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Much has been written about the measurement of socio-economic position (SEP) in high-income countries (HIC). Less has been written for an epidemiology, health systems and public health audience about the measurement of SEP in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The social stratification processes in many LMIC—and therefore the appropriate measurement tools—differ considerably from those in HIC. Many measures of SEP have been utilized in epidemiological studies; the aspects of SEP captured by these measures and the pathways through which they may affect health are likely to be slightly different but overlapping. No single measure of SEP will be ideal for all studies and contexts; the strengths and limitations of a given indicator are likely to vary according to the specific research question. Understanding the general properties of different indicators, however, is essential for all those involved in the design or interpretation of epidemiological studies. In this article, we describe the measures of SEP used in LMIC. We concentrate on measures of individual or household-level SEP rather than area-based or ecological measures such as gross domestic product. We describe each indicator in terms of its theoretical basis, interpretation, measurement, strengths and limitations. We also provide brief comparisons between LMIC and HIC for each measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts a large, narrative review of interventions that might plausibly (a) increase educational attainment, (b) delay childbearing, and/or (c) delay marriage for adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Using 108 interventions from 78 studies, predominantly in LMICs, the paper summarizes the performance of 15 categories of interventions in improving these outcomes. Transfer programs emerge as broadly effective in increasing educational attainment but their effects on delaying fertility and marriage remain mixed and dependent on context. Construction of schools in underserved areas and the provision of information on returns to schooling and academic performance also increase schooling. No category of interventions is found to be categorically effective in delaying pregnancies and reducing child marriages among adolescent girls. While targeted provision of sexual and reproductive health services, including vouchers and subsidies for family planning, and increasing job opportunities for women seem promising, more research is needed to evaluate the longer-term effects of such interventions. We propose that future studies should aim to measure short-term outcomes that can form good surrogates for long-term welfare gains and should collect detailed cost information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current body of research into multisectoral collaborations (MSCs) for health raises more questions than it answers, both in terms of how to implement MSCs and how to study them. This article reflects on current methodological gaps and opportunities for advancing MSC research, based on a targeted review of existing literature and qualitative input from researchers and practitioners at the 2018 Health Systems Research (HSR) Symposium in Liverpool. Through framework analysis of 205 MSC research papers referenced in a separately published MSC 'overview of reviews' paper, this article identifies six broad MSC question domains ('meta questions') and applies content analysis to estimate the relative frequency with which these meta questions and the research method(s) used to answer them are present in the literature. Results highlight a preponderance of research exploring MSC implementation using case study methods, which, in aggregate, does not seem to adequately meet policymakers' and practitioners' needs for generalizable or transferable insights. The content analysis is complemented by qualitative insights from HSR Symposium participants and the authors' own experience to identify six key methodological gaps in research on MSC for health. For each of these gaps, we propose areas in which we believe there are opportunities for methodological development and innovation to help advance this field of study, including: better understanding the role of power dynamics in shaping MSCs; development of a classification framework (or frameworks) of governance arrangements; exploring divergence of perspective and experience among MSC partners; identifying or generating theoretical frameworks for MSC that work across sectors and disciplines; developing intermediate indicators of collaboration; and increasing transferability of insights to other contexts. Collaboration with researchers outside of the health sector will enhance efforts in each of these areas, as will the establishment and strengthening of pluralistic MSC evidence networks also involving policymakers and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, 40 million people need palliative care; about 69% are people over 60 years of age. The highest proportion (78%) of adults are from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where palliative care still developing and is primarily limited to urban areas. This integrative review describes strategies used by LMICs to establish palliative care in rural areas. A rigorous integrative review methodology was utilized using four electronic databases (Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid Emcare, Embase classic+Embase and CINAHL). The search terms were: 'palliative care', 'hospice care', 'end of life care', 'home-based care', 'volunteer', 'rural', 'regional', 'remote' and 'developing countries' identified by the United Nations (UN) as 'Africa', 'Sub-Saharan Africa', 'low-income' and 'middle- income countries'. Thirty papers published in English from 1990 to 2019 were included. Papers were appraised for quality and extracted data subjected to analysis using a public health model (policy, drug availability, education and implementation) as a framework to describe strategies for establishing palliative care in rural areas. The methodological quality of the reviewed papers was low, with 7 of the 30 being simple programme descriptions. Despite the inclusion of palliative care in national health policy in some countries, implementation in the community was often reliant on advocacy and financial support from non-government organizations. Networking to coordinate care and medication availability near-patient homes were essential features of implementation. Training, role play, education and mentorship were strategies used to support health providers and volunteers. Home- and community-based palliative care services for rural LMICs communities may best be delivered using a networked service among health professionals, community volunteers, religious leaders and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen was a 'travelling economist' in a double sense: after emigrating from Romania in the late 1940s, he became involved with the economic problems of the developing world through his engagement in Vanderbilt University's Graduate Program in Economic Development. One of his missions brought him multiple times to Brazil between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, leading to an article on the complicated dynamics between inflation and economic growth in developing countries – his sole incursion into the field of monetary economics. In this paper, we will set Georgescu-Roegen's contribution against the background of the lively debates about inflation taking place in Brazil during the 1960s. Relatedly, we will show how he anticipated important aspects of later arguments about the perverse distributive effects of inflation. Finally, we will discuss why Georgescu-Roegen's arguments had only limited influence, despite his prestige and connections within the Brazilian community of economists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, a landmark study showed that an inexpensive medication to treat parasitic worms could improve health and school attendance for millions of children in many developing countries. Eleven years later, a headline in The Guardian reported that this treatment, deworming, had been "debunked." The pronouncement followed an effort to replicate and re-analyze the original study, as well as an update to a systematic review of the effects of deworming. This story made waves amidst discussion of a reproducibility crisis in some of the social sciences. In this paper, I explore what it means to "replicate" and "reanalyze" a study, both in general and in the specific case of deworming. I review the broader replication efforts in economics, then examine the key findings of the original deworming paper in light of the "replication," "reanalysis," and "systematic review." I also discuss the nature of the link between this single paper's findings, other papers' findings, and any policy recommendations about deworming. Through this example, I provide a perspective on the ways replication and reanalysis work, the strengths and weaknesses of systematic reviews, and whether there is, in fact, a reproducibility crisis in economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the questions of what role international economic law has played in the story of digital inequality's emergence and evolution and how international economic law can reduce digital inequality instead of enhancing it. The first part of this study illustrates the uneasy interplay between digital inequality and international economic law. At the network layer, the economic benefit of the General Agreement on Trade in Services ' Mode 3 (foreign investment) market access commitments in the telecommunications sector has never been realized in many developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs). There is a missing link between the consequences of trade liberalization and broadband investment. At the application layer, today's platformization of services was an 'unforeseen development' at the time the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established. Through the pro-liberalization of WTO jurisprudence, members' decades-old Mode 1 (cross-border) market access commitments have played more than a marginal legal role in global datafication. The second part of this study discusses how international economic law can confront and potentially redress that inequality. In the context of trade and development, it remains to be seen how the WTO members can find the common ground needed to balance digital trade liberalization and development needs. Unless infrastructure concerns from developing countries and LDCs are addressed, the ongoing WTO e-commerce trade deal may end up being labelled the Digital 'Haves' Trade Agreement. In the context of trade and competition, the increasing inequality in digital platforms calls for a set of international competition rules to appropriately address market power in the data sector. By imposing cross-border disciplines for competition policy and thus curbing the power of big digital platforms, the proposed WTO Data Reference Paper may well be an effective instrument to address the second dimension of 'digital inequality' – data colonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides detailed evidence on the extent of outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing employment and value added using a regional subsystem input–output framework. The paper argues that direct employment and the value-added shares of manufacturing in the totals underestimate manufacturing's importance. Jobs in manufacturing subsystems accounted for more than 25% of total worldwide employment, in contrast to just 15% recorded in direct statistics. In major developed countries, the level of intersectoral outsourcing reached its upper limit at the beginning of the new millennium. At the same time, the offshoring of activities interlinked with manufacturing has become the dominant driver of deindustrialisation in these countries. While direct manufacturing employment and intersectoral outsourcing declined between 2000 and 2014, offshoring experienced a significant increase of 6.5 percentage points, from 29% to 35.5% of the total employment generated under the G7 manufacturing subsystem. Furthermore, 84% of the value added that existed to meet the final demand for manufactured products in G7 countries remained in G7 countries, while most of the jobs needed to meet G7 final demand have been offshored to developing countries. The paper concludes that the importance of manufacturing subsystems for the world economy did not decline over 2000–14, but there was a significant shift of manufacturing activities and related services from G7 countries to China and other rapidly growing economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past 10 years have seen a doubling of the number of papers submitted to the Annals, and a 5-fold increase in the number of institutions with access to the journal. Electronic access is now far more important than print access. Papers from British authors dominated the first 20 years of the journal, but the rest of Europe is now more important, with Scandinavia and The Netherlands being the major continental sources. North America is the other major source. For British papers, there has been a big growth in government authors, and a decline in papers from industry and armed forces. From many possible topics, trends are selectively reviewed in: standards and exposure limits; measurement methods and criteria; sampling strategy and statistics; fibres; control banding; dermal exposure; and evaluation of control. For the future, we will continue to have the same aims and standards, but the changes of the past few years, and the growth of new approaches such as open access, have emphasized the difficulty of forecasting. The growth in submissions from countries which we presently regard as ‘developing’, and especially the growth in higher education in China, and the amount of occupational disease there, are bound to have major impacts. Perhaps the English language will not continue to dominate scientific publishing, but in any case an eastward shift in the source of papers must lead to other changes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Causal loop diagrams (CLDs) are a systems thinking method that can be used to visualize and unpack complex health system behaviour. They can be employed prospectively or retrospectively to identify the mechanisms and consequences of policies or interventions designed to strengthen health systems and inform discussion with policymakers and stakeholders on actions that may alleviate sub-optimal outcomes. Whilst the use of CLDs in health systems research has generally increased, there is still limited use in low- and middle-income settings. In addition to their suitability for evaluating complex systems, CLDs can be developed where opportunities for primary data collection may be limited (such as in humanitarian or conflict settings) and instead be formulated using secondary data, published or grey literature, health surveys/reports and policy documents. The purpose of this paper is to provide a step-by-step guide for designing a health system research study that uses CLDs as their chosen research method, with particular attention to issues of relevance to research in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The guidance draws on examples from the LMIC literature and authors' own experience of using CLDs in this research area. This paper guides researchers in addressing the following four questions in the study design process; (1) What is the scope of this research? (2) What data do I need to collect or source? (3) What is my chosen method for CLD development? (4) How will I validate the CLD? In providing supporting information to readers on avenues for addressing these key design questions, authors hope to promote CLDs for wider use by health system researchers working in LMICs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sub-Saharan Africa has fewer medical workers per capita than any region of the world, and that shortage has been highlighted consistently as a critical constraint to improving health outcomes in the region. This paper draws on newly available, systematic, comparable data from 10 countries in the region to explore the dimensions of this shortage. We find wide variation in human resources performance metrics, both within and across countries. Many facilities are barely staffed, and effective staffing levels fall further when adjusted for health worker absences. However, caseloads—while also varying widely within and across countries—are also low in many settings, suggesting that even within countries, deployment rather than shortages, together with barriers to demand, may be the principal challenges. Beyond raw numbers, we observe significant proportions of health workers with very low levels of clinical knowledge on standard maternal and child health conditions. This study highlights that countries may need to invest broadly in health workforce deployment, improvements in capacity and performance of the health workforce, and on addressing demand constraints, rather than focusing narrowly on increases in staffing numbers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the evidence of job polarization—the relative decline of mid-wage jobs—in developing and emerging economies. We carry out an extensive literature review, revealing that job polarization in these countries is only incipient compared to advanced economies. We then examine the possible moderating aspects explaining this lack of job polarization. We distinguish three groups of explanations: Limited technology adoption; structural change; and changes in the global value chains. Finally, we suggest new microeconomic data and empirical analyses that should be developed in order to guide evidence-based policy-making addressing those issues in developing and emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neonatal mortality remains a significant health problem in low-income settings. Low-cost essential newborn care (ENC) interventions with proven efficacy and cost-effectiveness exist but have not reached high coverage (≥90%). Little is known about the strategies used to implement these interventions or how they relate to improved coverage. We conducted a systematic review of implementation strategies and implementation outcomes for ENC in low- and low middle-income countries capturing evidence from five medical and global health databases from 1990 to 2018. We included studies of implementation of delayed cord clamping, immediate drying, skin-to-skin contact (SSC) and/or early initiation of breastfeeding implemented in the first hour (facility-based studies) or the 1st day (community-based studies) of life. Implementation strategies and outcomes were categorized according to published frameworks: Expert Recommendations for Implementing Change and Outcomes for Implementation Research. The relationship between implementation strategies and outcomes was evaluated using standardized mean differences and correlation coefficients. Forty-three papers met inclusion criteria. Interventions included community-based care/health promotion and facility-based support and health care provider training. Included studies used 3-31 implementation strategies, though the consistency with which strategies were applied was variable. Conduct educational meetings was the most frequently used strategy. Included studies reported 1-4 implementation outcomes with coverage reported most frequently. Heterogeneity was high and no statistically significant association was found between the number of implementation strategies used and coverage of ENC. This review highlights several challenges in learning from implementation of ENC in low- and low middle-income countries, particularly poor description of interventions and implementation outcomes. We recommend use of UK Medical Research Council guidelines (2015) for process evaluations and checklists for reporting implementation studies. Improved reporting of implementation research in this setting is necessary to learn how to improve service delivery and outcomes and thereby reduce neonatal mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a large database of surveys of household incomes to characterize income underreporting in household surveys in low- and middle-income countries. The objective is to document (a) the extent of this underreporting, and (b) whether and how it varies systematically with respondent, household, income, and survey design features. Drawing on rural household data from 20 developing and transition countries, and using consumption expenditure as a benchmark, results indicate that the observed income/consumption ratios are very small, being on average around 0.76. Results suggest that income underreporting is systematically associated with household and survey characteristics. In particular, the degree of underreporting is strongly associated with the income source, with agricultural income being the component suffering more than any other components from underreporting. The analysis also provides evidence supporting the well-established proposition that underreporting tends to increase with household welfare: richer households appear to underreport income more. Implications for survey design and for future research are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher effectiveness is low in many developing countries. How can it be improved? We show that understanding teacher beliefs may be an important but overlooked part of the puzzle. Our review of recent evidence shows that teacher beliefs can impact student outcomes directly; they can also mediate policy implementation. Despite this, we find that teacher beliefs are seldom accounted for or even measured in impact evaluations of teacher-focused programs. Most of these programs ultimately fail to change teacher behavior. Next, using survey data from 20,000 teachers across nine developing countries, we discuss teacher beliefs about their role, their effort, and their students' learning. We uncover four insights. First, teachers exhibit fixed mindsets on the learning potential of disadvantaged students. For instance, nearly 43 percent of teachers believe that "there is little they can do to help a student learn" if parents are uneducated. Second, in most countries, more teachers believe that students deserve additional attention if they are performing well than if they are lagging behind. This suggests that teachers may be reinforcing rather than compensating for baseline gaps in student levels. Third, there is some normalization of absenteeism—nearly one in four teachers believe it is acceptable to be absent if students are left with work to do. Finally, teacher support for pay-for-performance varies widely across countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common view of critics of international finance is that unregulated capital movements destabilise developing countries. At the same time, financial innovations such as foreign exchange swaps are considered to be 'shadow banking' and a part of that destabilising international financial environment. The alternative is a reliance on finance in domestic currency. Here there is a problem that finance is poorly developed in many developing countries. This paper outlines an international financing mechanism, based on foreign exchange swaps, that provides for sustainable foreign finance of lending in domestic currencies in developing countries. Section 2 contains a literature review. Section 3 considers the conditions for stable financing of economic activity. Section 4 outlines a swap-based lending facility that can assist domestic financial development and discusses it form the microeconomic viewpoint. Section 5 looks at some of the macro-implications of such a facility. A final section concludes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the limitations of Modern Money Theory (MMT) as a guide to development policy. We explore two main questions on this topic: whether policies championed by MMT advocates (i) ought to be implemented in low- and middle-income economies and (ii) can be implemented. In relation to the first question, we argue that the MMT literature mischaracterises the essence of the development challenge for low- and middle-income economies. Our argument is that the chief long-run growth challenge faced by developing countries concerns structural transformation rather than general aggregate demand insufficiency. We use several formal representations of the consumption–investment trade-off in growth theory, found in the Harrod–Domar growth model, the Feldman–Mahalanobis model and Kalecki's 1963 growth model to illustrate this point. Concerning the second question, we argue that even if MMT had the correct diagnosis of the principal growth challenge faced by developing countries, its chief policy recommendations would likely be counter-productive if implemented outside of select advanced economies. We draw from the international economics literature on currency hierarchy and exchange rate volatility to illustrate this point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In developing countries, the demand for old aged people requiring private health care at home is dramatically growing with the improvement of living standards. Since vehicles are used for transferring the medical staff (or doctors) to patient homes, it may be interesting to select a vehicle type based on the cost, capacity, and environmental sustainability (fuel consumption and CO2 gas emission per unit of distance) to maximize profits and social responsibility. In this paper, the first contribution, a new green home health care network for location, allocation, scheduling, and routing problems is developed with uncertain conditions. Another novelty, the time window to serve patients is also considered. In this regard, a novel grey flexible linear programming model is developed to cope with the uncertain nature of costs and capacity parameters that is as one important novelty. Due to this model's high complexity and difficulty in large-scale instances, this research develops two novel hybrid algorithms. The first hybrid strategy called the HSEOSA algorithm combines the Social Engineering Optimizer algorithm with the Simulated Annealing method. In terms of contribution to the related solution methodology, additionally, the Keshtel Algorithm is incorporated with the Genetic Algorithm called the HGAKA algorithm as the second new hybrid metaheuristic. An extensive comparison among the proposed algorithms is performed to find the most efficient one for the application of home healthcare in real practice. To validate the proposed model, a novel real case study is illustrated in the home healthcare services in Tehran/Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can a country improve productivity growth in its business sector and reach its growth potential? Sweden during the 1970–2010 period can serve as an example to help other countries understand how to efficiently reform a business sector. In the 1990s, Sweden implemented a reform package that ignited a successful reorganization of a business sector that had faltered for decades. To understand the economic forces behind this process, the paper first surveys the industrial restructuring literature and then examine the reform package using Swedish matched plant-firm-worker data. The removal of barriers to growth for new and productive firms, as well as increased rewards for investment in human capital, were crucial to the success of Sweden's reforms. The paper also discusses how the reform experience of a developed country such as Sweden can be useful for developing countries that are in the process of transforming their business sectors. The findings suggest that policymakers have much to learn from country case studies and that the Swedish experience can be a valuable case study for developing countries that are attempting to promote growth by developing their business sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the external validity of corruption experiments by conducting the same experiment in three different environments: a laboratory in a developed country, a laboratory in a developing country and the field in a developing country. In the experiment, a candidate proposes a bribe to a grader to obtain a better grade. We find the direction and magnitude of several treatment effects to be statistically indistinguishable across the three environments. In particular, increasing the graders' wage reduces the probability of accepting the bribe but promotes reciprocation. Our results therefore provide evidence that laboratory experiments on corruption can have empirical relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family planning (FP) programmes in low and lower-middle income countries are confronting the dual impact of reduced external donor commitments and stagnant or reduced domestic financing, worsened by economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Co-financing—a donor-government agreement to jointly fund aspects of a programme, with transition towards the government assuming increasing responsibility for total cost—can be a powerful tool to help build national ownership, fiscal sustainability and programme visibility. Using Gavi's successful co-financing model as reference, the current paper draws out a set of key considerations for developing policies on co-financing of FP commodities in resource-poor settings. Macroeconomic and contextual sensitivities must be incorporated while classifying countries and determining co-financing obligations—using the actual GNI per capita on a scale or sovereign credit ratings, in conjunction with programmatic indicators, may be preferred. It is also important for policies to allow sufficiently long time for countries to transition—dependent on the country context, may be up to 10 years as allowed under the US Agency for International Development FP graduation policy and flexibility to revisit the terms following externalities that can influence the fiscal space for health. Incentivizing new domestic financing to pay for co-financing dues is critical, so as not to displace government funding from related health or social sector programs. Pragmatic ways to ensure country compliance can include engaging both the ministries of health and finance as co-signatories to identify and address known administrative and fiscal challenges; establishing dedicated co-financing account with the finance ministry; and instituting a mutual monitoring mechanism. Lastly, the overall process of policymaking can benefit from an alignment of goals and interests of the key development partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tobacco is already the world’s leading cause of preventable death, claiming over 5 million lives annually, and this toll is rising. Even though effective tobacco control policies are well researched and widely disseminated, they remain largely unimplemented in most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). For the most part, control attempts by advocates and government regulators have been frustrated by transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) and their supporters. One reason tobacco is so difficult to control is that its political economy has yet to be adequately understood and addressed. We conducted a review of the literature on tobacco control in LMICs using the databases PubMed, EconLit, PsychInfo and AGRICOLA. Among the over 2500 papers and reports we identified, very few explicitly applied political economy analysis to tobacco control in an LMIC setting. The vast majority of papers characterized important aspects of the tobacco epidemic, including who smokes, the effects of smoking on health, the effectiveness of advertising bans, and the activities of TTCs and their allies. But the political and economic dynamics of policy adoption and implementation were not discussed in any but a handful of papers. To help control advocates better understand and manage the process of policy implementation, we identify how political economy analysis would differ from the traditional public health approaches that dominate the literature. We focus on five important problem areas: information problems and the risks of smoking; the roles of domestic producers; multinational corporations and trade disputes in consumption; smuggling; the barriers to raising taxes and establishing spatial restrictions on smoking; and incentive conflicts between government branches. We conclude by discussing the political economy of tobacco and its implications for control strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Public accountability has re-emerged as a top priority for health systems all over the world, and particularly in developing countries where governments have often failed to provide adequate public sector services for their citizens. One approach to strengthening public accountability is through direct involvement of clients, users or the general public in health delivery, here termed ‘community accountability’. The potential benefits of community accountability, both as an end in itself and as a means of improving health services, have led to significant resources being invested by governments and non-governmental organizations. Data are now needed on the implementation and impact of these initiatives on the ground. A search of PubMed using a systematic approach, supplemented by a hand search of key websites, identified 21 papers from low- or middle-income countries describing at least one measure to enhance community accountability that was linked with peripheral facilities. Mechanisms covered included committees and groups (n = 19), public report cards (n = 1) and patients’ rights charters (n = 1). In this paper we summarize the data presented in these papers, including impact, and factors influencing impact, and conclude by commenting on the methods used, and the issues they raise. We highlight that the international interest in community accountability mechanisms linked to peripheral facilities has not been matched by empirical data, and present a conceptual framework and a set of ideas that might contribute to future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The empirical literature on trade liberalization reflects two puzzles. First, the effect of trade liberalization on economic growth is ambiguous. Second, the effect of trade liberalization by developing countries on their income distribution is ambiguous. This paper attempts to explain simultaneously these two puzzles, based on a multiple-cone neoclassical growth model. The model shows that countries that are labour abundant in a global sense may see a rise in income inequality and a fall in per capita gross domestic product with liberalization if they are capital abundant in a local sense. The results suggest that the existence of multiple cones and the multiple steady states within the same cone, or the existence of global and local factor abundances, can be a possible explanation of these puzzles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health management information systems (HMIS) produce large amounts of data about health service provision and population health, and provide opportunities for data-based decision-making in decentralized health systems. Yet the data are little-used locally. A well-defined approach to district-level decision-making using health data would help better meet the needs of the local population. In this second of four papers on district decision-making for health in low-income settings, our aim was to explore ways in which district administrators and health managers in low- and lower-middle-income countries use health data to make decisions, to describe the decision-making tools they used and identify challenges encountered when using these tools. A systematic literature review, following PRISMA guidelines, was undertaken. Experts were consulted about key sources of information. A search strategy was developed for 14 online databases of peer reviewed and grey literature. The resources were screened independently by two reviewers using pre-defined inclusion criteria. The 14 papers included were assessed for the quality of reported evidence and a descriptive evidence synthesis of the review findings was undertaken. We found 12 examples of tools to assist district-level decision-making, all of which included two key stages-identification of priorities, and development of an action plan to address them. Of those tools with more steps, four included steps to review or monitor the action plan agreed, suggesting the use of HMIS data. In eight papers HMIS data were used for prioritization. Challenges to decision-making processes fell into three main categories: the availability and quality of health and health facility data; human dynamics and financial constraints. Our findings suggest that evidence is available about a limited range of processes that include the use of data for decision-making at district level. Standardization and pre-testing in diverse settings would increase the potential that these tools could be used more widely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A health system's ability to deliver quality health care depends on the availability of motivated health workers, which are insufficient in many low income settings. Increasing policy and researcher attention is directed towards understanding what drives health worker motivation and how different policy interventions affect motivation, as motivation is key to performance and quality of care outcomes. As a result, there is growing interest among researchers in measuring motivation within health worker surveys. However, there is currently limited guidance on how to conceptualize and approach measurement and how to validate or analyse motivation data collected from health worker surveys, resulting in inconsistent and sometimes poor quality measures. This paper begins by discussing how motivation can be conceptualized, then sets out the steps in developing questions to measure motivation within health worker surveys and in ensuring data quality through validity and reliability tests. The paper also discusses analysis of the resulting motivation measure/s. This paper aims to promote high quality research that will generate policy relevant and useful evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss financialisation as the development of fictitious capital in more developed and less developed countries. The controversies surrounding the meaning of fictitious capital require a preliminary discussion on its conceptual definition, which is done by means of an analysis of the relationship between real and fictitious capital within the labour theory of value. Once theoretically explained why the relative autonomy of circulation from production supports financialisation as the development of fictitious capital, we focus on the limits of this relative autonomy, which is something objectified in economic crises. Relevant data were gathered to determine how the concentration of financial investments in fictitious capital in a few markets was able to underpin its enormous and lasting development, even though this fictitious capital, by definition, does not generate surplus or new (labour) value. Furthermore, the analysis of net capital flows between developed and developing countries also demonstrates that the latter are net donors of capital. Therefore, it is possible to verify the relationship between the development of fictitious capital and the increase of inequality between countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss the process of financialisation of developing countries and emerging economies (DEEs) from the perspective of critical realism (CR). We argue that the emergence of financialisation depends on the inherent tendency of the imbalance between the accumulation of productive and financial capital being actualised, and emphasise how government's intentional actions under current social structures relate to this process. We use China as a case study to illustrate how DEEs can resist financialisation and maintain productive accumulation during development. We elaborate on various institutional and policy adjustments undertaken by China during different phases that promoted productive accumulation and how China avoided financialisation for much of its growth period. Our discussion helps to explain why China's limited financialisation compared to other DEEs who experienced financialisation featured by dependency. We conclude by highlighting new potential risks and sources of financialisation faced by the Chinese economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the central premises of the literature on financialisation is that we have been living in a new era of capitalism, characterised by a historical shift in the finance-production nexus. Finance has expanded to a disproportionate economic size and, more importantly, has divorced from productive economic pursuits. In this paper, we explore these claims of 'expansion' and 'divorce' based on a longue durée analysis of the link between finance and production in Senegal and Ghana. As such, we de-centre the dominant approach to financialisation. Seen from the South, we argue that although there has been expansion of financial motives and practices the 'divorce' between the financial and the productive economy cannot be considered a new empirical phenomenon having occurred during the last decades and even less an epochal shift of the capitalist system. The tendency for finance to neglect the needs of the domestic productive sector has been the structural operation of finance in many parts of the Global South over the last 150 years. Therefore, one cannot put forward a theory of the evolution of finance under capitalism without taking these crucial historical insights into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, community health governance structures have been established in many low and middle-income countries (LMICs) as part of decentralization policies aimed at strengthening primary healthcare systems. So far, most studies on these local structures either focus on measuring their impact on health outcome or on identifying the factors that affect their performance. In this paper we offer an alternative contribution that draws on a sociological interpretation of community health governance to improve understanding of how the government's policy vision and instrumentation translate to interactions that take place within local spaces at field level. We study 13 Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committees (VHSNCs) in Karnataka, India, from 2016 to 2018 focusing on sanitation, nutrition and hygiene which remain impediments to improving primary healthcare amongst poor and marginalized communities. Three local governance mechanisms of horizontal coordination, demand for accountability and self-help help to explain improvements that have taken place at village level and contribute to the creation of a new theory of community health governance as evolving phenomenon that requires a constant process of learning from the field to strengthen policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines possibilities for a green industrial policy with particular emphasis on developing countries. The question of green industrial policy is investigated by examining experiences and barriers to phasing-in green technologies, focusing on solar PV and energy efficiency as areas for a green industrial policy. The paper outlines a green transition approach to sustain a shift to cleaner and more energy-efficient production processes through clever policy mixes involving elements of push and pull. Rent management and policy adaptation by competent authorities are also part of the model. The paper offers concrete guidance to the question of what governments in developing countries can usefully and realistically do to phase in green technologies given the priorities for development, imperfect institutions for policy-making and implementation, weakly developed innovation systems, and problems of lock-in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Urbanization in developing countries is usually accompanied by migration to cities, making it a challenge to unpack the independent relationships between migration, urbanization and health, particularly in the presence of health-selective migration. Since 1978, unprecedented planned urbanization has taken place in China and further increases to the urban population are expected. This paper explored the impacts of urbanization in China through a comparative study of in situ urbanized population.Methods: Using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), a nationally representative dataset for people aged 45 years or older, we compared self-assessed general health, depressive symptoms and waist circumference among three groups: (i) in situ urbanized-rural residents; (ii) rural residents; and (iii) urban residents. Using a model informed by the literature on the social determinants of health in later life, we investigated the patterning and drivers of differences in health outcomes between these three groups, in order to explore the impact of urbanization independent of the impact of migration.Results: There are consistent advantages in health and less depression among urbanized-rural residents compared with the rural group; and this group has even better health outcomes than the urban group after adjusting for early life differences. However, this relationship is reversed for waist circumference. Socioeconomic circumstances and factors related to a planned urbanization partly explain these effects.Conclusions: Urbanization in China has, on average, had an independent and positive effect on health and well-being. Planned urbanization could benefit people's health in developing countries. It is likely that improved infrastructure is a key driver. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses a consistent firm-level data from the World Banks Enterprise Surveys to explore the impact of financialisation in the economy on firms' access to finance in 138 developing countries. Access to finance reflects survey-based firms' perceptions of external financing constraints. Financialisation is proxied by consistent cross-country measures of financial depth. These proxies capture separately the role of bank-based versus market-based financing. Firm-, sector- and country-level information is jointly used for the analysis. Firm-specific characteristics and economic and non-economic national factors are included as controls. The results show that the proxies of financialisation are broadly robust predictors of financing constraints of firms in developing countries. However, the magnitude of the financialisation effect varies between bank-based and market-based channels of financing as well as between low- and high-income countries, and it is influenced by social, institutional and religious factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs, started in the late 1990s in Latin America, have become the antipoverty program of choice in many developing countries in the region and beyond. This paper reviews the literature on their long-term impacts on human capital and related outcomes observed after children have reached a later stage of their life cycle, focusing on two life-cycle transitions. The first includes children exposed to CCTs in utero or during early childhood who have reached school ages. The second includes children exposed to CCTs during school ages who have reached young adulthood. Most studies find positive long-term effects on schooling, but fewer find positive impacts on cognitive skills, learning, or socio-emotional skills. Impacts on employment and earnings are mixed, possibly because former beneficiaries were often still too young. A number of studies find estimates that are not statistically different from zero, but for which it is often not possible to be confident that this is due to an actual lack of impact rather than to the methodological challenges facing all long-term evaluations. Developing further opportunities for analyses with rigorous identification strategies for the measurement of long-term impacts should be high on the research agenda. As original beneficiaries age, this should also be increasingly possible, and indeed important before concluding whether or not CCTs lead to sustainable poverty reduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a protracted stalemate between rich (the North) and poor (the South) countries over the question of minimum labour standards in developing economies. This paper is a sequel to Singh and Zammit (2000). It considers afresh key issues in the controversy. While fully recognizing the moral, political, and philosophical dimensions of this complex issue, the paper concentrates on the central economic question of the ‘race to the bottom’. It emphasizes the difficulties of establishing labour standards in the vast informal sectors in developing countries and suggests that the ILO conventions 87 and 98 should be amended to reflect properly these concerns. It also argues that ILO core conventions should be broadened to include the right to a decent living. The overall conclusion is that labour standards are important indicators of economic development, but their promotion is best achieved in a non-coercive and supportive international environment such as that provided by the ILO. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Joint Statement by the Foreign Ministers of China and Russia on Certain Aspects of Global Governance in Modern Conditions of 23 March 2021 calls for "the establishment of a fairer, more democratic and rational multipolar world order." The paper inquires how constitutional theories of international organisations have in the past and present sought to contribute to world order. It identifies three waves of such theory since the 1960s. Looking in more detail at the ongoing third wave, it identifies and seeks to pull out further a constitutional model which upscales the proto-democratic practices in international organisations by strengthening forums for participation and contestation, which rectifies to the north-south imbalance inter alia rooted in the colonial heritage by involving more actors from the global south, and which tackles the global social question upfront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Health Policy & Planning is the property of Oxford University Press / USA 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.)

Around two-thirds of all new HIV infections and 90% of syphilis cases occur in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Testing is a key strategy for the prevention and treatment of HIV and syphilis. Decision-makers in LMICs face considerable uncertainties about the costs of scaling up HIV and syphilis testing. This paper synthesizes economic evidence on the costs of scaling up HIV and syphilis testing interventions in LMICs and evidence on how costs change with the scale of delivery. We systematically searched multiple databases (Medline, Econlit, Embase, EMCARE, CINAHL, Global Health and the NHS Economic Evaluation Database) for peer-reviewed studies examining the costs of scaling up HIV and syphilis testing in LMICs. Thirty-five eligible studies were identified from 4869 unique citations. Most studies were conducted in Sub-Saharan Africa (N = 17) and most explored the costs of rapid HIV in facilities targeted the general population (N = 19). Only two studies focused on syphilis testing. Seventeen studies were cost analyses, 17 were cost-effectiveness analyses and 1 was cost-benefit analysis of HIV or syphilis testing. Most studies took a modelling approach (N = 25) and assumed costs increased linearly with scale. Ten studies examined cost efficiencies associated with scale, most reporting short-run economies of scale. Important drivers of the costs of scaling up included testing uptake and the price of test kits. The 'true' cost of scaling up testing is likely to be masked by the use of short-term decision frameworks, linear unit-cost projections (i.e. multiplying an average cost by a factor reflecting activity at a larger scale) and availability of health system capacity and infrastructure to supervise and support scale up. Cost data need to be routinely collected alongside other monitoring indicators as HIV and syphilis testing continues to be scaled up in LMICs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Electronic pharmacovigilance reporting systems are being implemented in many developing countries in an effort to improve reporting rates. This study sought to establish the factors that acted as barriers to the success of an electronic pharmacovigilance reporting system in Kenya 3 years after its implementation.Materials and Methods: Factors that could act as barriers to using electronic reporting systems were identified in a review of literature and then used to develop a survey questionnaire that was administered to pharmacists working in government hospitals in 6 counties in Kenya.Results: The survey was completed by 103 out of the 115 targeted pharmacists (89.5%) and included free-text comments. The key factors identified as barriers were: unavailable, unreliable, or expensive Internet access; challenges associated with a hybrid system of paper and electronic reporting tools; and system usability issues. Coordination challenges at the national pharmacovigilance center and changes in the structure of health management in the country also had an impact on the success of the electronic reporting system.Discussion: Different personal, organizational, infrastructural, and reporting system factors affect the success of electronic reporting systems in different ways, depending on the context. Context-specific formative evaluations are useful in establishing the performance of electronic reporting systems to identify problems and ensure that they achieve the desired objectives.Conclusion: While several factors hindered the optimal use of the electronic pharmacovigilance reporting system in Kenya, all were considered modifiable. Effort should be directed toward tackling the identified issues in order to facilitate use and improve pharmacovigilance reporting rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the recent empirical evidence on privatization in developing countries, with particular emphasis on new areas of research such as the distributional impacts of privatization. Overall, the literature now reflects a more cautious and nuanced evaluation of privatization. Thus, private ownership alone is no longer argued to automatically generate economic gains in developing economies; pre-conditions (especially the regulatory infrastructure) and an appropriate process of privatization are important for attaining a positive impact. These comprise a list which is often challenging in developing countries: welldesigned and sequenced reforms; the implementation of complementary policies; the creation of regulatory capacity; attention to poverty and social impacts and strong public communication. Even so, the studies do identify the scope for efficiency-enhancing privatization that also promotes equity in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advocates of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure services in developing countries have long battled criticism of these arrangements by civil society groups. The view among PPP advocates generally has been that these criticisms are mostly ideological polemics thatmix opinion with selected but often misinterpreted facts. But over the last two decades, as the experience with PPPs has increased in both developed and developing countries, a different kind of critique has emerged, one that is based on non-ideological empirical research and is sometimes expressed by PPP advocates. These studies often focus on individual aspects of PPPs and usually do not claim to be "PPP evaluations" or express opinions on the overall value of PPPs. Taken together, a powerful, evidence-based critique of PPPs is emerging, but one that ismoremeasured thanmuch of the criticism of the last two decades. This new critique recognizes many cases in which PPPs have not been successful, but also some situations in which PPPs can generate value for money. Because of its critical tone, some of this research is now regularly cited by the civil society critics of PPPs, giving their arguments more weight than was the case a decade ago. This paper attempts to summarize some of the most compelling examples of this kind of emerging critique, and uses the summary to assess the practicality of the G20's recent advocacy of large, "transformational" PPPs as tools for dealing effectively with infrastructure challenges in low-income countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on several aspects of building integrated health systems and HIV, sexual and reproductive health integration. It mentions that HIV is predominantly transmitted sexually or through pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding which are all reproductive health issues. It also mentions that importance of health workers being flexible in the roles that they can perform. It also mentions need for health systems to support healthcare workers.

This article presents the response of the author on the comments from Sebastian Edwards on an article regarding the economic development and minimization of foreign-resource requirements in underdeveloped countries. Ragner Nurkse in his now famous lectures on Some Aspects of Capital Accumulation in Underdeveloped Countries dealth at length with the issue of how a developing country could draw upon its surplus labor as a source of capital formation for economic development. My paper was essentially as elaboration of that theme: it shows how a labor-surplus developing country could attain both economic development and minimization of foreign-resource requirements for economic development. My paper was an essence an ideal, schematic formalization of that process. Edwards raises three sets of objections to my paper, all of which seem to stem from a basic misunderstanding of both the purpose and working of the model. The first issue that he raises relates to the question of substitutability between labor and capital in production in the context of a developing country. This is essentially an empirical issue, and one is likely to elicit different answers in the context of different countries at different levels of economic development.

This paper reports the findings from the first systematic review of the utilization of traditional medicine (TM) in primary health care (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). PHC is an important component of health care and essential for achieving universal health coverage (UHC). For countries where there is a gap in PHC, TM plays a vital role. It is widely used and has the potential to increase the coverage of PHC and UHC. Hence in situations where TM is recognized in a considerable magnitude, there are scarce evidence and minimal regulation on it and TM practitioners (TMPs). This study aims to identify the current situation in the utilization of TM in PHC or UHC in LMICs. A systematic review and thematic synthesis of qualitative and quantitative studies have been conducted. A total of 56 articles met the criteria and were included in the review. In all, 14 analytic themes have been developed including the current use of TM in PHC, higher accessibility of TM, medical pluralism, national health system, national health policy and national health insurance to include TM, including TMPs in the referral system, utilizing TMPs as community health workers, the needs of scientific research on TM and the need for training both TMPs and conventional medical staffs for better collaboration. The study concluded that it is necessary to further focus on TM in the macro level on strengthening the referral system by including TM to establish a comprehensive service delivery network under UHC and in the micro level to focus on training the TMPs and conventional medicine health workers on both areas to attain more in-depth understanding of each other, which can lead to better collaboration and quality patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jobs are the primary policy concern of policymakers in many countries. The 2007-2008 global financial crisis, rising demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and concerns over automation all make it seem imperative that policymakers employ increasingly more active labor market policies. This paper critically examines recent evaluations of labor market policies that have provided vocational training, wage subsidies, job search assistance, and assistance moving to argue that many active labor market policies are much less effective than policymakers typically assume. Many of these evaluations find no significant impacts on either employment or earnings. One reason is that urban labor markets appear to work reasonably well in many cases, with fewer market failures than is often thought. As a result, there is less of a role for many traditional active labor market policies than is common practice. The review discusses examples of job-creation policies that do seem to offer promise, and concludes with lessons for impact evaluation and policy is this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Health Policy & Planning is the property of Oxford University Press / USA 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.)

Copyright of Ornithological Applications is the property of Oxford University Press / USA 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 investigates the effects of inequality in health on economic growth in low and middle income countries. The empirical part of the paper uses an original cross-national panel data set covering 62 low and middle income countries over the period 1985 to 2007. I find a substantial and relatively robust negative effect of health inequality on income levels and income growth controlling for life expectancy, country and time fixed-effects and a large number of other effects that have been shown to matter for growth. The effect also holds if health inequality is instrumented to circumvent a potential problem of reverse causality. Hence, reducing inequality in the access to health care and to health-related information can make a substantial contribution to economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a model of North-South trade and economic development. The model is consistent with two empirical facts: (1) the growth rate of income per capita differs across countries; and (2) the relationship between the growth of population and that of income per capita differs for developed and developing countries. We assume that the North and the South are characterized by increasing-returns-to-scale and decreasing-returns-to-scale technologies, respectively. Real national income grows at the same rate in both countries along the balanced growth path owing to a terms of trade effect. However, real income per capita grows at different rates because of population growth differentials. In developed countries, the correlation between population growth and income per capita growth can be positive or negative while in developing countries, the correlation is negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new conceptual tool to study norm dynamics in world politics. Termed norm subsidiarity, it concerns the process whereby local actors create rules with a view to preserve their autonomy from dominance, neglect, violation, or abuse by more powerful central actors. After a theoretical discussion of the definition, motivations, and effects of norm subsidiarity, the paper offers a case study of normative action against Cold War alliances (especially South East Asia Treaty Organization) by a group of Third World leaders led by India's Jawaharlal Nehru at the Bandung Asia-Africa Conference in 1955. It then offers examples from Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa to highlight the practice of norm subsidiarity. The paper contributes to the literature of international relations in three main ways. First, it reminds constructivist international relation scholars of the importance of understanding norm creation as a bottom-up process, marked by significant contestations and feedback. Second, it highlights the normative behaviors of Third World countries and their regional institutions, a neglected aspect of the literature on norm dynamics. Finally, the theory and practice of norm subsidiarity shed more light on the agency role of Third World countries in world politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]