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We examine if and how deeper economic integration with high‐income nations impacts industrial performance. We exploit Poland's accession to the EU in 2004 as a source of variation in the degree of market integration with Germany. Using data on Polish manufacturing firms in the period 1995–2013, we find that EU accession was followed by significant within‐firm growth in output and productivity, notably in industries in which Germany was more specialized at the moment of accession. Increased flows of German investment to these sectors played an important role in shaping these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses municipal‐level data from South Africa for the period 1996–2011 to estimate the medium to long‐run effects of trade liberalisation on local labour markets. It finds that local labour markets that were more exposed to tariff cuts tended to experience slower growth in employment and income per capita than less exposed regions. The longer‐term effects of trade liberalisation on regional earnings are stronger than the medium‐term effects and tend to be more pronounced among municipalities that included the former homelands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large number of epidemiological studies have shown that consumption of fruits, vegetables, and beverages rich in (poly)phenols promote numerous health benefits from cardiovascular to neurological diseases. Evidence on (poly)phenols has been applied mainly to flavonoids, yet the role of phenolic acids has been largely overlooked. Such phenolics present in food combine with those resulting from gut microbiota catabolism of flavonoids and chlorogenic acids and those produced by endogenous pathways, resulting in large concentrations of low molecular weight phenolic metabolites in human circulation. Independently of the origin, in human intervention studies using diets rich in (poly)phenols, a total of 137 low molecular weight phenolic metabolites have been detected and quantified in human circulation with largely unknown biological function. In this review, we will pinpoint two main aspects of the low molecular weight phenolic metabolites: (i) the microbiota responsible for their generation, and (ii) the analysis (quali‐ and quantitative) in human circulation and their respective pharmacokinetics. In doing so, we aim to drive scientific advances regarding the ubiquitous roles of low molecular weight phenolic metabolites using physiologically relevant concentrations and under (patho)physiologically relevant conditions in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies the effect of trade policy on market power through new data and a new identification strategy. We identify market power by observing how exporting firms price discriminate across markets following variations in bilateral exchange rates. Pricing‐to‐market is prevalent in all countries in our sample, even among small firms, although it is increasing in firm size. More importantly, we find that the effect of nontariff measures (NTMs) is not isomorphic to that of tariffs. Whereas tariffs reduce the market power of foreign firms through rent‐shifting effects, NTMs reinforce the market power of nonexiting firms, domestic and foreign alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The human gut barrier is the tissue exposed to the highest load of microorganisms, harbouring 100 trillion bacteria. In addition, the gut's renewal rate outruns that of any other human tissue. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are highly optimized defense molecules in the intestinal barrier optimized to maintain gastrointestinal homeostasis. Alterations in AMPs activity can lead to or result from human gastrointestinal diseases. In this review, unique, conserved, or otherwise regular alterations in the expression patterns of human AMPs across gastrointestinal inflammatory and infectious diseases were analyzed for pattern elucidation. Human gastrointestinal diseases are associated with alterations in gut AMPs' expression patterns in a peptide‐specific, disease‐specific, and pathogen‐specific way, modulating human gastrointestinal functioning. Across diseases, there is a (i) marked reduction in otherwise constitutively expressed AMPs, leading to increased disease susceptibility, and a (ii) significant increase in the expression of inducible AMPs, leading to tissue damage and disease severity. Infections and inflammatory conditions are associated with altered gene expression in the gut, whose patterns may favour cellular metaplasia, mucosal dysfunction, and disease states. Altered expression of AMPs can thus thrive disease severity and evolution since its early stages. Nevertheless, the modulation of AMP expression patterns unveils promising therapeutic targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are an integral part of the innate immune defense mechanism of many organisms. Due to the alarming increase of resistance to antimicrobial therapeutics, a growing interest in alternative antimicrobial agents has led to the exploitation of AMPs, both synthetic and isolated from natural sources. Thus, many peptide-based drugs have been the focus of increasing attention by many researchers not only in identifying novel AMPs, but in defining mechanisms of antimicrobial peptide activity as well. Herein, we review the available strategies for the identification of AMPs in human body fluids and their mechanism(s) of action. In addition, an overview of the distribution of AMPs across different human body fluids is provided, as well as its relation with microorganisms and infectious conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether export participation matters for job training, drawing on longitudinal worker-firm data for Brazilian manufacturing linked with detailed records on training activity from the main provider. Using industry-specific exchange-rate movements to generate exogenous variation in export status at the firm level, we find that export participation tends to increase the share of workers who receive technical upgrading. We also provide evidence that technical upgrading has positive returns to trainees within exporting firms. These results support the hypothesis that exporting requires skill upgrading, and suggest that this is partially achieved by training firms' existing workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We exploit unique features of a recently introduced tariff schedule for natural gas in Buenos Aires to estimate the short-run impact of price shocks on residential energy utilization. The schedule induces a non-linear and non-monotonic relationship between households' accumulated consumption and unit prices, thus generating exogenous price variation, which we exploit in a regression-discontinuity design. We find that a price increase causes a prompt and significant decline in gas consumption. The results also indicate that consumers respond more to recent past bills than to expected prices, which argues against an assumption of perfect awareness of complex price schedules by consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]