Is impacting confidence an important channel by which government spending shocks affect economic activity? In a standard structural VAR, an empirical measure of confidence does not significantly ...react to spending shocks and output multipliers are around one. In a non-linear VAR, confidence rises following an increase in spending during periods of economic slack and multipliers are much larger. The systematic response of confidence is irrelevant for the output multiplier during normal times, but is critical during recessions. Spending shocks during downturns predict productivity improvements through a persistent increase in government investment relative to consumption, which is reflected in higher confidence.
► Examine role of systematic response of confidence in transmission of fiscal shocks. ► In normal times government spending multiplier near one and confidence unimportant. ► In times of slack multiplier much larger and confidence seems to matter. ► Spending shocks in downturn more geared to government investment than consumption. ► Higher government investment stimulates productivity, output, and confidence.
Alterations in neuronal connectivity, particularly in the “peri-infarct” tissue adjacent to the region of ischemic damage, are important contributors to the spontaneous recovery of function that ...commonly follows stroke. Peri-infarct astrocytes undergo reactive astrogliosis and play key roles in modulating the adaptive responses in neurons. This reactive astrogliosis shares many features with that induced by other forms of damage to the central nervous system but also differs in details that potentially influence neurological recovery. A subpopulation of astrocytes within a few hundred micrometers of the infarct proliferate and are centrally involved in the development of the glial scar that separates the damaged tissue in the infarct from surrounding normal brain. The intertwined processes of astrocytes adjacent to the infarct provide the core structural component of the mature scar. Interventions that cause early disruption of glial scar formation typically impede restoration of neurological function. Marked reactive astrogliosis also develops in cells more distant from the infarct but these cells largely remain in the spatial territories they occupied prior to stroke. These cells play important roles in controlling the extracellular environment and release proteins and other molecules that are able to promote neuronal plasticity and improve functional recovery. Treatments manipulating aspects of reactive astrogliosis can enhance neuronal plasticity following stroke. Optimising these treatments for use in human stroke would benefit from a more complete characterization of the specific responses of peri-infarct astrocytes to stroke as well as a better understanding of the influence of other factors including age, sex, comorbidities and reperfusion of the ischemic tissue.
•Reactive astrogliosis is an important influence on neurological recovery in stroke.•Distance from the infarct is a key determinant of the astrocytic responses.•Many features of reactive astrogliosis enhance recovery but some are inhibitory.•The influence of age, gender, comorbidities and reperfusion are not well understood.
Stroke most commonly results from occlusion of a major artery in the brain and typically leads to the death of all cells within the affected tissue. Mitochondria are centrally involved in the ...development of this tissue injury due to modifications of their major role in supplying ATP and to changes in their properties that can contribute to the development of apoptotic and necrotic cell death. In animal models of stroke, the limited availability of glucose and oxygen directly impairs oxidative metabolism in severely ischemic regions of the affected tissue and leads to rapid changes in ATP and other energy-related metabolites. In the less-severely ischemic “penumbral” tissue, more moderate alterations develop in these metabolites, associated with near normal glucose use but impaired oxidative metabolism. This tissue remains potentially salvageable for at least the first few hours following stroke onset. Early restoration of blood flow can result in substantial recovery of energy-related metabolites throughout the affected tissue. However, glucose oxidation is markedly decreased due both to lower energy requirements in the post-ischemic tissue and limitations on the mitochondrial oxidation of pyruvate. A secondary deterioration of mitochondrial function subsequently develops that may contribute to progression to cell loss. Mitochondrial release of multiple apoptogenic proteins has been identified in ischemic and post-ischemic brain, mostly in neurons. Pharmacological interventions and genetic modifications in rodent models strongly implicate caspase-dependent and caspase-independent apoptosis and the mitochondrial permeability transition as important contributors to tissue damage, particularly when induced by short periods of temporary focal ischemia.
We investigate a Mexican federal program that compensates landowners for forest protection. We use matched controls from the program applicant pool to establish counterfactual deforestation rates. ...Deforestation was reduced by 50% in enrolled parcels, but expected average clearing rates without the program were low (0.8% per year), suggesting modest total avoided deforestation benefits. We test for two types of slippage: increased deforestation on other property belonging to program recipients and increased deforestation within markets where there are high levels of program participation. We find evidence of both, with substitution impacts reducing program effectiveness in common properties by about 4% on average.
Innovations to consumer confidence convey incremental information about economic activity far into the future. Does this reflect a causal effect of animal spirits on economic activity, or news about ...exogenous future productivity received by consumers? Using indirect inference, we study the impulse responses to confidence innovations in conjunction with an appropriately augmented New Keynesian model. While news, animal spirits, and pure noise all contribute to confidence innovations, the relationship between confidence and subsequent activity is almost entirely reflective of the news component. Confidence innovations are well characterized as noisy measures of changes in expected productivity growth over a relatively long horizon.
Protected areas are the dominant approach to protecting biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services. Because these protected areas are often placed in regions with widespread poverty and ...because they can limit agricultural development and exploitation of natural resources, concerns have been raised about their potential to create or reinforce poverty traps. Previous studies suggest that the protected area systems in Costa Rica and Thailand, on average, reduced deforestation and alleviated poverty. We examine these results in more detail by characterizing the heterogeneity of responses to protection conditional on observable characteristics. We find no evidence that protected areas trap historically poorer areas in poverty. In fact, we find that poorer areas at baseline seem to have the greatest levels of poverty reduction as a result of protection. However, we do find that the spatial characteristics associated with the most poverty alleviation are not necessarily the characteristics associated with the most avoided deforestation. We show how an understanding of these spatially heterogeneous responses to protection can be used to generate suitability maps that identify locations in which both environmental and poverty alleviation goals are most likely to be achieved.
This paper uses survey expectations data to construct empirical proxies for time-varying business-level uncertainty. Access to the micro data from the German IFO Business Climate Survey permits ...construction of uncertainty measures based on both ex ante disagreement and ex post forecast errors. Ex ante disagreement is strongly correlated with dispersion in ex post forecast errors. Surprise movements in either measure lead to significant reductions in production that abate fairly quickly. We extend our analysis to US data, measuring uncertainty with forecast disagreement from the Business Outlook Survey. Surprise increases in forecast dispersion lead to more persistent reductions in production than in the German data.
Protected areas (PAs) and payments for ecosystem services (PES) are the top two mechanisms available for countries to achieve international REDD agreements, yet there are few empirical comparisons of ...their effects. We estimate the impacts of PAs and PES on forest conservation, poverty reduction, and population change at the locality level in Mexico in the 2000s. Both policies conserved forest, generating an approximately 20–25% reduction in expected forest cover loss. PES created statistically significant but small poverty alleviation while PAs had overall neutral impacts on livelihoods. Estimates by individual policy type for the same level of deforestation risk indicate that biosphere reserves and PES balanced conservation and livelihood goals better than strict protected areas or mixed-use areas. This suggests that both direct and incentive-based instruments can be effective, and that policies combining sustainable financing, flexible zoning, and recognition of local economic goals are more likely to achieve conservation without harming livelihoods.
Protected areas are a key tool for conservation policy but their economic impacts are not well understood. This paper presents new evidence about the local effects of strictly protected areas in ...Thailand, combining data on socioeconomic outcomes from a poverty mapping study with satellite-based estimates of forest cover. The selective placement of protected areas is addressed by controlling for characteristics which drove both protection and development and by instrumenting for protection with priority watershed status. The estimates indicate that protected areas increased average consumption and lowered poverty rates, despite imposing binding constraints on agricultural land availability. Socioeconomic gains are likely explained by increased tourism in and around protected areas. However, net impacts are largest at intermediate distances from major cities, highlighting that the spatial patterns of both costs and benefits are important for efforts to minimize conservation-development tradeoffs.
Pathogenic oral biofilms are universal, chronic, and costly. Despite advances in understanding the mechanisms of biofilm formation and persistence, novel and effective treatment options remain ...scarce. Nanoparticle-mediated eradication of the biofilm matrix and resident bacteria holds great potential. In particular, nanoparticles that target specific microbial and biofilm features utilizing nontoxic materials are well-suited for clinical translation. However, much work remains to characterize the local and systemic effects of therapeutic agents that are topically applied to chronic biofilms, such as those that cause dental caries. In this Perspective, we summarize the pathogenesis of oral biofilms, describe current and future nanoparticle-mediated treatment approaches, and highlight outstanding questions that are paramount to answer for effectively targeting and treating oral biofilms.
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