Returns to Foreign Language Skills in a Developing Country: The Case of Turkey

This paper analyses the economic value of foreign languages in Turkey using data on some 6000 adult male wage-earners in 2007. We find positive earnings returns to proficiency in English and Russian, which increase with the level of competence. French and German skills are also positively rewarded, although their return seems mostly linked to the likelihood to hold specific occupations. In contrast, knowing Arabic does not generate an earnings premium. Focusing on English, we check for heterogeneous returns along the conditional earnings distribution. The results are qualitatively invariant when we account for misclassification errors in self-reported English skills.     

Emission Trading Restrictions with Endogenous Technological Change

In this paper we use a simple climate model for endogenous environmental technical change in order to analyse the effects on equity and efficiency of placing different degrees of restrictions on trade in the market of pollution permits. The model is obtained by incorporating in Nordhaus and Yang (1996)'s RICE model a notion of induced technical change close to the one proposed in Goulder and Mathai (2000). With the help of such a model, we assess the pros and cons of introducing ceilings on emission trading. In particular, we analyse both the cost effectiveness and the distributional effects of placing restrictions of trading emissions. The analysis takes into account the role of environmental technical change that could be enhanced by emission trade limitations. However, this effect is shown to be offset by the increased abatement cost induced by the larger than optimal adoption of domestic policy measures when ceilings are made binding. Hence, our analysis provides little support for quantitative restrictions of emission trading, even when these restrictions actually have a positive impact of technical change. Even in terms of equity, ceilings find no justification within our theoretical and modelling framework. Indeed, we find that flexibility mechanisms in the presence of endogenous technical change increase equity and that the highest equity levels are achieved without ceilings, both in the short and in the long run.     

Economic influences on legislative elections in multiparty systems: France and Italy

For the United States, the issue of the impact of aggregate economic conditions on legislative election returns has received extensive research. For European countries, however, research is much less plentiful. In particular, multiparty systems such as France and Italy lack study. For both these nations, we find that worsening aggregate economic conditions significantly increase the legislative vote for leftist parties, which have traditionally played an opposition role. Further, these models seem strong enough to provide good prediction of the actual legislative vote share. For example, they manage to forecast the 1981 victory of the left in France, and the 1980 Communist party support in Italy.     

Advantage of affinity histochemistry combined with histology to investigate death causes: indications from sample cases

Mast cell histochemistry has been proposed in addition to classic histological methods to estimate the course of traumatic events before and after death. We have addressed the utility of this approach on nine victims of different types of trauma. Sections of wounded skin were stained with hematoxylin and eosin and with fluorescent avidin to tag mast cells. Mast cell numbers were evaluated by both direct and digitalized counts. Intact skin was used as control. The results on mast cells implemented the findings upon hematoxylin and eosin stain and helped to put the wounds and death in chronological sequence. Digitalized morphometry allowed to reduce intra- and inter-observer variation. We conclude that combined histological and histochemical analyses can be of practical use in forensic pathology, that a preliminary setting of the reference values is needed for each laboratory, and that image analysis can be of help for the quantification of the results.     

Histological diagnosis of myocardial sarcoidosis in a fatal fall from a height

The major issues of medico-legal relevance in fatal falls from a height are the manner of death and the reconstruction of the event. We present a peculiar case of a fatal fall from a height of about 9 m, involving a 27-year-old woman. At the death scene investigation, no suicide notes, housebreaking marks, or signs of fight were found, thus weakening both the suicide and homicide hypotheses. Combining circumstantial, autopsy and toxicology data, the kinematic analysis of the jump/fall, and the histological evidence of a myocardial sarcoidosis involving the left ventricle, we hypothesized that the young woman might have accidentally fallen from the window because of a sudden loss of consciousness related to cardiac disease undiagnosed during life. We believe that our brief report is a good example of the powerful additional information that histological investigations can offer for reconstructing the dynamics of the event in falls from a height and other traumatic fatalities.     

The international macroeconomic picture

Evoluzione dei settori industriali nel 1988 / Confin‐dustria. Centra Studi. ‐ Roma: SIPI, 1989. ‐ 357p. ‐ (Industria italiana). ‐ ISBN 88–7153–051–9.

Guida al 1992 ‐ Roma: Unistampa, 1989. ‐ 4v.

L'idea d'Europa nelpensiero di Altiero Spinelli / Andrea Chiti‐Batelli. ‐ Manduria: Lacaita, copyright 1989. 379p. ‐ (L'ltalia e l'Europa; 15).

Impariamo l'Europa: guida al 1992 / Fabio Cavaz‐za Rossi. ‐ Milano: Fendac Servizio, 1989. ‐ 174p. ‐ (Tempo reale)

1992: Europa senza frontiere? / Pier Virgilio Dasto‐li. ‐ Bologna: il Mulino, copyright 1989. ‐ 179p. ‐(Coritemporanea; 31). ‐ ISBN 88–15–02305–4

Obiettivo Mediterraneo / Piero Baroni. ‐ 2.ed. ‐Trento: L. Reverdito, 1989. ‐ 221p. ISBN 88–342–4047–2.

Perestrojka e ristrutturazione produttiva: esperienze e prospettive economiche in Unione Sovietica e in Italia / edited by Abel G. Aganbegjan ... [et al.]. ‐ Bologna: il Mulino, copyright 1989. ‐ 344p. (Temi e discussioni). ‐ ISBN 88–15–02321–6

La prospettiva euro‐mediterranea: per una cooper‐azione globale nella ‘regione’ del Mediterraneo / Giovanni Bersani. ‐ Bologna: CEFA, [19989]. ‐102p.

I rapporto CSC: progresso tecnico, investimenti e politiche industriali / Confindustria. Centro Studi. ‐ Roma, SIPI, 989. ‐ 95p. (L'industria italiana). ‐ISBN 88–7153–065–9     

Postmortem molecular analysis in victims of sudden unexplained death

Among several conditions that can be responsible for sudden cardiac death (SCD), an important role is played by long QT syndrome (LQTS). LQTS is a congenital electric heart disease that can be asymptomatic or have very severe clinical manifestation, leading to cardiac arrest. In fact, the first manifestation of LQTS can be hyperkinetic ventricular arrhythmias. The presence of LQTS should be considered in all cases of SCD where autopsy is negative for anatomic and histopathological findings. In these cases, after an accurate anamnesis, a genetic screening should always be performed. The screening on LQTS genes is performed on DNA extracted from paraffin-embedded tissues. Making a proper diagnosis in such cases can help to find new affected subjects among the family members of SCD victims and treat them. In these cases, if the pathologist does not make a correct diagnosis, can he or she be sued for malpractice?