National health insurance: Some lessons from the Canadian experience

In the current American debate over national health insurance an examination of the Canadian governmental experience is very instructive. Canada is enough like the United States to make the effects of Canadian health insurance policies rather like a large natural experiment. The Canadian experience—universal government health insurance administered by the ten provinces with some fiscal and policy variations—can be used to predict the impact in the United States of proposed national health insurance plans on the medical care system, and the reaction of mass publics and national policymakers to these effects.The central purpose of the Canadian national health insurance was to reduce and hopefully eliminate financial barriers to medical care. In this it succeeded. But it also produced results which Canadian policymakers never anticipated: essentially unexpected side-effects on cost, quality, organization, and manpower distribution of the particular national health insurance program adopted. It should be cause for concern, the article concludes, that most of the prominent American national health insurance proposals resemble the Canadian program in failing to provide a single level of government with both the means and incentives to curb the inflationary effects of national health insurance. The lesson from Canada is that unless the system has very strong anti-inflationary mechanisms and incentives built into it, national health insurance will feed the fires of medical inflation despite great formal governmental authority to control it.     

Federal Administration of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 in Oklahoma

SMCRA, which established detailed standards for the surfacemining of coal, attempted to balance the need to increase coalproduction with safeguarding the environment. The act was basedon the principle of cooperative federalism. The states wereoffered both positive and negative inducements to assume importantroles in the design and implementation of regulatory programsconsistent with the SMCRA. Oklahomas Department of Mines (DOM)carried out the provisions of the act so poorly that the federalOffice of Surface Mining (OSM) was compelled to take over SMCRAinspection and enforcement. Other provisions of the act wereadministered by DOM, which found itself in a condition of "cohabitation"with OSM from 1984–1987. During that time, DOM becamea stronger, technologically sophisticated agency; OSM gaineda greater appreciation of the difficulties of implementing astate program; the mining industry became reconciled to reclamationcontemporaneous with mining; and there was an increase in citizenparticipation. The return of primacy to Oklahoma may usher ina new federal relationship in surface mining regulation, withmore power shifting to the states as budget pressures reducefunds and the number of employees in OSM.     

Fatal brown bear (Ursus arctos) attack: case report and literature review

Bear incidents are widely publicized, though serious incidents rarely occur. We describe here a case of human death caused by brown bear (Ursus arctos) feet. The brown bear is the biggest carnivore of Greece, reaching up to 200-300 kg weight.This is the first documented fatality involving a brown bear in Greece in which the victim died as a direct traumatic result of the attack.     

The Equal Employment Opportunity Law: A Decade of Change for Japanese Women?

This article analyzes the impact of the Equal Employment Opportunity Law in Japan, passed in 1986 and now over a decade old. The article views the law as weak and examines its role in relation to the three groups most affected by the legislation: women, bureaucrats, and employers. The article argues that, although the law has produced few gains in employment opportunities for women, it has led to renewed efforts at litigation, increased consciousness and activism among women, and amendments to the law, passed in 1997.     

Real and nominal determinants of real exchange rates in Latin America: Short-run dynamics and long-run equilibrium

This article analyses the factors that determine the long-run real exchange rate in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, distinguishing between real and nominal determinants. Cointegration analysis is utilised to establish that the real exchange rate has an equilibrium relationship with real variables (the terms of trade, capital flows, productivity, and government share of GDP) which excludes nominal variables (nominal exchange rate, money) and central bank intervention. Variance decompositions reveal that among the real variables that determine the real exchange rate, the terms of trade and productivity explain much of the variation in the real exchange rates. When nominal variables are included in the model, the nominal exchange rate accounts for most of the variation in the real exchange rates of all three countries. The impulse response functions are broadly consistent with theoretical predictions and shocks to the nominal variables have only transitory effects on the real exchange rate.     

Major sports events,image projection and the problems of 'semi-periphery': A case study of the 1996 South Asia cricket World Cup

This paper explores the response of the international press to the co-hosting of the 1996 Cricket World Cup by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The event had a troubled background: the shift of power within cricket towards the subcontinent and the consequential commercialisation of the sport were causing some dissension among traditionalists. At the same time there was some instability in South Asian politics, especially between India and Pakistan and because of the civil war in Sri Lanka. While these issues overshadowed the event, some aspects of its organisation were unsuccessful, leading to some negative press coverage. It is argued here, however, that the problems faced by South Asian countries in trying to use this sports event to promote a positive image were further exacerbated by underlying stereotypes and criticisms of South Asian cultures. As such, the paper addresses several important themes relating to major sports events and 'semi-peripheral' countries.