In a recent editorial in Biostatistics, Peng (2009) introduced a system for making data and computer code from papers in the journal publicly available so that other researchers can reproduce the statistical analyses in the paper. The editors explain in a short accompanying note (Diggle and Zeger, 2009) that ‘we wish to encourage the practice of making research published in the journal reproduc...

o It is found that the SAP design and framework does not adequately address gender issues, which is again due to the focus of SAP on efficiency, growth and stabilization, without considering structural constraints, and without considering inequality, including that between men and women. Gender concerns were incorporated much later along with issues such as institutions, governance and the envi...

Many developing countries periodically face large adverse shocks to their economies. We study two distinct types of such shocks large declines in the price of a country’s commodity exports and severe natural disasters , both of which have occurred frequently in the recent past. Unsurprisingly, adverse shocks reduce the short-term growth of constant-price GDP and we analyze which structural poli...

A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with non-clearing labour markets and imperfect competition is estimated for 21 OECD countries. The model provides for parameters both for preferences and technology and for the degree of structural rigidities on labour and product markets. These parameters are matched with policy indicators, establishing a relation between the model-based employmen...

The health effects of economic resources (eg, education, employment, and living place) and psychological assets (eg, self-efficacy, perceived control over life, anger control, and emotions) are well-known. This article summarizes the results of a growing body of evidence documenting Blacks’ diminished return, defined as a systematically smaller health gain from economic resources and psychologi...

My comments may be summarised by an inversion of Solow’s famous comment that the information technology productivity miracle can be seen everywhere but in the productivity statistics. By contrast, the Australian productivity miracle can be seen only in the productivity statistics. The lesson of everyday life is that people are running harder to stay in the same place. More formally, an increase...

Like Archimedes who demanded a place to stand so that he could move the Earth, scientific journals also need a firm point to stand on. We use this example because it stresses the importance of determining the journal’s specific research field by editorial policies. One of the basic strategies for medical journals is to define their scope, which helps them to target specific readership, attract ...

Statistical significance tests (SSTs) have been the object of much controversy among social scientists. Proponents have hailed SSTs as an objective means for minimizing the likelihood that chance factors have contributed to research results; critics have both questioned the logic underlying SSTs and bemoaned the widespread misapplication and misinterpretation of the results of these tests. The ...