ABSTRACT
To fulfill the Paris Agreement commitments and stimulated by an unprecedented amount of public resources put in place to recover from the COVID-induced recession, European governments have recently announced sizable green policy plans. In this paper, we examine the behavior of green and brown stocks around green policy-related announcements (GPAs) made by major European governments in 2020 via a standard event study analysis and the use of returns of stocks listed in the “STOXX 100 All Europe”. Our main empirical findings indicate the presence of positive cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) both in the green and brown sectors following GPAs. However, the estimated positive sentiment effect is stronger in the former sectors. A size effect in terms of the amount of resources announced to be allocated for a specific category of policy is also observed. We find that the observed positive sentiment is mainly driven by announcements on climate change mitigation-related policies, which account for 70% of the total allocated funds. At the sector level, positive and significant CARs due to GPAs are found in the (i) energy, (ii) financial and (iii) industrial sectors. At the country level, GPAs are found to drive a significant positive sentiment effect in the following European countries: Switzerland, Spain, UK, Ireland and Italy. Sector- and country-level analyses confirm the presence of larger benefits from GPAs among more sustainable portfolios.
ABSTRACT
Background: Since February 2020, CoViD-19 spread in Italy. Acute respiratory failure (ARF) was the most relevant clinical presentation, often requiring invasive and non-invasive ventilation. We report the management of ARF in in-patients using Easy Vent Mask (EVM) system for C-PAP, a device registered for prehospital use. Methods: In this retrospective study, we included all patients admitted to Emergency Medicine Unit from March 2 to April 25, 2020 with ARF secondary to CoViD-19 pneumonia and treated with EVM system. Our aim was to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of in-hospital use of EVM system. All demographic, clinical and treatment data were recorded. Results: Thirty patients affected by mild/moderate CoViD-19 pneumonia having PaO2/FiO2(P/F) ratio between 100 and 200 were treated with EVM system for C-PAP, of them 25(83%) were discharged and 5(17%) died in hospital. The system was well tolerated with a mean time of use of 13 consecutive days. Five patients were transferred to ICU due to failure of C-PAP treatment, of whom 3 died. Two patients died in our ward for worsening of clinical conditions. Pressure skin lesions and hypercapnia were recorded as adverse events in 24 and 2 patients respectively. Moreover, our finding showed a higher reduction of P/F value and a longer time from admission to C-PAP initiation in non-survivors, compared to survivor patients. Conclusions: EVM system for C-PAP seemed to be well tolerated and may represent an alternative to ventilators in in-hospital treatment of CoViD-19 mild/moderate pneumonia, but dedicated studies are needed.