The ability of natural killer (NK) cells to provide protection against myeloid leukemia has been demonstrated in clinical settings. However, whether NK cells play a role in the clinical course of solid tumors is debated. The controversy surrounding the role of NK cells is due, at least in part, to the limited extent of NK cell infiltration found in the tumor bed. Inactivation of NK cells may explain the shortage of NK cells in the microenvironment of colorectal cancer (CRC). Upon NK cell/tumor cell interaction, tumor cells may escape NK cells by creating an immunosuppressive microenvironment, which possibly affects T-cells as well. Such an immunosuppressive microenvironment would hamper the functions of NK and T-cell and reduce NK and T-cell interactions. CRC patients with levels of tumor NK cell infiltration suitable for statistical analysis have been identified. The infiltration of the CRC microenvironment by NK cells, in combination with CD8+ T-lymphocytes, has been shown to enhance the prognosis of CRC patients. Here, we discuss the clinicopathological role of NK cells in CRC and present clinical data indicating a potential supporting role for NK cells in the anti-CRC effects of CD8+ T-cells.
Do public sector employees earn less than their counterparts in the private sector? This paper addresses this question in the case of Peru, a country where civil service reform is being debated yet the only available empirical studies on wage differentials date back to the late 1980s. Using data from the 2009 national household survey, the authors perform a multiple step analysis. First, they estimate a single equation with a public sector dummy, which is found to be statistically significant and positive when only monetary wages are taken into account. However, when in-kind payments and bonuses are included to measure compensation, the analysis finds a private sector premium. Second, they estimate for public and formal private employees two distinct wage functions, including the inverse Mills ratio. This takes into account the selection bias resulting from workers self-selecting into the public or private sector. Third, these results are used to decompose wage differentials using the standard Oaxaca-Blinder approach. The results show that the compensation differentials are not significant except for the sub-sample of employees that achieved a postgraduate degree.
This study uses Twitter data to provide a more nuanced understanding of the public reaction to the 2011 reform to the propane gas subsidy in El Salvador. By soliciting a small sample of manually tagged tweets, the study identifies the subject matter and sentiment of all tweets during six one-month periods over three years that concern the subsidy reform. The paper shows that such an analysis using Twitter data can provide a useful complement to existing household survey data and even potentially replace survey data if none were available. The finding show that when people tweet about the subsidy, they almost always do so in a negative manner; and there is a decline in discussion of topics about the reform subsidy, which coincides with increase in support for the subsidy as reported elsewhere. Therefore, the study concludes that decreasing discussion of the subsidy reform indicates an increase in support for the reform. In addition, the gas distributor strikes of May 2011 may have contributed to public perception of the reform more than previously acknowledged. This study is used as an opportunity to provide methodological guidance for researchers who wish to undertake similar studies, documenting the steps in the analysis pipeline with detail and noting the challenges inherent in obtaining data, classification, and inference.
This paper assesses the equilibrium value of the Argentine peso exchange rate based on the country's economic fundamentals and compares it with the official exchange rate value. The paper estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model that allows for movements in the equilibrium real effective exchange rate based on changing economic fundamentals, using monthly data from 1980 to 2015. The analysis identifies four key fundamentals driving the equilibrium exchange rate in Argentina: terms of trade, productivity differentials, foreign currency reserves, and trade openness. Based on these fundamentals, before the exchange rate reunification that took place at the end of 2015, the Argentine peso was overvalued by 39 percent. The results are robust to alternative estimation approaches.
The adoption of a common currency raised the degree of substitution between financial instruments supplied by EU Member States to finance their national debts. In this framework, our paper looks at a particular determinant of liquidity-related spreads in euro-area government bonds. Simultaneous issuance of similar bonds floods the market with paper and could lead to higher funding costs for sovereign borrowers. We test the significance of this problem, over-supplying liquidity due to a bunching of contemporaneous issues, in a government bond market where borrowers do not coordinate their issuance plans. We find that there is a significant relationship between bunching in issues and higher yield spreads. Moreover, in line with the existing literature, we find a negative correlation between liquidity and bond yields.
No AccessPolicy Research Working Papers29 Apr 2014Estimating the Economic Opportunity Cost of Capital for Public Investment Projects: An Empirical Analysis of the Mexican CaseAuthors/Editors: Andrea Coppola, Fernando Fernholz, Graham GlendayAndrea Coppola, Fernando Fernholz, Graham Glendayhttps://doi.org/10.1596/1813-9450-6816SectionsAboutPDF (1.7 MB) ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Abstract: This paper offers an assessment of the methodologies employed to estimate the economic opportunity cost of capital for public sector projects, relying on the Mexican case for an applied empirical exercise. The traditional weighted cost of capital (top-down) approach used in the estimation of Mexico's economic opportunity cost of capital is reviewed and compared to the supply price (bottom-up) approach. With respect to previous studies using the top-down approach, this paper explores the contribution of domestic savings and expands the analysis to include a more detailed examination of the available macroeconomic, labor, financial, and tax information. The re-estimated top-down economic opportunity cost of capital for Mexico comes to 10.4 percent. To confirm these results and provide additional insights regarding the alternative bottom-up approach, the economic opportunity cost of capital is estimated using the supply price plus externalities method. For the case of Mexico, this paper recommends using a combination of estimation models (both the top-down and bottom-up approaches) to check the consistency of results and re-estimating the economic opportunity cost of capital every five years to accommodate for macroeconomic and fiscal changes. More broadly, the paper acknowledges the complexities involved in the estimation of the economic opportunity cost of capital for public investment projects and underlines the relevance of additional considerations, such as changes in global economic trends and country risk ratings, tax distortions, financial sector improvements, the impact of reforms, and data availability. Previous bookNext book FiguresReferencesRecommendedDetailsCited ByEstimation of the rate of return to capital in the East African Community (EAC) CountriesApplied Economics, Vol.52, No.303 January 2020Application of Social Discount Rate for Assessment of Public Investment ProjectsProcedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol.213 View Published: March 2014 Copyright & Permissions Related RegionsLatin America & CaribbeanRelated CountriesMexicoRelated TopicsFinance and Financial Sector DevelopmentMacroeconomics and Economic GrowthPrivate Sector Development KeywordsECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY COST OF CAPITAL (EOCK)SOCIAL DISCOUNT RATEPUBLIC INVESTMENT PROJECTSWEIGHTED COST OF CAPITALSUPPLY PRICE APPROACHTAX EXTERNALITIES PDF DownloadLoading ...
Several studies have used satellite measures of human activity to complement measures of economic production. This paper builds on those studies by considering satellite measures for improving poverty measures. The paper uses local-scale census and survey data from Guatemala to test at how fine a scale satellite measures are useful. Results show that supplementing survey data with satellite data leads to improvements in the estimates.
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