Recessions and health

Recessions are complex events that affect personal health and behavior via various potentially opposing mechanisms. While recessions are known to have negative effects on mental health and lead to an increase in suicides, it has been proven that they reduce mortality rates.

A general health policy agenda in relation to recessions remains ambiguous due to the lack of consistency between different individual- and country-level approaches. However, aggregate regional patterns provide valuable information, and local social planners could use them to design region-specific policy responses to mitigate the negative health effects caused by recessions.

Pros

1. Substantial country-level research shows that mortality declines (i.e. people live longer) during recessions.
2. Recessions can make more time available for individuals to lead a healthy lifestyle.
3. Motor vehicle deaths have been shown to decrease during recessions.
4. Some studies suggest that during recessions the stigma of being unemployed decreases.

Cons

1. A plethora of individual-level studies show that recessions lead to adverse mental health, especially for working-age and low-income people.
2. The number of suicides appears to increase during periods of recession.
3. Income loss due to recessions decreases investments in health-enhancing goods and services.
4. Austerity measures that may be common during recessions, such as budget cuts to social welfare, mainly affect vulnerable population groups and the long-term unemployed.

AUTHOR’S MAIN MESSAGE

Evaluations of the health-related impacts of economic recessions have shown inconsistent results. However, if recessions cause a greater deterioration in individuals’ mental health and a larger number of suicides, then governments should be motivated to work even harder to recover the world’s economies after downturns occur. 

Governments should acknowledge that the potential impact of recessions on people’s health depends on the extent to which people are protected from vulnerability. Welfare policies, such as labor market programs, debt relief programs, and access to health and mental health services, should thus play a significant role as a mediator in the relationship between recessions and health.

Nick Drydakis Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre for Pluralist Economics, Anglia Ruskin University, UK 

Article

photo: Joan Miró Couple d'amoureux aux jeux de fleurs d'amandier

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breaking the hospital model

The hospitals have to move from the concept of “repair shop” function to a "hub" in their community: providing social services, improving education and becoming aware of their significant economic role in communities. Hospitals have the potential to affect the economic model and the social determinants of health by leveraging their hiring, purchasing, investing, and other operational assets more intentionally.

• HUB means an organization or institution that is a focal point in a community and helps blend together a range of stakeholders and services that improve the health and economic mobility of residents. It does not necessarily lead activities or function as the sole focal point—often it is a partner with other institutions. But through partnerships and its own services it enables organizations and people with particular skills, assets, and connections to work more effectively together to improve the neighborhood.

Some recomendations to promote a Hub:

Data
Improve the collection, use, and sharing of data among sectors to facilitate partnerships. Hospitals as data warehouses centers for the community, assuring interoperability and data governance including detailed demographic data, and other information to build a picture of the community.

Partnerships
Make greater use of intermediaries. Hospitals, are often seen by many community organizations as remote yet powerful institutions, and a lack of trust arising from little or no history of partnerships. Hospitals has to build trust inside their community. Intermediaries are organizations or individuals that provide specialized skills or “connecting” functions that facilitate partnerships,

Leadership
Widen the skill sets of hospital leaders and key staff. Train the leaders and the staff. The full potential of hospitals as hubs requires leaders in these institutions to have a broad vision and set of skills, to manage the delivery of less traditional services, and to work with partners and intermediaries.

Essay and error
Government has to increase the promotion of the pilot projects and programs in different communities and encourage the impact evaluation. Also, they should give more flexibility in the hospital's payment systems being less oriented to outputs and more to outcomes. Take steps to facilitate the braiding and blending of public and private resources from multiple sectors and sources.

Access to the article: Hospitals and Schools as a Hubs (2016)
Authors: Stuart Butler and Carmen Diaz

photo: Third and Colectivo Rua
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Ideas are becoming more expensive to find.

In Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find? (NBER Working Paper No. 23782), Nicholas Bloom, Charles I. Jones, John Van Reenen, and Michael Webb argue that, to maintain a given rate of economic growth, resources devoted to research must increase over time.

In many growth models, economic growth arises from people creating ideas, and the long-run growth rate is the product of two terms: the effective number of researchers and their research productivity.

The authors present a wide range of evidence from various industries, products, and firms showing that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply. They cite both aggregate evidence and measures of R&D productivity in specific industries, in particular computers, agriculture, and medicine.

A good example is Moore’s Law. The number of researchers required today to achieve the famous doubling every two years of the density of computer chips is more than 18 times larger than the number required in the early 1970s. Across a broad range of case studies at various levels of (dis)aggregation, they find that ideas — and in particular the exponential growth they imply — are getting harder and harder to find. Exponential growth results from the large increases in research effort that offset its declining productivity.

They argue that a single-minded focus on the quantity of undiscovered ideas is unhelpful. It is not just how many ideas for productivity growth are left, but what it would cost to get them out of the ground – and, crucially, how much we’re prepared to spend to do it. For a long time, geologists have been forecasting ‘peak oil’, only to be surprised by new deep-sea discoveries and shale oil. We, likewise, see a continuing stream of innovations. But, just as newer oil sources are increasingly costly to extract, coming up with new ideas is getting more expensive. There have been technological improvements, but these require the devotion of ever-growing amounts of resources to the research process to maintain steady rates of improvement

These days, pushing the frontier of knowledge out requires mastering an ever-larger body of knowledge, meaning that students have to stay longer in university, and researchers increasingly work in larger teams whose members are more specialised. This all pushes up costs. Returning to the oil metaphor, we are digging deeper into a trickier part of the rock.

Access to the article (pdf): Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?
Commentary from the authors: Ideas aren’t running out, but they are getting more expensive to find


photo: Until our two activists and our members of the Catalonia Cabinet could come back to Catalonia and will be released from jail I'll publish a dark photo.
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When organizations are growing

Larry Grainer wrote this article in 1972. In 1998 it was republished in Harvard Business Review as a Classic. The author removed some outdated material from the opening sections. He also wrote a commentary “Revolution is still inevitable,” to update his observations.

He described in the article how organizations develop and he designed 6 phases of growth that includes in each phase a period of relatively stable growth (evolution) followed by a stage of crisis (revolution) when major organizational change is needed if the company is to carry on growing. This crisis period it's not a bad thing it's a "change period or turning point".

1. Phase 1: Creativity. Crisis: Leadership
2. Phase 2: Direction. Crisis: Autonomy
3. Phase 3: Delegation. Crisis: Control
4. Phase 4: Coordination. Crisis: Red Tape
5. Phase 5: Collaboration. Crisis: Internal growth crisis
6. Phase 6: Alliances

This is still a useful model, however not all businesses will go through these phases and crisis in this order. We could use this as a starting point for thinking about our business growth, and adapt it to our circumstances.

Access to the article (.pdf): Larry Greiner (1998) HBR Classic

photo: (*) Photosolde
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2060 Population Odyssey: living longer, older people, less people working

 

We are living longer than ever before. But we are also having fewer children. So, over the coming decades, the proportion of retired and elderly people will increase. At the same time, the proportion of people of working age will fall.

By 2060, there will be only two workers for every person aged 65 or over. Half as many as today. Although immigration should give a helping hand, population in about half the EU Member States is expected to shrink. The EU population will only grow slightly before peaking in 2050.

Some data

• 2013: 507 million people       2060: 523 million people
• 2013: 211 million workers     2060: 202 million workers
• 2013: health care expediture 6,9% GPD       2060: 7,8% GPD 
• 2013: long term expenditures 1,6% GPD      2060: 2,7% GPD

The 2015 Ageing Report, published by the European Commission in May, sheds light on the economic, budgetary and societal challenges that policy makers will have to face in the future as a result of these trends. The report’s long-term projections provide an indication of the timing and scale of challenges that can be expected so as to inform European policy makers about the scale and timing of the challenges they must face.

photo: (*) Photosolde
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Evaluation of industrial policy: methodological issues and policy lessons

Industrial policy, covers a multitude of policy instruments and approaches. While there has been a recent revival of interest in industrial policy around the world, systematic evidence of efficacy is relatively scarce.

This new OECD report (Evaluation of industrial policy (2014)) brings together the work of an OECD expert group that has considered recent evidence from the evaluation of industrial policy.

The report focuses on three specific policy areas, namely:

• support for R&D;
• capital market interventions (with a focus on risk capital);
• public procurement for innovation.

It also examines three areas where packages of industrial policy measures are generally applied:

• sector approaches including public-private partnerships PPP);
• policies towards clusters and business networks;
• national industrial strategies.

In many areas of industrial policy, evaluation faces particular methodological challenges. These challenges are outlined in the report, which concludes by drawing together the main policy lessons from the available evaluation evidence.

In particular the recomendations to the policy makers are:

• Make an explicit commitment to the evaluation of industrial policy
• Insist on the development of data and evaluation strategies before programmes can begin.
• Choose evaluation techniques appropriate to the programmes concerned.
• Evaluate industrial strategy using mixed methods.
• Insist on full disclosure in evaluation reports.
• Create robust governance mechanisms to ensure evaluation is objective and free of political influence.
• Develop effective mechanisms for policy learning

RELATED POST

photo: (*) Photosolde
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The rights of the Child. Nothing more to say about child poverty

20.2 % of children under 16 years of age are poor in Europe. 25% in SPAIN (2012)

"Child poverty, probably the most visible effect on children of the economic crisis and fiscal austerity measures, has a potentially devastating, long-term impact, given that it tends to be one of the major root causes of poverty and social exclusion in adulthood".

Some reports to think about the children poverty in Spain, Europe.

1. Comissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe (2013) Report after the Spain Visit
2. Save the children (2014) Pobreza infantil y exclusión social en Europa
3. Creu Roja (2013) 4rt estudi Observatori Vulnerabilitat: Infància i entorn escolar
4. Inequality Watch (2012) Poverty in Europe

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union Article 24: The rigths of the child

1. Children shall have the right to such protection and care as is necessary for their well-being. They may express their views freely. Such views shall be taken into consideration on matters which concern them in accordance with their age and maturity.
2. In all actions relating to children, whether taken by public authorities or private institutions, the child's best interests must be a primary consideration.
3. Every child shall have the right to maintain on a regular basis a personal relationship and direct contact with both his or her parents, unless that is contrary to his or her interests.

2014: 25 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child United Nations

Something more to say?

photo: (*) Photosolde
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What if countries competed with each other to become the most socially innovative in the world?

 

The Social Progress Imperative, is a nonprofit in the United States created in 2012. They are the autors of the Social Progress Index launched in April 2013.

The Social Progress Index offers a measure of the multiple dimensions of social progress, benchmarking success, and catalyzing greater human wellbeing.

The methodology for the Social Progress Index was developed and refined under the leadership of Social Progress’s Advisory Board Chair, Professor Michael Porter of Harvard Business School, with guidance from Advisory Board members Matthew Bishop, Judith Rodin of the Rockefeller Foundation, Hernando de Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, and Scott Stern of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The conceptual underpinnings draw heavily on the work done by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi for France’s Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress.

The Three dimensions of the social progress index

• Basic human needs: Does a country provide for its people’s most essential needs?
• Foundations of wellbeing: Are the building blocks in place for individuals and communities to enhance and sustain wellbeing?
• Opportunity: Iss there opportunity for all individuals to reach their full potential?

Some Findings

• Social progress is distinct from economic development, though correlated with it.Some countries with low GDP per capita are able to achieve surprising levels of social progress, while some relatively prosperous nations register levels of social progress lower than less wealthy countries. Explicitly distinguishing social progress from economic development allows us to gain deeper insight into each one.
• Some aspects of social progress are more closely related to the level of economic development than others.
• There is no single measure that captures all aspects of social progress.Each dimension is distinct from the others, and each component within each dimension is also distinct.
• Countries have relative strengths and weaknesses in social progress, both across dimensions and across components within dimensions. These strengths and weaknesses set the social progress agenda for each country.

Watch the video: Video
Social Progress Index 2014: Acces to 2014 data
Where are we?: SPAIN
photo: (*) Photosolde 
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Biocat 2013 report: Catalan life science statuts and analysis

The 2013 Biocat Report shows that the life sciences sector in Catalonia has reached a turning point.

We are facing two key challenges: generating and capturing value, on one hand, and promoting growth, on the other.  And this is at a difficult moment, marked by a profound economic crisis and changes in the research and production models that are affecting the sector.

The analysis in the chapters of the report identifies challenges for all of the stakeholders in the BioRegion, both public and private. The data shows:

• We must maintain support for innovation and entrepreneurship in the public arena —seeking out maximum efficiency in management of the knowledge generated and its transfer.
• We must also encourage companies —large and small— to participate in international research programs and public-private partnerships in order to bring innovation to the market and, in short, to the people.
• We must promote growth, establishing measures that facilitate market access and internationalization, but also guidance programs to support project maturation.

Europe will be key over the coming two years —launch of the Horizon 2020 program, defining RIS3 strategies, calls for the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s KIC— but success will depend in large part on the players in the ecosystem aligning under a common vision.

Català Document complet (PDF)
English Executive Summary (PDF)  The full English version will be available shortly
Castellano Resumen Ejecutivo (PDF)








photo: © Dani: Creative Commons ShareAlike licence
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The Technology sector in Catalonia. Baròmetre del Sector Tecnològic a Catalunya 2013

The Technology Sector in Catalonia 2013 is the fifth edition of this report. It provides comprehensive analysis of the country’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) field. The nation’s ICT is well-consolidated and now has the potential to become one of Catalonia’s strategic sectors and growth drivers.

Some conclusions:

• While the crisis has affected the sector, the ICT field has fared much better than other industries.
• Internationalisation is a necessity, not an alternative. The firms that are internationalising, their markets have shrunk less and they are less dependent on public administration contracts. Furthermore, 43.6% of internationalising firms have seen a significant rise in their workforces whereas for non-international firms, this figure is 32.3%. The former have also experienced marked growth in both the number of their clients and turnover.
• The crisis has directly affected R&D but the outlook for 2013 appears to be brighter, especially for the internationalising firms, which envisage spending more on it this year. There is also a slight drop in the number of companies not carrying out R&D. Even so, universities have been particularly hard-hit by cuts in research. There seem to be more university-company technology transfers and collaboration, although there is still much to be done, especially with regards to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and micro-firms.
• The areas identified by the sector in 2013 as the technologies of the future were mobile computing, cloud computing and smart cities.
• Two major sectorial weaknesses are that many firms cater to the domestic market and that this has shrunk. Hurdles to internationalisation and the sectors lack of lobbying power are further weaknesses.
• Two major strengths are the Barcelona Brand and Catalan research capabilities. The competitiveness of firms, talents and staff are also plus points.
• Major threats are: lack of funding to drive the growth of new but well-established firms; the ‘brain drain’ caused by the crisis; a falling share in strategic sectors such as Health.
• With regard to opportunities, the sector stresses the hopes pinned on Mobile World Capital, and on the fact that Catalonia is a leader in areas such as Health, Smart Cities, Online Banking; Cultural Content.

Accés al document  Català, Castellà, English Report /Informe 2013
photo: (*) Photosolde
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some ideas to solve the health care spending everywhere

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution from US that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. One of their research area is the Health and Health Care

One of the US problems faced is the relentless growth of health care spending, a major contributor to America's long-term fiscal imbalance.

Victor Fuchs considered by many to be the father of health economics said in 2012 in an interview in the New York Times: “If we solve our health care spending, practically all of our fiscal problems go away.”

Here in RAND-Health you can find a series of research briefs dedicated to flattening the trajectory of health care spending,

RAND Health outlines four broad strategies for constraining spending growth in the market-oriented health care system:

1. Foster efficient and accountable providers.
2. Engage and empower consumers.
3. Promote population health.
4. Facilitate high-value innovation.

Photo: Co Rentmeester—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Donn Clendenon, 1969

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The Foreigner's opinion about Work, Business and Life in Barcelona

 

Is Barcelona reaching the criteria of: Technology, Talent and Tolerance?

Barcelona Global is a private, independent and not-for-profit civil society platform made up of business leaders, professionals and entrepreneurs committed to Barcelona and its future.

They have presented  the results of the 1st survey Barcelona Global´s "International Professional Talent Monitor 2013".

The survey is meant to understand how local business climate, working conditions and quality of life (including cty amenities, social integration, school offer...) in Barcelona are perceived by this pool of outstanding professionals who moved to Barcelona, out of many other cities worldwide, to live and work.

Survey results are of two types, quantitative (ratings on a scale from 0 to 10) and qualitative.

• Acces to the document: Survey Results 2013
• Related Post: Technology, Talent and Tolerance

footnote: Surprisingly the survey results have been removed from the web.
 
photo: (*) Photosolde
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Gender Equality Index in European Union

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) from the European Union has constructed the Gender Equality Index a unique measurement tool that synthesises the complexity of gender equality as a multi-dimensional concept.

The gender approach takes into account the situation of women and men in various domains of economic and social life, including those where men are in disadvantaged situations. It consists of six core domains: work, money, knowledge, time, power, health and two satellite domains (Intersecting inequalities and violence).

The Index provides results at the domain and sub-domain level for the EU overall and for each Member State. It provides a measure of how far (or close) each Member State was from achieving gender equality in 2010.

The Gender Equality Index assigns a score from 1, total inequality, to 100, full equality.

The target is the equality point, benchmarked in 100, and a given Member State is equally treated whether a gap is to the advantage of women or men.

The Index reveals that the EU reached only half way towards a gender-equal society, with an average EU score of 54 (2010 data).

photo: (*) Photosolde
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les xifres de l'atur en la generació Babyboomer i X a "Nada es Gratis"

La Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada (FEDEA) és una fundació "independent" que té com a principi fonamental ser una Fàbrica d'Idees, sempre des del rigor que proporciona la recerca econòmica tant teòrica com aplicada. 

A la seva web es pot accedir a l'Observatori Laboral de la Crisis on et mostra trimestralemnt la situació laboral dels treballadors:  els que han entrat al mercat de treball, els que n'han sortit, per sexes, edat, nivell d'estudis... La directora de l'Observatori Laboral és Sara de la Rica

Accés:Observatorio Laboral

FEDEA disposa també d'un Blog Nada es Gratis  que cal mirar, sí o sí, de manera periòdica si voleu tenir eines per a poder comprendre la realitat econòmica, poder extreure'n conclusions i arguments raonats i documentats.

La directora de l'Observatori Laboral ha publicat un post demoledor pels que som majors de 45 anys.

Accés: Los parados mayores de 45 años. Panorama desolador.

Post relacionat: where are we?

Photo: Margaret Bourke-White—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Coney Island parachute jump and beach, 1952

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who is that... COTEC?

COTEC és una fundació de caràcter empresarial que té com a objectiu contribuir en la promocó de la innovació tecnològica i incrementar la sensibilitat social per la tecnologia.

Val la pena estar amatent als estudis que periòdicament publica i que són accessibles només donant-se d'alta en el formulari de registre. 

Recentment ha publicat l'Informe decàleg de reptes de la innovació per a la competitivitat de l'Estat Espanyol. 10 són els reptes enumerats:

1. Millorar el sistema educatiu.
2. Aconseguir que la societat apreciï que els empresaris assumeixin els riscos de la innovació.
3. Evitar que les lleis, la fiscalitat i la regulació obstaculitzin la innovació.
4. Atraure el talent i la inversió extrangera.
5. Aconsegir que la Universitat i la Recerca pública s'impliquin plenament en la solució dels problemes de l'entorn.
6. Fer conscients a les empreses que la seva sostenibilitat depèn de la seva capacitat per a crear valor.
7. Implicar al finançament privat en la innovació.
8. Preparar a les pimes per al mercat global.
9. Aprofitar el mercat de les grans empreses i de l'administració com a tractors tecnològics.
10. Aconseguir que les pimes trobin una àmplia oferta de serveis per a la innovació.

Accés al document: DECÀLEG DE REPTES DE LA INNOVACIÓ 2013

William C. Shrout—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Taxicabs on Park Avenue, NYC, (1944)
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enterpreneurship i innovació: Arran del BIZ Barcelona

 

Aquesta setmana a Barcelona s'ha celebrat el BIZ Barcelona  amb conferències, estands de promoció, activitats de networking, enfocat a les PIME i als emprenedors. 

Ja que es parla tant d'empreneduria avui us penjo les conclusions d'un workshop sobre empreneduria, que el World Economic Forum va organitzar a London el passat abril de 2013 Innovation entrepreneurship and global growth. La meva sopresa ha estat veure que entre els participants no hi havia ningú de l'Estat Espanyol ni de Catalunya.
 
També us vull penjar l'accés a dos blog,s a tenir presents, que parlen, entre d'altres, sobre temes d'innovació:

• Xavier Ferràs  INNOVACIÓN 6.0
• Xavier Marcet XAVIER MARCET

Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Runner photographed during an ICAAAA (Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America) track meet, 1938. 
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Tecnologia, Talent i Tolerància

De la ma d'en Xavier Testar @xtestar he descobert el nom de Richard Florida urbanista Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute  University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management i fundador de la consultora Creative Class Group.

Escriptor del llibre The Rise of the Creative Class del que n'ha publicat una reedició renovada el 2012, Florida assenyala que la competitivitat i la riquesa vénen determinades, cada vegada més, per la capacitat d’innovació i creativitat de les ciutats, les regions i els països

Amb ell apareix el concepte de “classe creativa” com a contribuidora del desenvolupament regional. Són aquelles ocupacions en què els individus es comprometen amb la resolució de problemes complexos, la qual cosa implica dosis altes de judici independent, alts nivells d’educació i capital humà. Semba que empíricament es pot corroborar que la classe creativa tendeix a situar-se en llocs que reuneixen uns certs requisits de “qualitat” i, en particular, en comunitats obertes i diverses on la diferència és ben acollida i l’accés a la creativitat cultural és poc costós. El resultat és que les activitats que formen part de la “nova economia” es localitzen en llocs que combinen les denominades 3 “T’s”: Tecnologia, Talent i Tolerància. 

En el web del Departament d'Empresa i Ocupació de la Generalitat de Catalunya podeu trobar en Català i Castellà el treball de les autores Rosa Urbanos i  Alexandrina Stoyanova: Tecnologia, talent i tolerància en el desenvolupament econòmic de Catalunya (2011) on apliquen el model de Richad Florida Papers d'Economia Industrial i a on es pot veure com es comporten les CCAA de l'Estat Espanyol sota aquests conceptes.
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