The Relative Efficiency of Skilled Labor across Countries: Measurement and Interpretation

I study how the relative efficiency of high- and low-skill labor varies across countries. Using microdata for countries at different stages of development, I document that differences in relative quantities and wages are consistent with high-skill workers being relatively more productive in rich countries. I exploit variation in the skill premia of foreign-educated migrants to discriminate between two possible drivers of this pattern: cross-country differences in the skill bias of technology and in the relative human capital of skilled labor. I find that the former is quantitatively more important, and discuss the implications of this result for development accounting. (JEL I26, J24, J31, J61, L16, O15)

International Human Resource Management

Nowadays, internationalization is key for the survival of firms. Internationalization of a firm involves an internationalization of all the functional areas of the firm, of which international human resource management (IHRM) is one of the most relevant. In an international context, managers should make decisions about what human resource practices are best suited to the firm's international operations. Being aware of the differences between domestic and international human resource management will help readers and managers to establish operational mechanisms to deal with country differences in terms of industrial labor, culture, and firm practices. Therefore, after reading this chapter, readers should be able to deal with aspects like adaptation or standardization of HR practices, international staffing, and relevant issues around expatriation and repatriation.

Point of care testing, antibiotic prescribing and prescribing confidence for respiratory tract infections in primary care: Prospective audit in 18 European countries

BackgroundBetween-country differences have been described in antibiotic prescribing for RTI in primary care, but not yet for diagnostic testing procedures and prescribing confidence.AimTo describe between-country differences in RTI management, particularly diagnostic testing and antibiotic prescribing, and investigate which factors relate to antibiotic prescribing and GPs’ prescribing confidence.Design & settingProspective audit in 18 European countries.MethodGPs registered patient-, clinical- and management characteristics, and confidence in their antibiotic prescribing decision for patients presenting with sore throat and/or lower RTI (n=4,982). Factors related to antibiotic prescribing and confidence were analysed using multi-level logistic regression.ResultsAntibiotic prescribing proportions varied considerably:<20% in four countries, and >40% in six countries. There was also considerable variation in POC testing (0% in Croatia, Moldova, Romania, and >65% in Denmark, Norway, mainly CRP and Strep A), and in lab/hospital-based testing (<3% in Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, and >30% in Croatia, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, mainly chest X-ray and white blood cell counting). Antibiotic prescribing was related to illness severity, comorbidity, age, fever and ‘country’, but not to having performed a POC test. In nearly 90% of consultations, GPs were confident in their antibiotic prescribing decision.ConclusionDespite high confidence in decisions about antibiotic prescribing, there is considerable variation in the primary care of RTI in European countries, with GPs prescribing antibiotics overall more often than is considered appropriate. POC testing may enhance the quality of antibiotic prescribing decisions if it can safely reverse decisions confidently made on clinical grounds alone to prescribe antibiotics.

Magnitude, global variation, and temporal development of the COVID-19 infection fatality burden

How deadly is an infection with SARS-CoV-2 worldwide over time? This information is critical for developing and assessing public health responses on the country and global levels. However, imperfect data have been the most limiting factor for estimating the COVID-19 infection fatality burden during the first year of the pandemic. Here we leverage recently emerged compelling data sources and broadly applicable modeling strategies to estimate the crude infection fatality rate (cIFR) in 77 countries from 28 March 2020 to 31 March 2021, using 2.4 million reported deaths and estimated 435 million infections by age, sex, country, and date. The global average of all cIFR estimates is 1.2% (10th to 90th percentile: 0.2% to 2.4%). The cIFR varies strongly across countries, but little within countries over time, and it is often lower for women than men. Cross-country differences in cIFR are largely driven by the age structures of both the general and the truly infected population. While the broad trends and patterns of the cIFR estimates are more robust, we show that their levels are uncertain and sensitive to input data and modeling choices. In consequence, increased efforts at collecting high-quality data are essential for accurately estimating the cIFR, which is a key indicator for better understanding the health and mortality consequences of this pandemic.

The Active Ageing Index and policy making in Italy

Although the active ageing concept generally has positive connotations, with expected benefits at the micro, meso and macro levels, the application of this concept in terms of policy making presents challenges and risks to be avoided (for instance, a predominantly productivist interpretation and a top-down imposition with limited possibilities for bottom-up exchanges; or a disregard for the risk of excluding older people with more disadvantaged backgrounds). Two crucial strategies to minimise risks are the implementation of policies by considering and respecting territorial diversity, and the involvement of all the relevant stakeholders in a participatory consultative and co-decisional approach. This paper entwines both strategies together by focusing on Italian in-country differences in terms of active ageing, and employing the Active Ageing Index for policy-making purposes. This activity is part of a governmental national pilot project aimed at promoting multilevel co-managed co-ordination of active ageing policies across Italy. The analysis identified five groups of regions that differ from the classical, geographic and socio-economic division between the North, Centre and South. Additional in-group analyses were conducted to investigate within-cluster differences. This study will inform a large multilevel stakeholder network for evidence-based policies and their monitoring at both the national and regional levels, in line with the perspective of mainstreaming ageing.

Personal Culture Orientation and Consumer Cosmopolitanism: The Moderating Effects of Product Involvement

<p>Cosmopolitan consumers generally refer to individuals who are open and unbiased towards foreign products and identify as citizens of the world. Despite growing relevance of understanding consumer cosmopolitanism (COS) in today’s changing international landscape, both the construct itself is still not that well understood and operationalized, as well as its social and psychographic antecedent. In terms of culture studies, recent culture studies within the IB discipline continue to debate over the appropriate definitions of culture, as well as its conceptualization, operationalization, and especially measurement. This research aims to explore the impact of personal cultural orientations (PCOs), as individual-level culture value concepts, on COS, as well as the potential moderating role of product involvement (e.g., high- vs low-involvement products). Young-adult consumers in Taiwan and New Zealand were chosen to provide a contrast between a typical Western, Anglo-Saxon-based perspective and a typical Eastern, Asian, Confucian-based cultural context. Overall, this study could not fully support PCOs as having a significant impact on COS, nor product involvement as a moderator. However, COS could not be tested as a second-order reflective latent construct as originally intended in the seminal paper by Riefler et al. (2012). Compared to Riefler et al. (2012)’s paper, differences can be observed in the sampling where Riefler et al. (2012) sampled respondents aged 19 to 93 years (mean=46.6). This suggests that young adults a generational cohort hold significantly different perspectives and dispositions to other generations and the overall population. This finding aligns with recent IB literature in looking for smaller ‘containers’ of culture. Of the three PCOs tested, two displayed significant effects to COS in both country samples, but only to one dimension of the COS construct (Open-mindedness) and not the other (Diversity appreciation). Hence it is highly likely the PCOs tested in this study have significant effects on COS, if only COS could be operationalized as originally intended as discussed above. This points towards potential issues in appropriateness of the scales used for studies on young adults, as both the PCO and COS scales were developed on a wide range (age diverse) of respondents. This study also showed that within-country differences appear to be smaller than across-country differences. This is not consistent with previous cross-cultural research in the IB literature, which suggest cultural values differ significantly at the individual level due to differences in individuals’ experiences. Again, such research was done on more diverse respondent populations, not a specific demographic cohort with distinct social experiences. This finding has implications for the general assumption that within-country differences are considerably larger than across-country differences, when it comes to cultural value studies. Thus, when focusing on a specific demographic generational cohort, it seems that even when it comes to representatives from two very diverse cultural backgrounds, one grounded in a more Western and Protestant-based cultural context with more independent identity construal and the other in a more Eastern and Confucian-based cultural context with more interdependent identity construal, my evidence shows grater tendency towards a generational archetype understanding of young adults.</p>

Personal Culture Orientation and Consumer Cosmopolitanism: The Moderating Effects of Product Involvement

<p>Cosmopolitan consumers generally refer to individuals who are open and unbiased towards foreign products and identify as citizens of the world. Despite growing relevance of understanding consumer cosmopolitanism (COS) in today’s changing international landscape, both the construct itself is still not that well understood and operationalized, as well as its social and psychographic antecedent. In terms of culture studies, recent culture studies within the IB discipline continue to debate over the appropriate definitions of culture, as well as its conceptualization, operationalization, and especially measurement. This research aims to explore the impact of personal cultural orientations (PCOs), as individual-level culture value concepts, on COS, as well as the potential moderating role of product involvement (e.g., high- vs low-involvement products). Young-adult consumers in Taiwan and New Zealand were chosen to provide a contrast between a typical Western, Anglo-Saxon-based perspective and a typical Eastern, Asian, Confucian-based cultural context. Overall, this study could not fully support PCOs as having a significant impact on COS, nor product involvement as a moderator. However, COS could not be tested as a second-order reflective latent construct as originally intended in the seminal paper by Riefler et al. (2012). Compared to Riefler et al. (2012)’s paper, differences can be observed in the sampling where Riefler et al. (2012) sampled respondents aged 19 to 93 years (mean=46.6). This suggests that young adults a generational cohort hold significantly different perspectives and dispositions to other generations and the overall population. This finding aligns with recent IB literature in looking for smaller ‘containers’ of culture. Of the three PCOs tested, two displayed significant effects to COS in both country samples, but only to one dimension of the COS construct (Open-mindedness) and not the other (Diversity appreciation). Hence it is highly likely the PCOs tested in this study have significant effects on COS, if only COS could be operationalized as originally intended as discussed above. This points towards potential issues in appropriateness of the scales used for studies on young adults, as both the PCO and COS scales were developed on a wide range (age diverse) of respondents. This study also showed that within-country differences appear to be smaller than across-country differences. This is not consistent with previous cross-cultural research in the IB literature, which suggest cultural values differ significantly at the individual level due to differences in individuals’ experiences. Again, such research was done on more diverse respondent populations, not a specific demographic cohort with distinct social experiences. This finding has implications for the general assumption that within-country differences are considerably larger than across-country differences, when it comes to cultural value studies. Thus, when focusing on a specific demographic generational cohort, it seems that even when it comes to representatives from two very diverse cultural backgrounds, one grounded in a more Western and Protestant-based cultural context with more independent identity construal and the other in a more Eastern and Confucian-based cultural context with more interdependent identity construal, my evidence shows grater tendency towards a generational archetype understanding of young adults.</p>

Grandchild Caring and Late-Life Depression: A Comparative Longitudinal Study in China and Europe

The impact of grandparenting on the grandparents’ health has been relatively under-studied, and international comparisons can provide useful lessons for grandparents and policymakers. This study examined country differences in the effects of grandchild care provision on the grandparents’ depression in Italy, Spain, China, Denmark and Sweden using the longitudinal Harmonised CHARLS and SHARE data collected between 2010-5. Controlling for the grandparents’ depression in 2011, grandparents providing non-intensive grandparental care in China, Sweden and Denmark in 2013 were less likely to report depression in 2015 compared to those who did not provide any care in 2013. Such effects were more pronounced among grandmothers compared to grandfathers. The results indicate that the effects of grandchild caring on the grandparents’ depression in China was comparable to Denmark and Sweden. Future research can focus on identifying the causal pathways between grandparenting and wellbeing, and the implications of such pathways for older persons’ wellbeing worldwide.

Exploring the provision and motives behind the adoption of health-promotion programmes in professional football clubs across four European countries

This study mapped existing health-promotion provisions targeting adults in professional football clubs across England, the Netherlands, Norway, and Portugal, and explored motives behind the clubs’ adoption of the European Fans in Training (EuroFIT) programme. We surveyed top-tier football clubs in the four countries and interviewed representatives from football clubs and the clubs’ charitable foundation who delivered EuroFIT. The findings showed large between-country differences, with football clubs in England reporting far greater healthy lifestyle provision than other countries. Relatively few health-promotion programmes targeted adults, particularly in the Netherlands, Portugal, and Norway. Club representatives reported that the motives for adopting the EuroFIT programme often involved adhering to both the social objectives of the football club or club’s foundation and business-related objectives. They viewed the scientific evidence and evaluation underpinning EuroFIT as helpful in demonstrating the value and potential future impact of both the programme and the clubs’ wider corporate social responsibility provision.