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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]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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.)

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]

We examine the effects of private vs. public ownership on the level and structure of employment using uncommonly rich data on the population of Portuguese firms from 1991 to 2009. We find that private ownership is associated with sizeable job losses. This occurs whether we consider privatizations or nationalizations, and the relationship tends to be stronger in the presence of foreign capital. We also find some evidence that private ownership is associated with higher skill utilization, particularly following privatizations and when foreign investment is present. The estimated job losses associated with private ownership are consistent with a theory in which the shift in ownership increases the degree of profit orientation and leads to lower job security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The empirical relationship between differences in endowments and different types of trade is investigated in this paper. Although net trade ( NT) and vertical intra-industry trade ( IIT) are both broadly viewed as reflecting endowment differences, we suggest that there will be systematic differences in the way their shares of trade adjust as endowment differences become larger. Empirical evidence for European Union trade with its 52 major trading partners confirms this. The share of horizontal IIT (net trade) decreases (increases) for all increases in absolute endowment differences, but the share of vertical IIT can both increase and decrease with increases in endowment differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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.)

Do individual top managers matter for wages and wage policies? Are there general differences in 'style' among managers with respect to worker compensation? To shed light on these questions, we exploit a large panel dataset from Portugal that allows us to match workers, firms, and managers, and follow the movements of the latter across different firms over time. While accounting for the effect of worker and firm heterogeneity, we estimate the role of top manager fixed effects in determining wages and wage policies. The estimates suggest that (i) top managers have a significant influence on wages and wage policies; (ii) there exists different managerial 'styles'; and (iii) managers' (observable) attributes matter for worker compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell 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.)

Relative to Korea, Taiwan's semiconductor sector combines high value-added, low risk, and an innovative mode of virtual integration, which is adapted to the new world of "fabless" and "chipless" operations, away from the older style of integrated device manufacturers. The rise of this owes much to the catalytic government role which overcomes market failures to launch institutions in each of the five stages of the industry's evolution, introducing pre-commercialization research, nurturing industrial clusters, providing venture capital, and spinning off world-class, privately managed firms as well as attracting the interest of traditional business groups, without ever micro-managing the development as bureaucratic state enterprises. The state operates in a manner which is both distinctively different from the practice of Brazil, India, Japan, Korea, or Singapore, and also apparently replicable elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of studies have reported characteristics of innovative firms; however, these studies have typically been conducted in freely competitive markets. Angela da Rocha, Carl Christensen and Newton Paim have studied firms within the Brazilian computer industry. The Brazilian government regulates the entrance of foreign competitors to this market. Thus, the authors are able to ask whether the characteristics of innovative firms in a protected market differ from characteristics previously reported in competitive markets. With only a few minor exceptions, the reported profiles of innovative firms are quite similar. These results suggest that characteristics of innovative firms are generalizable across certain industry and environmental conditions, including protected markets. INSET: BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]