensive systematic literature review covering EMBASE, Medline, and PsycINFO as well as reviewing Health Technology Assessment databases from different countries. We used a qualitative research synthesis for presenting information, as most of the studies were methodologically diverse, a quantitative analysis would have been impractical. Results Indirect cost adjusted to inflation ranged vastly between studies included in the review from 119 Euros to 62, 034 Euros annually. The average proportion of indirect costs of total costs was 44%. Studies highlighted important cost drivers as age, gender, and disease severity, explaining the variation in costs between treatment and patient groups. Conclusions Regardless of the methodological heterogeneity of the reviewed studies, there was an agreement about the significance of indirect costs of schizophrenia on the society. Considering the relatively high prevalence of schizophrenia in Europe, a need for more cost of illness studies especially from Central Eastern and Southern Europe is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional football (soccer) in Europe has changed dramatically in the past two decades, largely due to the escalation of media rights deals. Many professional football clubs are now complex businesses, intrinsically concerned with financial matters. Within the rapidly changing business context of football, the aim of this research is to further understand the main issues that are related to a career as a manager. This paper has five sections: (1) we offer an appraisal of the general literature as it applies to professional football management; (2) we introduce the theoretical focus of the article with specific reference to the “career” and describe the context and background to the research; (3) we describe the research methodology and present and discuss the research results, which center on the career development of the manager; the position of a manager in organizational structures, and how the changing organization affects the role of manager; (4) we set out the conclusions and implications of our research; and (5) we offer our plans to progress this research, enabling a new body of knowledge to be developed on this specialized role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation in the delivery of public services is generally framed as desirable, but it is often hindered by serious collective action problems. The article compares inter-municipal cooperation in seven countries with different institutional settings. It investigates the rules of governance characterising these diverse institutional settings and assesses how they deal with the multiple principal problem. The authors find that in almost all cases, all participating municipalities are represented on the supervisory board of the cooperative entity. In contrast, in other less frequent case cooperation is frequently managed through a different tier of local government, thus circumventing the multiple principal problem affecting inter-municipal arrangements in the other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papeles: Revista de la Facultad de Educación Universidad Antonio Nariño is the property of Universidad Antonio Narino and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, guest writers from the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Italy, the leading scientific technical body of the Italian National Health Service present a historic case study considering the role and evolution of the information specialists at their institution over a twenty year period. The paper places a particular emphasis on the initiatives undertaken in consumer health information and health literacy promotion, in order to improve public health in Italy. Areas covered include the development of online health information provision, early strategies to support the improvement of health literacy, and national projects and collaborations. H.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts a social psychological perspective to review individual and socio-political factors accounting for the resurgence of the far right in Europe, in light of the economic crisis. The paper addresses three main questions in relation to this review. First, what psychological processes translate unfavorable contextual attributes into perceptions of uncertainty, threat and ruthless competition that may trigger ideological attitudes, behaviors, and policies relevant to the far right? Second, what strategies do far-right leaders implement in order to counter accusations of fascism and racism? And third, what is the role of the mainstream political system and the media with regard to the legitimization of right-wing extremism and populism? The paper draws upon examples from different member countries of the European Union, with an emphasis on Greece. It is concluded that European citizens should remain vigilant towards the far right, though avoiding oversimplifications and emotionally driven reactions that would allow corrupt, opportunistic leaders to amass political power by exploiting generalized fear against the far right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) positively represent the backbone of the European economic system and, negatively, they make a significant contribution to environmental pollution and social impacts. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how a new tool for supporting the adoption of small business social responsibility (SBSR) can be tailored in order to be more effective.Design/methodology/approach Theoretical framework – a literature analysis of how SMEs address sustainability issues will be discussed, especially the need for SME tools with the following features: quality, materiality, free of charge, anonymous, easy-to-use and easy to understand. This need has been confirmed by the literature of SBSR and also social accounting doctrine. Methodology – this paper analyzes CSR4UTOOL, an applied research project of a web-based application dedicated to SMEs in order to provide a self-assessment on sustainability performances. A technical paper aims to describe a specific development, technique or procedure that is capable of presenting a software tool or an experimental or computational method that should be well-tested and should preferably provide a solution to a problem and have some demonstrable practical values.Findings The recent studies over SBSR sustain the need of sustainability management tool for SMEs. A web-based tool co-designed and co-created with SMEs reveals the importance of new tools to support SBSR, especially for the global process of CSR downstreaming using a bottom-up perspective.Research limitations/implications Alongside the development of tailored, efficient tools to implement, manage, control and account for such social responsibilities, several authors have described organizational implications, managerial adaptations and practical features of such tools. As a technical paper, the aim of this research is to shed light on the new technology that has been adopted to solve a gap in both the literature and the real economy, and it answers to the specific call for SBSR tools.Practical implications CSR4UTOOL is based on a decision tree structure presenting several questions and indicators given by a profound benchmark of the most internationally well-known accountability standards. It translates accounting and non-accounting data as well as qualitative and quantitative data to a powerful source of information for entrepreneurs regarding their ethical and moral managerial conduct. A report on the performance of the company will be generated at the end of each session.Social implications This study has a practical social implication as it may concretely help entrepreneurs to self-assess their SBSR. IT technologies may represent a useful way to overcome the specific constraints on SMEs that when they are on track, they may also be more aware of the existent power of formalization in their social and environmental management practices. This kind of tool may help small entrepreneurs to be more aware of the fact that formalization may represent a strategic asset rather than a guarantee of morality.Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating how data collection over SBSR may be engineered and tailored using web application and ICT, even in a context of small businesses. This paper further responds to a call from Spence (2016) and Johnson et al. (2016) for interdisciplinary approaches to investigating sustainability in SMEs, the validation and application of existent theories on CSR within the context of SMEs, through foregrounding use of innovative software and web applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Economics & Environment / Ekonomia i Środowisko is the property of Fundacja Ekonomistow Srodowiska i Zasobow Naturalnych and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on the diffusion of 無為/ wu-wei (an ancient Chinese concept of political economy) throughout Europe, between 1648 and 1848. It argues that at the core of this diffusion process were three significant developments; first, the importation and active transmission of wu-wei by the Low Countries during the seventeenth century. It is revealed that the details of Chinese expertise entered Europe via the textual diffusion of Jesuit texts and the visual diffusion of millions of so-called minben-images during the ceramic boom of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thus, the hypothesis is advanced that the diffusion of wu-wei, co-evolved with the inner-European laissez-faire principle, the Libaniusian model. In the second part, it is shown that the intellectual foundation of Europe's first economic school, Physiocracy, is a direct replica of the imported Chinese economic, agrarian craftsmanship of wu-wei; subsequently, it is denied that the indigenous European Libaniusian ideology can be considered the intellectual master-model of Physiocracy and his founder Quesnay. Finally, we argue that Switzerland can be identified as the first European paradigm state of wu-wei. The crystallization process of wu-wei inside Europe ultimately ended with the economic-political reorganization of the newly formed Eidgenossenschaft in 1848. The Swiss succeeded in institutionally transforming traditional Chinese agrarian wu-wei into the modern version of European "commercial wu-wei". In due course, this alpine paradigm enabled the endogenous Libaniusian model to verify and reflect upon its theory of commercial society. Additionally, this third focus also demonstrates that the later development of Europe's laissez-faire doctrine has to be seen as a Eurasian co-production – without importing China's wu-wei, Europe's pro-commercial ideology might never have matured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Based on the ideal type classification of European countries done in Part I of this paper, Part II explores whether the real ‘danger’ to public health is the interplay between austerity and crisis, rather than recession itself. Methods: We constructed two fuzzy sets of changes in population health based on a pooled file of European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) data (2008 and 2013) including 29 European countries. The linear probability analyses of ‘limiting long-standing illness’ and ‘less than good’ health were restricted to the age group 20–64 years. We performed fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and studied whether configurations of ‘severe crisis’ and ‘austerity’ were linked to changes in population health. Results: Overall, the results of this fsQCA do not support the ‘crisis–austerity’ thesis. Results on ‘less than good’ health were highly inconsistent, while results on ‘limiting long-standing illness’, contrary to the thesis, showed a two-path model. Countries with either no severe crisis or no austerity were subsets of the set of countries that experienced deteriorated health. Results also show that several countries combined both paths. Conclusions: This fuzzy set analysis does not support Stuckler and Basu’s ‘crisis–austerity’ thesis, as those European countries that experienced recession and austerity were not consistently the countries with deteriorating health. There may be multiple reasons for this result, including analytical approach and operationalization of key concepts, but also resilient forces such as family support. We suggest more research on the topic based on more recent data and possibly other, or more, dimensions of austerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines two aspects related to private equity investments in Europe. First, we will present the evolution of private equity investments across European countries during the last crisis. Second, the paper will analyse and identify the main determinants of the European private equity market, using an empirical panel analysis. The empirical model includes many of the determinants already tested in previous studies (GDP growth, Market Capitalization, Research and Development Expenditures, Interest rates, etc.) and also new variables such as productivity and corruption index which we consider important factors in explaining the evolution of private equity investments in Europe. The present research paper follows the equilibrium model of private equity investments (Gompers and Lerner 1998, Jeng and Wells 2000, Romain and de La Potteria 2004, Félix 2007). We will use aggregated data from European private equity market during 2000-2013, as well as macroeconomic data, in order to estimate a panel data model with fixed and random effects. This paper will also run the Hausman specification test in order to compare the consistency of fixed effects models and random effects models. Our results confirm existent hypotheses regarding the importance of some determinants on the evolution of private equity investments in Europe. However, in the context of the last crisis new factors emerged as important for the private equity market in Europe such as productivity or corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legume-supported cropping systems affect environmental, production, and economic impacts. In Europe, legume production is still marginal with grain legumes covering less than 3% of arable land. A transition towards legume-supported systems could contribute to a higher level of protein self-sufficiency and lower environmental impacts of agriculture. Suitable approaches for designing legume-supported cropping systems are required that go beyond the production of prescriptive solutions. We applied the DEED framework with scientists and advisors in 17 study areas in nine European countries, enabling us to describe, explain, explore, and redesign cropping systems. The results of 31 rotation comparisons showed that legume integration decreased N fertilizer use and nitrous oxide emissions (N2O) in more than 90% of the comparisons with reductions ranging from 6 to 142 kg N ha−1 and from 1 to 6 kg N2O ha−1, respectively. In over 75% of the 24 arable cropping system comparisons, rotations with legumes had lower nitrate leaching and higher protein yield per hectare. The assessment of above-ground biodiversity showed no considerable difference between crop rotations with and without legumes in most comparisons. Energy yields were lower in legume-supported systems in more than 90% of all comparisons. Feasibility and adaptation needs of legume systems were discussed in joint workshops and economic criteria were highlighted as particularly important, reflecting findings from the rotation comparisons in which 63% of the arable systems with legumes had lower standard gross margins. The DEED framework enabled us to keep close contact with the engaged research-farmer networks. Here, we demonstrate that redesigning legume-supported cropping systems through a process of close stakeholder interactions provides benefits compared to traditional methods and that a large-scale application in diverse study areas is feasible and needed to support the transition to legume-supported farming in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This is the first part of a two-part paper that takes an explorative approach to assess crisis and austerity in European countries during the Great Recession. The ultimate aim of this two-part paper is to explore the “crisis–austerity” thesis by Stuckler and Basu and assess whether it is the interplay between austerity and crisis, rather than the current economic crisis per se, that can led to deterioration in population health. In Part I of this paper we offer one way of operationalizing crisis severity and austerity. We examine countries as specific configurations of crisis and policy responses and classify European countries into “ideal types.” Methods: Cases included were 29 countries participating in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) surveys. Based on fuzzy set methodology, we constructed two fuzzy sets, “austerity” and “severe crisis.” Austerity was measured by changes in welfare generosity; severe crisis was measured by changes in gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth. Results: In the initial phase of the Great Recession, most countries faced severe crisis combined with no austerity. From 2010–2011 onward, there was a divide between countries. Some countries consistently showed signs of austerity policies (with or without severe crisis); others consistently did not. Conclusions: The fuzzy set ideal-type analysis shows that the European countries position themselves, by and large, in configurations of crisis and austerity in meaningful ways that allow us to explore the “crisis–austerity” thesis by Stuckler and Basu. This exploration is the undertaking of Part II of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Randomised clinical trials are key to advancing medical knowledge and to enhancing patient care, but major barriers to their conduct exist. The present paper presents some of these barriers.Methods: We performed systematic literature searches and internal European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN) communications during face-to-face meetings and telephone conferences from 2013 to 2017 within the context of the ECRIN Integrating Activity (ECRIN-IA) project.Results: The following barriers to randomised clinical trials were identified: inadequate knowledge of clinical research and trial methodology; lack of funding; excessive monitoring; restrictive privacy law and lack of transparency; complex regulatory requirements; and inadequate infrastructures. There is a need for more pragmatic randomised clinical trials conducted with low risks of systematic and random errors, and multinational cooperation is essential.Conclusions: The present paper presents major barriers to randomised clinical trials. It also underlines the value of using a pan-European-distributed infrastructure to help investigators overcome barriers for multi-country trials in any disease area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2014 European elections led to a sharp rise in the electoral consensus of parties and independent parliament members perceived as eurosceptic. This paper analyzes the interconnections between distressed economies and the electoral success of hard-line eurosceptic parties. On a panel of 108 elections between 2008 and 2015, the random-effects model shows the relative effect of long- and short-term political trust, economic performance indicators, and institutional variables in determining the rise of hard-line eurosceptic parties. In contrast with previous studies, which have tended to de-emphasize the effect of economic performance in determining the success of eurosceptic forces, the results of this paper detect both a direct and a mediated effect of the economic crisis on the electoral success of hard-line eurosceptic parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first of this two-paper series addresses a practical day-ahead auction model, where generation revenue constraints are explicitly incorporated in the problem formulation, as routinely done in several national electricity markets across Europe. The revenue-constrained market-clearing procedure includes the effect of the transmission network, inter-temporal constraints associated with generation scheduling, demand-side bidding, and marginal pricing. This auction design is an instance of price-based market clearing which features two major complicating factors. First, locational marginal prices become decision variables of the optimization process. In addition, producer revenues are formulated as bilinear and highly nonconvex products of power outputs and market-clearing prices. The resulting problem is formulated as a mixed-integer nonlinear bilevel program with bilinear terms for which available solution techniques rely on heuristics, approximations, or modeling simplifications. This paper presents a novel and exact methodology whereby the original problem is recast as an equivalent single-level mixed-integer linear program. As a consequence, finite convergence to optimality is guaranteed and the use of standard commercial software is allowed. The proposed transformation is based on duality theory of linear programming, Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions, and integer algebra results. In the second part of this two-paper series, numerical results from several case studies illustrate the effective performance of the proposed solution approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions have a decisive impact on the prevalence and nature of entrepreneurship. To date, the impact of institutions on (productive) entrepreneurship and the effects of entrepreneurship on economic growth have largely been investigated in isolation. In this paper, we bring together institutions, entrepreneurship, and economic growth using a parsimonious growth model in a 3SLS specification. In our first stage, we regress multiple measures of entrepreneurial activity on institutional proxies that are known to correlate with more productive forms of entrepreneurial activity. Using the fitted values of this first-stage regression as our proxy for productive entrepreneurship, we can then estimate a panel growth regression following Islam (1995) in a second stage. The third stage then optimizes the estimation of the two equations simultaneously. Our results show that productive entrepreneurship contributes to economic growth. In our set of proxies for institutional quality, financial stability, small government, and perceived start-up skills are the most important predictors of such productive entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the rise of wealth–income ratios observed in rich economies be found in the case of Greece as well? This paper uses a generalization of a two‐good wealth accumulation equation to estimate the evolution of the national wealth–income ratio, and finds that, similarly to the European evidence, the ratio rises from about 280 percent in the 1970s to about 500 percent on the eve of the current financial crisis. On average, during 1974–96, the saving‐induced wealth growth cancels out the capital losses, whereas in the subsequent decade, 1997–2007, the balance changes considerably when the saving effect vanishes and the prolonged capital gains result in a rising wealth–income ratio. During the recession, income falls faster than wealth. The results remain robust to several alterations of the benchmark framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A quarter of the European population lives in ‘polycentric urban regions’ (PURs): clusters of historically and administratively distinct but proximate and well‐connected cities of relatively similar size. This paper explores whether tighter integration can increase agglomeration benefits at the PUR‐level. We provide the first comprehensive list of European PURs (117 in total), establish their level of functional, institutional and cultural integration and measure whether this affects their performance. ‘Performance’ is defined as the extent to which urbanisation economies have developed, proxied by the presence of metropolitan functions. In this first‐ever cross‐sectional analysis of PURs we find that while there is evidence for all dimensions of integration having a positive effect, particularly functional integration has great significance. Regarding institutional integration, it appears that having some form of metropolitan co‐operation is more important than its exact shape. Theoretically, our results substantiate the assumption that networks may substitute for proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population ageing, together with the negative effects of the recent economic and financial crisis that some European countries are still facing, have threatened the sustainability of public pension systems. In this context, voluntary private pensions have emerged as the most feasible alternative to supplement the minimum provided by Social Security Systems; however, this financial product does not enjoy its expected popularity. A potential explanation of this reality might be due to the fact that European countries are far from being homogeneous, nor their pensions systems. Therefore, any policy geared toward improving financial retirement planning should take into account these potential differences. As a first approach to their analysis, this paper proposes the existence of four different ‘social models’ in Europe -namely, Continental, Mediterranean, Nordic and Transitional-. Overall, empirical evidence confirmed the significant influence of country’ ‘social model’ on the decision to invest in retirement accounts on a sample of 31,468 individuals in 2013. It was also proved that this decision is positively related to age, household income and wealth, higher levels of formal education, job situation, good health status, and long-term planning horizons; and negatively related to age squared, household size or financial risk aversion. In short, future policies and reforms regarding private pensions should not only take into account the existence of individual differences among Europeans, but also the existence of differences depending on institutional and cultural country factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paid dailies in Europe have seen their circulation decline by 14 million between 1995 and 2006. During the same period circulation of free daily newspapers has increased by more than 28 million. This article maps the development of paid and free circulation newspapers in Europe. It then analyses the relation between the two developments to assess whether free newspapers are substituted for paid dailies. The study focuses on all European markets with substantial market shares of free dailies and paid circulation before and after the introduction of free papers is compared. Data from countries without free papers are used to assess how markets without free dailies are affected. Substitution, however, seems to be moderate. The rise of free dailies is better explained by economic factors while the decline of paid circulation is probably related to the availability of other (media) alternatives for new generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores which demographic characteristics substantially bias self-reported physical and cognitive health status of older Europeans. The analysis utilises micro-data for 19 European countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to compare performance-tested outcomes of mobility and memory with their self-reported equivalents. Relative importance analysis based on multinomial logistic regressions shows that the bias in self-reported health is mostly due to reporting heterogeneities between countries and age groups, whereas gender contributes little to the discrepancy. Concordance of mobility and cognition measures is highly related; however, differences in reporting behaviour due to education and cultural background have a larger impact on self-assessed memory than on self-assessed mobility. Southern as well as Central and Eastern Europeans are much more likely to misreport their physical and cognitive abilities than Northern and Western Europeans. Overall, our results suggest that comparisons of self-reported health between countries and age groups are prone to significant biases, whereas comparisons between genders are credible for most European countries. These findings are crucial given that self-assessed data are often the only information available to researchers and policymakers when asking health-related questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outcomes of bargaining over losses, the subject of this paper, have rarely been studied. But experimental studies of related situations, such as those involving bankruptcies or bequests in which the sum of the legal claims that can be made against a bank or firm or estate are greater than their values, have produced strong support for the proportionality principle. To test whether this principle would find support in other situations involving losses we designed an experimental game in which four players start out with differing initial endowments of real money. They are then informed that a certain amount of this resource has to be given back to the experimenter. How should the loss be shared among the agents? This game was run at different locations and under different treatments over a period of almost three years. We found that the proportionality principle was rarely proposed and even less frequently accepted as a solution to this problem. One of the main reasons for this result was that the two players with the smallest endowments opposed most of the proposals which asked them to contribute at least some positive amount of their own initial resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expansion of urban ecosystems and climate change, both outcomes of massive lifestyle changes, contribute to a series of side effects such as environmental deterioration, spread of diseases, increased greenhouse gas emissions and introduction of invasive species. In the case of the Athens metropolitan area, an invasive mosquito species—the Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus)–has spread widely in the last decade. This spread is favoured within urban environments and is also affected by changing climatic trends. The Asian tiger mosquito is accompanied by risks of mosquito-borne diseases, greater nuisance levels, and increased expenses incurring for its confrontation. The main aims of this paper are (i) to estimate the various costs associated with their control of this invasive species, as well as its health and nuisance impacts, (ii) to evaluate the level of citizens’ well-being from averting these impacts and (iii) to record citizens’ and experts’ perceptions regarding alternative control measures. Evidence shows that experts tend to place a high value on mosquito control when associated with serious health risks, while citizens are more sensitive and concerned about the environmental impacts of control methods. The synthesis of results produced by the current study could act as a preliminary guide for the estimation of societal welfare from the confrontation of similar problems in the context of a complex ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The main aims of this paper are to analyse the monetary value of informal care time using different techniques and to identify significant variables associated with the number of caregiving hours. Data and methods: A multicentre study in two Spanish regions in adult caregivers was conducted. A total sample of 604 people was available. A multivariate analysis was performed to identify the variables associated with the number of hours of caregiving time. In the monetary valuation of informal care provided, three approaches were used: replacement cost method, opportunity cost and contingent valuation (willingness to pay and willingness to accept). Results: The main determinants of the amount of time of informal care provided were age, gender, the level of care receiver´s dependence and the professional care services received (at home and out of home). The value estimated for informal care time ranges from EUROS 80,247 (replacement cost method) to EUROS 14,325 (willingness to pay), with intermediate values of EUROS 27,140 and EUROS 29,343 (opportunity cost and willingness to accept, respectively). Several sensitivity analyses were performed over the base cases, confirming the previous results. Conclusions: Time of informal care represents a great social value, regardless of the applied technique. However, the results can differ strongly depending on the technique chosen. Therefore, the choice of technique of valuation is not neutral. Among the determinants of informal care time, the professional care received at home has a complementary character to informal care, while the formal care outside the home has a substitute character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient and public involvement (PPI) is a requirement for UK health and social care research funding. Evidence for how best to implement PPI in research programmes, such as National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaborations for Applied Health Research and Care (CLAHRCs), remains limited. This paper reports findings from an action research (AR) project called IMPRESS, which aims to strengthen PPI within CLAHRC East of England (EoE). IMPRESS combines AR with Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) to explore PPI within diverse case study projects, identifying actions to implement, test and refine to further embed PPI. Methods: We purposively selected CLAHRC EoE case study projects for in-depth analysis of PPI using NPT. Data were generated from project PPI documentation, semi-structured qualitative interviews with researchers and PPI contributors and focus groups. Transcripts and documents were subjected to abductive thematic analysis and triangulation within case. Systematic across case comparison of themes was undertaken with findings and implications refined through stakeholder consultation. Results: We interviewed 24 researchers and 13 PPI contributors and analysed 28 documents from 10 case studies. Three focus groups were held: two with researchers (n = 4 and n = 6) and one with PPI contributors (n = 5). Findings detail to what extent projects made sense of PPI, bought in to PPI, operationalised PPI and appraised it, thus identifying barriers and enablers to fully embedded PPI. Conclusion: Combining NPT with AR allows us to assess the embeddedness of PPI within projects and programme, to inform specific local action and report broader conceptual lessons for PPI knowledge and practice informing the development of an action framework for embedding PPI in research programmes. To embed PPI within similar programmes teams, professionals, disciplines and institutions should be recognised as variably networked into existing PPI support. Further focus and research is needed on sharing PPI learning and supporting innovation in PPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: NEETs (young people not in employment, education or training) are at higher risk for poorer mental and physical health. In France, the Missions locales (MLs) are the only social structures dedicated to this population. We sought to determine whether the systematic offer of a social and preventive medicine consultation at a ML might increase NEET participants’ access to training in the 12 months following the intervention. Methods: This intervention research was a parallel randomised controlled interventional study conducted at five MLs in mainland France in 2011–2012. It included 976 NEETs aged 18 to 25 years who attended one of the five MLs. At inclusion, participants were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to three groups: those in the first group were invited to see a social worker (not studied in this paper), those in the second group were invited to see a doctor and a social worker (intervention group), and the third was a control group. The primary outcome was participation in at least one training session during the year following study inclusion. Results: Among the 976 participants, 504 were randomly assigned to the intervention group and 472 to the control group; 704 (72.1%) were included in the analyses. A significantly higher proportion of the participants in the intervention group participated in a training session in the 12 months following the intervention than of those in the control group (63.3% vs 55.6%; p = 0.04). This difference was significantly greater for women, those less than 21 years of age, those unstably housed and those with a lower level of education. Conclusions: Social and preventive medicine consultations that are fully integrated into the social services for NEETs have an impact on their access to training and contribute to changing some of their health-related behaviours. This may improve their access to the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies have shown that childhood circumstances can have long term consequences that persist until old age. To better understand the transmission of early life circumstances, this paper analyses the effects of health and financial situation during childhood on quality of life after retirement as well as the mediating role of later life health, educational level, and income in this association. Moreover, this study is the first to compare these pathways across European regions. The analyses are based on data of 13,092 retirees aged ≥ 60 and ≤ 85 years from the fifth wave of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) with full information on childhood and later life measures of health, educational level, financial situation, and quality of life as well as relevant covariates. Five European regions are studied: Central-Western Europe (Austria, Germany), Central-Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia), Northern Europe (Denmark, Sweden), Southern Europe (Italy, Spain), and Western Europe (Belgium, France, The Netherlands). Path analysis is used to identify the direct and indirect effects of childhood measures on quality of life. We find retirees’ quality of life to be associated with childhood finances and health in all five European regions. While both the direct and indirect effects of childhood health are rather moderate and homogeneous across regions, especially the direct effects of childhood finances on quality of life after retirement display a distinct North-South gradient being strongest in Southern Europe. Potential explanations for the regional variations are differences in the countries’ welfare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper reports the methods and findings from a systematic review of economic evaluations conducted in the community aged care sector between 2000 and 2016.Methods: Online databases searched were PubMed, Medline, Scopus, and web of science, CINAHL and informit. Studies were included if they 1) were full economic evaluations that compared both the costs and outcomes of two or more interventions 2) in study population of people aged 65 years and over 3) dependent older people living in the community 4) alternatives being compared were care models or service delivery interventions in the community aged care sector (a group of programs that have been established as a support system to allow older people to remain living in their own homes for as long as possible, as an alternative to institutional or residential care) and 5) published in the English language between 2000 and November 2016.Results: Eleven studies reporting upon economic evaluations of service delivery interventions in community aged care were identified; the majority of which were undertaken in Europe. Critical appraisal of the identified studies highlighted the methodological rigour in these evaluations.Conclusion: This systematic review highlights the paucity of economic evaluation studies conducted to date in the community aged care sector. The findings highlight the importance of cost utility analysis methodology as it allows for a uniform outcome measure, that facilitates the comparison of different interventions. In addition, multi-attribute utility measures that represent those quality of life domains that are most important to older people should be used and attention must be paid to the inclusion of informal care costs and outcomes as this is a key resource in community aged care service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background This paper provides the socio-economic context of the MIGHEAL study, the results of which are presented in this special issue. The aim of the MIGHEAL study was to compare the physical and mental health of the native and migrant populations of Greece in the wake of the economic crisis that commenced in 2008. Methods The background of the migrant population of Greece is described, drawing on population censuses of Greece and data on residence permits held by foreigners. Then the migrant and native populations are compared with respect to several socio-economic outcomes, using Eurostat data on unemployment and the risk of poverty. Results The settled migrant population of Greece is largely of Central and Eastern European origin, resulting from the massive migrant inflowsthat started at the beginning of the 1990s after the collapse of socialist regimes in the area. Before the economic crisis, migrant unemployment was lower than that of natives, but after its onset, the unemployment of migrants surpassed that of natives. Prior to the crisis, migrants were already subject to greater risk of poverty than natives, but the gap widened considerably subsequent to the crisis. Conclusion The Greek institutional framework has restricted access to citizenship for both first- and second-generation migrants while conditions for permit renewal are onerous, rendering citizenship an important factor differentiating socio-economic outcomes. The different outcomes observed among the native and migrant populations after the onset of the Greek economic crisis create concerns regarding health inequalities between the two populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, most European countries have experienced substantial demographic changes and rising cultural diversity. Understanding the social and economic impacts of these shifts is a major challenge for policymakers. Richard Florida’s ideas have provided a popular – and pervasive – framework for doing so. This paper assess Florida’s legacy and sets out a ‘post-Florida’ framework for ‘technology, talent and tolerance’ research. The paper first traces the development of Florida’s ideas. ‘Florida 1.0’, encapsulated by the Three Ts framework, has performed badly in practice. There are problems in bringing causality to the fundamental relationships, and in consistently replicating the results in other countries. ‘Florida 2.0’, though suggests that Creative Class metrics have value as alternative measures of human capital. This create space for a post-Florida agenda based on economic micro-foundations. I argue that the growing body of ‘economics of diversity’ research meets these conditions, and review theory and empirics. Urban ‘diversity shocks’ shift the size and composition of populations and workforces, with impacts operating via labour markets, and through wider production and consumption networks. While short-term labour market effects are small, over time low-value industrial sectors may become migrant-dependent. Diversity may help raise productivity and wages through innovation, entrepreneurship, market access and trade channels. Bigger, more diverse cities help generate hybridised goods and services, but may also raise local costs through crowding. All of this presents new challenges for policymakers, who need to manage diversity’s net effects, and address both economic costs and benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a meta-synthesis of the literature on community-based self-management to support experiences of people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The aim was to synthesise findings on both formal and informal self-management support with particular reference to the relevance and influence of the social context operating at different levels. The review forms part of EU- WISE, a project financed through EU's 7th Framework Programme. The review was performed by systematically searching MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Psyc INFO and Web of Science for English language publications between 2005 and 2014 presenting research conducted in Europe on the experiences and perspectives of self-management concerns of patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. The search yielded 587 abstracts, which were reduced through search strategy refinement and eligibility and quality criteria to 29 papers that were included in the review. This review highlights the relevance of contextual factors operating at micro- and macro-levels. The synthesis yielded six second-order thematic constructs relating to self-management: sense of agency and identity, the significance and meaning of social networks, minimal disruption of everyday life, economic hardship, the problem of assigning patients' responsibility and structural influences of primary care. Using a line of argument synthesis, these themes were revisited, and a third-order construct, connectivity emerged which refers to how links in daily life are interwoven with peoples' social networks, local communities, economic and ideological conditions in society in a way which support self-management activities. This meta-synthesis indicates a need to heed the notion of connectivity as a means of mobilising and supporting the self-management strategies of people with type 2 diabetes in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Article Processing Charges (APCs) have recently been studied as a means towards a sustainable Open Access (OA) environment for scholarly communications. However, APCs at any level represent a substantial economic barrier to the authors, institutions, funding agencies and governments that many of its advocates most wish to serve through OA initiatives. This paper claims that no business model based on APCs as a tool to facilitate the large-scale transition to OA can navigate the ethical dilemmas identified by political philosophers as appropriate for the kind of global environment in which scholarly publishing operates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Background: Many low-and middle-income countries (LMIC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region have introduced social health insurance payroll taxes after the political transition in the late 1980s, combined with budget transfers to allow for exempting specific population groups from paying contributions, such as those outside formal sector work and in particular vulnerable groups. This paper assesses the institutional design aspects of such financing arrangements and their performance with respect to universal health coverage progress in LMIC of the European region. Methods: The study is based on a literature review and review of secondary databases for the performance assessment. Results: Such financing arrangements currently exist in 13 LMIC of that region, with strong commonalities in institutional design: This includes a wide range of different eligible population groups, mostly mandatory membership, integrated pools for both the exempted and contributors, and relatively comprehensive benefit packages. Performance is more varied. Enrolment rates range from about 65 % to above 95 %, and access to care and financial protection has improved in several countries. Yet, inequities between income quintiles persist. Conclusions: Budget transfers to health insurance arrangements have helped to deepen UHC or maintain achievements with respect to UHC in these European LMICs by covering those outside formal sector work, and in particular vulnerable population groups. However, challenges remain: a comprehensive benefit package on paper is not enough as long as supply side constraints and quality gaps as well as informal payments prevail. A key policy question is how to reach those so far uncovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview of this issue in relation to the periodical's twentieth anniversary. The author discusses the organization of a anniversary panel in London, England to mark the occasion, and to review articles from the history of the periodical focusing on economic-policy development during these 20 years. The article also provides an introduction to other articles presented in this issue, including one concerning the evolution of exchange-rate management, the effects of government debts on interest rates, and higher education reform in Europe.

This paper applies time series techniques to test for convergence in agricultural total factor productivity among the USA and a sample of nine European countries for the period 1973–1993. The data set used in this paper obtained from Ball et al . (2001). The wide spectrum of unit root test results obtained in the present study support the presence of convergence among the sample countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2013 it was declared that 'the eurozone crisis is over'. However, in fact, the series of financial crises since 2008 may have interrupted the process of EMU enlargement, which in turn triggered a continuing crisis of confidence in the euro. In this paper we extend the sigma-convergence test to provide a more precise understanding of real interest rate parity ( RIP) convergence. On the basis of this, we predict the timing for eliminating the cost of economic asymmetric shocks. Our estimation indicates the RIP among EMU members and accessions were still valid after the disruptions of the 2008 financial crisis. However, the situation has been even worse since the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis, and ceteris paribus, symmetry cannot be achieved without further policy actions. This implies that the EMU authority must do its best to strengthen symmetry and thereby solidify the EMU, at which point it will be better able to re-start the process of enlargement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]