How does private finance affect public health care systems? Marshaling the evidence from OECD nations

The impact of private finance on publicly funded health care systems depends on how the relationship between public and private finance is structured. This essay first reviews the experience in five nations that exemplify different ways of drawing the public/private boundary to address the particular questions raised by each model. This review is then used to interpret aggregate empirical analyses of the dynamic effects between public and private finance in OECD nations over time. Our findings suggest that while increases in the private share of health spending substitute in part for public finance (and vice versa), this is the result of a complex mix of factors having as much to do with cross-sectoral shifts as with deliberate policy decisions within sectors and that these effects are mediated by the different dynamics of distinctive national models. On balance, we argue that a resort to private finance is more likely to harm than to help publicly financed systems, although the effects will vary depending on the form of private finance.     

Increased safety and specificity in the thin-layer chromatographic identification of marihuana

We are reporting what we believe to be a safe, rapid TLC system and spray for the identification of marihuana. The use of Fast Blue 2B salt greatly enhances the specificity of the TLC analysis of suspected marihuana samples.     

Adolescent maltreatment, negative emotion, and delinquency: An assessment of general strain theory and family-based strain

This study used data from a national sample of youth (N = 1,423) to test hypotheses derived from Robert Agnew's (1992, 2001) general strain theory concerning the relationship between adolescent maltreatment and delinquent behavior. Specifically, it focused on the extent to which the effect of maltreatment on general delinquency, serious delinquency, and substance use was mediated by negative emotions in the form of anger, anxiety, and depression. Results lend partial support to the theory. Confirming the importance of parent-child problems as a source of strain leading to delinquency, findings from ordinary least squares regression models revealed a significant association between maltreatment and all three forms of delinquent behavior. Although findings also showed that negative emotions are key intervening mechanisms influencing the magnitude of the direct effect of strain, maltreatment continued to exert significant effects even after controlling for negative emotions and both individual and family characteristics.     

Course and Severity of Maternal Depression: Associations with Family Functioning and Child Adjustment

Number of lifetime episodes, duration of current episode, and severity of maternal depression were investigated in relation to family functioning and child adjustment. Participants were the 151 mother–child pairs in the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) child multi-site study. Mothers were diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder; children (80 males and 71 females) ranged in age from 7 to 17 years. Measures of child adjustment included psychiatric diagnoses, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, and functional impairment. Measures of family functioning included family cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, organization, and household control; parenting measures assessed maternal acceptance and psychological control. Children of mothers with longer current depressive episodes were more likely to have internalizing and externalizing symptoms, with this association being moderated by child gender. Mothers with more lifetime depressive episodes were less likely to use appropriate control in their homes.

Some recent additions to the library

Richard Calland &; Paul Graham (Eds), IDASA's Democracy Index — Democracy in the Time of Mbeki, Cape Town: Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA), Cape Town, 2005, R150, 252 pages.

Pieter Wolvaardt, A Diplomat's Story: Apartheid and Beyond, 1969–1998, South Africa: Galago Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1–919854–15–0, R225, 336 pages.

Greg Mills, The Security Intersection: The Paradox of Power in an Age of Terror, Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2005, 321 pages.

Hugh Pope, Sons of the Conquerors. The Rise of the Turkic World, New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2005. ISBN 1–58567–641–1. 413 pages.     

How successfully do we measure capital flight? The empirical evidence from five developing countries

Economists have proposed several different techniques for measuring capital flight. Each technique differs significantly in its definition of what constitutes capital flight, principally on the limits to normal capital flows, how to capitalise investment income, and the inclusion of long term capital flight. Consequently estimates of the determinants and remedies for capital flight have been very mixed. Given that capital flight is not observable it is important to examine the information content and consistency between the different measures. This article uses three different techniques over five countries to make that comparison, and finds a limited amount of information in each measure but no obvious agreement between them. Econometric techniques which have been designed for measuring the ‘hidden economy’ of OECD countries is likely to offer a better way of measuring capital flight.     

Shorter notices

The Peoples of Soviet Central Asia. By Geoffrey Wheeler. The Bodley Head, 1966. Pp. 126. 12/6.

The Regional City. Edited by Derek Senior. Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 1966. Pp. viii, 192, 42s.

’United Nations Conference on Trade and Development’ A Case Study in U. N. Diplomacy. By Kamal M. Hagras. Frederick Praeger Inc., 1966. Pp. 142. £5 5s.