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Should Côte d'Ivoire introduce a digital service tax?
No full textTaxing the digital economy has proved challenging everywhere. Aminata Niang looks at whether a digital service tax could be the answer for Côte d’Ivoire
Forging a sustainable future together: cohesion Policy at its defining moment
No full textThis policy debate outlines a renewed vision for the EU’s Cohesion Policy amid the growing political uncertainty threatening its very viability. Drawing on the High-Level Group on the Future of Cohesion Policy’s findings, it advocates for a more dynamic, systemic approach emphasising institutional capacity, territorial sensitivity, global links, and performance-based delivery. These are areas where past reforms have underdelivered. It warns against marginalising cohesion in favour of top-down, centralised strategies, arguing it is more than a funding tool. Cohesion Policy is the EU’s most democratic mechanism, fostering trust, participation and unity. Revitalising it is essential for competitiveness, resilience and the very future of Europe
What is the value of a park?
No full textParks can be much-loved oases within a city, but quite how important they are when compared to other amenities is tricky to measure. Christian Krekel shows how wellbeing data can be used to put a monetary figure on the value of a park for residents
Prices and affordability of essential medicines in 72 low-, middle-, and high-income markets
No full textImportance: Little is known about how the prices and affordability of medicines included on the World Health Organization’s Model List of Essential Medicines vary across the globe. Objective: To compare the list prices and affordability of essential medicines across high-, middle-, and low-income markets. Design and Setting: This cross-sectional study examined data from 2022 on list prices and volumes of 549 essential medicines in 72 high-, middle-, and low-income markets (covering 87 countries). These data were obtained from IQVIA. The statistical analyses were performed between August 2024 and March 2025. Main Outcomes and Measures: Laspeyres price indices were used to compare average drug prices across countries, both in nominal and purchasing power parity–adjusted terms. The affordability of 8 essential medicines, used to treat major causes of death and disability globally, was assessed by calculating how many days of minimum wage would be required to pay for 1 month of treatment. Results: The availability of essential medicines ranged from 225 (41%) in Kuwait to 438 (80%) in Germany (base country). After accounting for purchasing power parities, prices of essential medicines in Lebanon were, on average, 18.1% of those in Germany (Lebanon price index, 18.1 vs Germany price index, 100), while average prices in the US were 3.0 times higher than in Germany (US price index, 298.2). A positive association was observed between countries’ gross domestic product per capita (expressed in logarithmic terms) and nominal drug prices (R = 0.30; P = .01), indicating that richer countries generally had higher drug prices. However, when adjusting for the purchasing power of different currencies, an inverse association was observed (R = −0.35; P = .003), suggesting that richer countries had lower real prices. Drug affordability, as measured by the number of days’ minimum wage needed to purchase a month’s treatment, varied widely, with median affordability highest in Europe and the Western Pacific, and lowest in Africa and Southeast Asia. Conclusions and Relevance: The results of this cross-sectional analysis showed significant variation in the prices and affordability of 549 essential medicines across 72 markets in 2022. Strategies to promote equitable drug prices and improve drug affordability are urgently needed
Corruption in cyclone relief and reconstruction: evidence from a public fund distribution in Bangladesh
No full textAfter the 2009 cyclone ‘Aila’, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh announced a special assistance of Tk. 20,000 (∼$300) to rebuild the houses of the affected households. We examine the role of networks in determining the incidence and extent of corruption associated with this grant by using two rounds of a household-level survey collected before and after the announcement and distribution of the grant. Our results inform that although bribery and missing grants were considerably lower in the rebuilding grant than the generally perceived level of corruption, network formation played an important role in the grant allocation and distribution process. In fact, households endogenously developed political networks to be able to bribe for enlistment for and receipt of the grant, as evident from the positive and significant influence of political networks on the probabilities and amounts of bribes and missing grants. Consequently, although the fund was channeled to disaster-affected villages, household-level allocation and distribution may have suffered from considerable irregularities. Our research may provide guidance for curbing corruption as it highlights the hindering yet central role of political connections in the distribution of post-disaster relief funds
The impact of multimarket competition on generic drugs' regulated prices
No full textCompetition between firms selling similar drugs is often fostered by policymakers as a means to curb pharmaceutical spending. While firms may compete within these specific drug markets, they also repeatedly encounter rival firms in different markets. This may shape competitive dynamics within and between markets. Yet, multimarket contacts, particularly relevant for multiproduct firms such as pharmaceutical companies, are often overlooked by pricing regulations. This paper investigates how multimarket contacts influence competition between pharmaceutical firms in off-patent markets. Using detailed product-level information on all retail pharmacy sales of generic statin drugs, we quantify the universe of multimarket contacts between firms in these off-patent markets, in Portugal, between 2015 and 2017. We then assess how multimarket contacts affect price competition. To do so, we explore the strict price regulation in Portuguese generic drug markets. Specifically, the Portuguese Internal Reference Pricing System (RPS) defines a price cap for each generic drug. Rather than examining absolute drug prices, we quantify the degree of price competition as the ratio between a firm's drug price and its regulatory price cap (price-to-cap ratio). We find that firms with more multimarket interactions set prices closer to price caps, consistent with the mutual forbearance hypothesis. This effect persists after controlling for brand status, lagged market share, and is not explained by common ownership. Our main results are consistent across alternative model specifications. However, due to limited within-firm variation over time, the effect is not significant in system generalized method of moment instrumental variable estimates. These results suggest that price caps may act as coordination anchors, thus lowering price competition between firms. Policymakers should consider targeted price cap adjustments as safeguards to preserve competition in off-patent drug markets. [Abstract copyright: © 2025 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Sites of statelessness laws, cities, seas. Edited by Ayşe Çağlar, Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, and Ranabir Samaddar. SUNY Press, 2024. 277p.
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How migrating overseas shapes political preferences: evidence from a field experiment
No full textScholarship on cross-border migration and welfare state politics has focused on native-born individuals’ attitudes. How does migration affect the redistribution preferences of migrants—key constituents in host and home countries? We argue that migration causes migrants to adopt more fiscally conservative attitudes, driven not only by economic gains but also by psychological shifts toward self-reliance and beliefs in the prospect of upward mobility. We present results from a randomized controlled trial that facilitated labor migration from India to the Middle East. The intervention prompted high rates of cross-border migration and significantly reduced support for taxation and redistribution among migrants. By contrast, left-behind family members did not become more fiscally conservative despite also experiencing economic gains. While the migrants became economically confident and self-reliant, their family members grew increasingly dependent on remittances. Our results demonstrate that globalization’s impacts on welfare-state preferences depend on the pathways by which it generates economic opportunity
An integrated framework for modelling respiratory disease transmission and designing surveillance networks using a sentinel index
No full textDefining epidemiologically relevant placements for sentinel units is critical for establishing effective health surveillance systems. We propose a novel methodology to identify optimal sentinel unit locations using network approaches and metapopulation modelling. Disease transmission dynamics were modelled using syndromic data on respiratory diseases, integrated with road mobility data. A generalizable sentinel index is introduced as a metric that evaluates the suitability of a site to host a sentinel unit, based on topological metrics and metapopulation dynamics. A case study using syndromic data from primary health care attendances in Bahia, Brazil, validated the relevance of existing sentinel units while identifying opportunities for local re-designs to improve disease surveillance coverage