Correcting the Count: Improving Vital Statistics Data Regarding Deaths Related to Obesity

Obesity can involve any organ system and compromise the overall health of an individual, including premature death. Despite the increased risk of death associated with being obese, obesity itself is infrequently indicated on the death certificate. We performed an audit of our records to identify how often “obesity” was listed on the death certificate to determine how our practices affected national mortality data collection regarding obesity‐related mortality. During the span of nearly 25 years, 0.2% of deaths were attributed to or contributed by obesity. Over the course of 5 years, 96% of selected natural deaths were likely underreported as being associated with obesity. We present an algorithm for certifiers to use to determine whether obesity should be listed on the death certificate and guidelines for certifying cases in which this is appropriate. Use of this algorithm will improve vital statistics concerning the role of obesity in causing or contributing to death.     

Fisheries management in Jamaica,international perspectives

Abstract

This paper examines Jamaica's efforts to implement of the conservation and management provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), bearing in mind that prior to 1982 there was an existing legal framework that sought to address issues relating to fisheries management. More specifically, the paper looks at the issues related to the conservation and management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks under UNCLOS and subsequent agreements negotiated under the auspices of UNCLOS. It also addresses the problems Jamaica faces with the conservation and management of Queen Conch (Strombus Gigas), in particular, the UNCLOS provisions regarding access to such resource, taking into account the limitations to such access as regulated by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).     

Replicating Sachs and Warner’s Working Papers on the Resource Curse

This article reports on my attempt to replicate Sachs and Warner’s 1995 and 1997 resource curse working papers. The 1995 paper is not replicable for lack of a data archive. Pure replication of the 1997 paper is achieved. Statistical replication determines that the proposed institutional causes of the resource curse are not robust to country sample. Scientific replication shows that findings of a resource curse are not sensitive to different measures of resource intensiveness, though they are sensitive to estimation technique. Typographical errors in the published paper reveal the value of researchers making both their data and code available.     

The Institutional Foundations of Inequality and Growth

After a decade of research, the effect of inequality on long-run economic growth remains unresolved, in part because researchers have treated omitted variable bias as an estimation problem rather than a deeper question of causality. In this article we argue that the key omitted variable is the quality of economic institutions. Using both cross-country and panel data specifications, we find no direct effect of inequality on growth in the long-run. Rather, the protection of property rights simultaneously raises growth rates and reduces income inequality. We interpret these findings as evidence that insecure property rights disproportionately disadvantage the poor.     

An appreciation of Alvey Adee

Diplomatic histories identify an early cold war “paradigm shift” as restoring the troubled Anglo–American “special relationship.” However, an integrated analysis of Second World War and post-war Iran suggests continuity in ideologically based Anglo–American differences on the reconstruction of the postwar world economic periphery, and that this was the defining context for crucially elusive relations during successive crises to come. The Americans had embraced Iran as an exemplar of “new deal internationalism,” being as much opposed to competing British neo-imperialist political and economic models there as to Soviet encroachments. They continued to identify autonomous British policies and interests antipathetically during the early cold war period and beyond, not merely out of economic self-interest, but at crucial moments disavowing geopolitical realpolitik. This perplex also determined during future crises of British power, in Iran and throughout the Middle East, that US interests would shift to new relationships, whenever having to decide, with indigenous peripheral actors rather than neo-imperialist European allies, precluding institutionalized, comprehensive Anglo–American partnership, which Britain had hoped would preserve and extend its role as a regional power.     

Properly drafted arbitration agreement as a safeguard to its adequate interpretation: Rwanda case study

Since the seminal Sex Discrimination Act 1975, modern British equality law developed in a piecemeal fashion over four decades. The landmark Equality Act 2010 was designed to unify, simplify and, to a limited extent, strengthen the legislation in this area. Despite its long gestation period, the Bill suffered from a lack of parliamentary scrutiny. This article sets the Equality Act in context and, by analysing certain aspects, discusses how far it has met those aims.