This paper summarizes the results of three individual research projects (Asfaw, 2005; Lamiraud et al., 2005; Xu et al., 2005) measuring the impact of membership in a health insurance scheme in three African countries, namely Kenya, Senegal and South Africa. It is structured as follows. The first section...

A simple econometric analysis is undertaken concerning the impact of the degree of risk sharing in countries' health financing organization on the goals of the health system, as defined in the World Health Report 2000, i.e., the level of health and its distribution across the population, the...

A large number of governments in all regions of the world have recognised the need for paid sick leave although the benefi t schedules vary widely. International data show that the incidence of paid sick leave is closely associated with overall economic developments. What are the patterns of...

We apply the fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive (FCVAR) model to analyze the relationship between spot and futures prices in five commodity markets (aluminium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc). To this end, we first extend the FCVAR model to accommodate deterministic trends in the...

In this paper we apply the recently developed fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive (FCVAR) model to analyze price discovery in the spot and futures markets for five non-ferrous metals (aluminium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc). The FCVAR model allows for long memory (fractional...

We apply the fractionally cointegrated vector autoregressive (FCVAR) model to analyze the relationship between spot and futures prices in five commodity markets (aluminium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc). To this end, we first extend the FCVAR model to accommodate de terministic trends in the...

Based on recent evidence of fractional cointegration in commodity spot and futures markets, we investigate whether a fractionally cointegrated model can provide statistically and/or economically significant forecasts of commodity returns. Specifically, we propose to model and forecast commodity...