BACKGROUND Neonatal growth is a complex process involving genetic and environmental factors. Polymorphisms in the hemochromatosis (HFE) iron regulatory genes have been shown to modify transport and toxicity of lead which is known to affect birth weight. METHODS We investigated the role of HFE C282Y, HFE H63 D, and transferrin (TF) P570 S gene variants in modifying the association of lead and ...

In order to gain insight into the mechanistic role of a flexible exterior loop near the active site, made up of Y62, H63, G64, and Y65, that has been proposed to play an important role in substrate binding and recognition in the methionyl aminopeptidase from Escherichia coli (EcMetAP-I), the H63A enzyme was prepared. Mutation of H63 to alanine does not affect the ability of the enzyme to bind d...

This paper studies optimal public debt in a dynastic model with human capital externalities that cause human capital investment (fertility) to be below (above) its socially optimal level. By reducing fertility and raising human capital investment, the optimal debt can exceed 10% of output for plausible parameterizations. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classification: E60; H63; O41

Bacterial type II toxin-antitoxin modules are protein-protein complexes whose functions are finely tuned by rapidly changing environmental conditions. E. coli toxin YafQ is suppressed under steady state growth conditions by virtue of its interaction with its cognate antitoxin, DinJ. During stress, DinJ is proteolytically degraded and free YafQ halts translation by degrading ribosome-bound mRNA ...

Benhabib and Rustichini [Optimal taxes without commitment, J. Econ. Theory 77 (1997) 231–259] study the properties of optimal capital taxes in economies without commitment and no government debt. They find that capital taxes may be different from zero at steady state. This note shows that, once governments have the possibility of issuing debt and smoothing taxes over time, optimal steady state ...

The paper studies the dynamic macroeconomic and welfare effects of tax policy in the context of an overlapping-generations model of the Yaari-Blanchard type for a closed economy. The model is extended to allow for endogenous labor supply and three tax instruments—namely, a capital tax, labor income tax, and consumption tax. It is shown that labor taxes increase welfare of old generations wherea...

How are the optimal tax and debt policies affected if government can default on its debt? We address this question from a normative perspective in an economy with noncontingent debt, domestic default, labor taxes. On one hand, prevents incurring future distortions associated servicing debt. other risk gives rise to endogenous credit limits that hinder government's ability smooth characterize fi...

We consider optimal government debt maturity in a deterministic economy which the can issue any arbitrary structure and bond prices are function of government’s current future primary surpluses. The sequentially chooses policy, taking into account how choices—which impact policy—feed back prices. show that issuing consols constitutes unique stationary portfolio, as it boosts credibility to poli...

We test whether the sharp increase in sovereign spreads of euro-area countries with respect to Germany after the explosion of the Greek crisis was due to deteriorating macroeconomic and fiscal fundamentals or to some form of financial contagion. Our analysis includes indicators of domestic and external imbalances which were mostly disregarded by previous studies, and distinguishes between inves...

In this paper we empirically study the relation between public debt and economic growth. We analyze how the public debt to GDP ratio at a certain point in time is correlated with the GDP growth rate in the following period, where we consider a one-year time span, a three-years time interval and a five-years interval. Using panel data comprising seven developed countries from 1970-2012, we estim...