Progressivity and redistributive effects of income taxes: evidence from India.

We analyse the progressivity and redistributive effects of India's income tax system utilizing Income Tax Department data for 2011-18. By fitting Lorenz and tax concentration curves to these data, we find that despite exhibiting high levels of progressivity, the redistributive effects of income taxes remain modest amongst tax assessees and miniscule within the adult population. We also find that plugging the gap between statutory and actual average tax rates will do little to improve redistributive effects, and lowering income thresholds for top marginal tax rates offers greater redistributive and revenue potential than reducing exemption limits or increasing top marginal tax rates.

COVID-19: facts, figures, estimated relationships and analysis.

This study attempts an integrated analysis of the health and economic aspects of COVID-19 that is based on publicly available data from a wide range of data sources. The analysis is done keeping in mind the close interaction between the health and economic shocks of COVID-19. The study combines descriptive and qualitative approaches using figures and graphs with quantitative methods that estimate the plotted relationships and econometric estimation that attempts to explain cross-country variation in COVID-19 incidence, deaths and 'case fatality rates'. The study seeks to answer a set of questions on COVID-19 such as: what are the economic effects of COVID-19, focussing on international inequality and global poverty? How effective was lockdown in curbing COVID-19? What was the effect of lockdown on economic growth? Did the stimulus packages work in delinking the health shocks from the economic ones? Did 'better governed countries' with greater public trust and those with superior health care fare better than others? Did countries that have experienced previous outbreaks such as SARS fare better than those who have not? The study provides mixed messages on the effectiveness of lockdowns in controlling COVID-19. While several countries, especially in the East Asia and Pacific region, have used it quite effectively recording low infection rates going into lockdown and staying low after the lockdown, the two spectacular failures are Brazil and India. In contrast to lockdown, the evidence on the effectiveness of stimulus programs in avoiding recession and promoting growth is unequivocal. The effectiveness is much greater in the case of emerging/developing economies than in the advanced economies. Multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF need to work out a coordinated strategy to declare immediate debt relief and provide additional liquidity to the poorer economies to help them announce effective stimulus measures. COVID-19 will lead to a large increase in the global pool of those living in 'extreme poverty'. A poignant feature of our results is that while a significant share of health shocks from COVID-19 is borne by the advanced economies, the burden of 'COVID-19 poverty' will almost exclusively fall on two of the poorest regions, namely, Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Continuous Wearable Monitoring Analytics Predict Heart Failure Hospitalization: The LINK-HF Multicenter Study.

BACKGROUND: Implantable cardiac sensors have shown promise in reducing rehospitalization for heart failure (HF), but the efficacy of noninvasive approaches has not been determined. The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy of noninvasive remote monitoring in predicting HF rehospitalization. METHODS: The LINK-HF study (Multisensor Non-invasive Remote Monitoring for Prediction of Heart Failure Exacerbation) examined the performance of a personalized analytical platform using continuous data streams to predict rehospitalization after HF admission. Study subjects were monitored for up to 3 months using a disposable multisensor patch placed on the chest that recorded physiological data. Data were uploaded continuously via smartphone to a cloud analytics platform. Machine learning was used to design a prognostic algorithm to detect HF exacerbation. Clinical events were formally adjudicated. RESULTS: One hundred subjects aged 68.4±10.2 years (98% male) were enrolled. After discharge, the analytical platform derived a personalized baseline model of expected physiological values. Differences between baseline model estimated vital signs and actual monitored values were used to trigger a clinical alert. There were 35 unplanned nontrauma hospitalization events, including 24 worsening HF events. The platform was able to detect precursors of hospitalization for HF exacerbation with 76% to 88% sensitivity and 85% specificity. Median time between initial alert and readmission was 6.5 (4.2-13.7) days. CONCLUSIONS: Multivariate physiological telemetry from a wearable sensor can provide accurate early detection of impending rehospitalization with a predictive accuracy comparable to implanted devices. The clinical efficacy and generalizability of this low-cost noninvasive approach to rehospitalization mitigation should be further tested. Registration: URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique Identifier: NCT03037710.

DO IN UTERO SHOCKS HAVE ADVERSE EFFECTS ON CHILD HEALTH OUTCOMES AND CAN WELFARE SCHEMES AMELIORATE SUCH EFFECTS? EVIDENCE FROM ANDHRA PRADESH, INDIA.

This study aimed to assess whether shocks experienced by children in the mother's womb can have an adverse effect on their future health, and whether these effects can be ameliorated by government welfare schemes. Data were taken from three phases of the Young Lives Survey carried out in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in 2002, 2007 and 2009-2010. Different types of in utero shock were distinguished from the data. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) estimation, it was observed that multiple in utero shocks reduced children's weight-for-age and height-for-age z-scores by 0.07-0.08 and 0.08-0.15 units respectively. The roles of two Indian government welfare schemes - the Midday Meal Scheme (MDMS) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) - in mitigating the adverse effects of in utero shocks were examined. While the effect of the MDMS was statistically insignificant, that of the NREGS was significant. Although not designed to protect child health, the NREGS has been playing a more effective role than the MDMS in acting as a buffer against the damaging effects of in utero shocks on child health. The study points to the need for greater co-ordination between the two welfare schemes.

Treatment of left ventricular assist device-associated arteriovenous malformations with thalidomide.

Gastrointestinal bleeding because of arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) is an increasingly recognized complication of continuous flow left ventricular assist devices (LVADs). Currently, therapeutic options for LVAD-associated AVMs are limited and often require repeated endoscopic procedures and reduction or cessation of anticoagulation. Thalidomide has been utilized in the treatment of refractory bleeding because of gastrointestinal vascular malformations. Here we describe the case of a 66-year-old man with severe ischemic cardiomyopathy implanted with a continuous flow HeartMate II. His postoperative course was complicated by multiple hospital admissions for gastrointestinal bleeding because of LVAD-associated AVMs refractory to repeated argon plasma laser coagulation. Anticoagulation was discontinued with subsequent pump stoppage because of thrombus requiring urgent surgical pump exchange. Following this, thalidomide was initiated and anticoagulation with warfarin was continued. Since initiation of thalidomide, the patient has not had further gastrointestinal bleeding or evidence of pump thrombus in the subsequent 1 year.

Determinants of pregnancy and induced and spontaneous abortion in a jointly determined framework: evidence from a country-wide, district-level household survey in India.

This study provides evidence on the principal determinants of pregnancy and abortion in India using a large country-wide district-level data set (DLHS 2007). The paper provides an economic framework for the analysis of pregnancy and abortion. The study distinguishes between induced and spontaneous abortion and compares the effects of their determinants. The results show that there are wide differences between induced and spontaneous abortions in terms of the sign and magnitude of the estimated effects of several of their determinants, most notably wealth, the woman's age and her desire for children. The study makes a methodological contribution by proposing a trivariate probit estimation framework that recognizes the joint dependence of pregnancy and induced and spontaneous abortion, and provides evidence in support of this joint dependence. The study reports an inverted U-shaped effect of a woman's age on her pregnancy and both forms of abortion. The turning point in each case is quite robust to the estimation framework. A significant effect of contextual variables, at the village level, constructed from the individual responses, on a woman's pregnancy is found. The effects are weaker in the case of induced abortion, and insignificant in the case of spontaneous abortion. The results are shown to be fairly robust. This paper extends the literature on the relation between son preference and fertility by examining the link between mother's son preference and desire for more children with abortion rates.

Interaction between HIV awareness, knowledge, safe sex practice and HIV prevalence: evidence from Botswana.

This paper makes methodological and empirical contributions to the study of HIV in the context of Botswana, a country with high HIV prevalence. Comparable evidence is presented from India to put the Botswana results in perspective. The results point to the strong role played by affluence and education in increasing HIV knowledge, promoting safe sex and reducing HIV prevalence. The study presents African evidence on the role played by the empowerment of women in promoting safe sex practices such as condom use. The lack of significant association between HIV prevalence and safe sex practice points to the danger of HIV-infected individuals spreading the disease through multiple sex partners and unprotected sex. This danger is underlined by the finding that females with multiple sex partners are at higher risk of being infected with HIV. These results take on special policy significance in the context of Botswana, where the issue of multiple sex partners has not been adequately addressed in the programme to contain the spread of HIV.

Measuring the multi-dimensional knowledge deprivation of HIV/AIDS: a new approach with Indian evidence on its magnitude and determinants.

Though HIV/AIDS poses serious risks to economic security, there is very little economics literature quantifying awareness and knowledge of this disease and their principal socioeconomic determinants. This is what the present study attempts to do in the context of India, which faces a significant threat from HIV/AIDS. The study is based on India's National Family Health Surveys covering the period of economic reforms and beyond. The contribution is both methodological and empirical. The study shows that the recent multi-dimensional deprivation approach to poverty can also be used to measure and analyse awareness and lack of knowledge of HIV/AIDS. The use of decomposable multi-dimensional measures helps in identifying regions, socioeconomic groups and aspects of HIV knowledge that should be targeted in policy interventions. The study identifies the importance of safe sex practices as an area that needs to be targeted in future information campaigns. The study also explores the impact of increased female autonomy in health and economic decision-making on their and their partners' knowledge of the disease, along with a host of other economic and demographic determinants.

Reproducing the Piper trilinear diagram in rectangular coordinates.

Though several alternatives/modifications to the Piper diagram are available, the Piper diagram is still the most common way of representing chemical analyses. The present note shows how to reproduce the Piper trilinear diagram in rectangular coordinates retaining all the essential features of the trilinear diagram. In this form, it can be generated using commonly used graphics packages without requiring specialized software. A sample data set of six samples from Gurur watershed, Chhattisgarh, India, was used to illustrate the method. The patterns of points produced in the trilinear Piper diagram and the reproduced Piper diagram in rectangular coordinates are essentially identical.

Effects on neurite outgrowth and cell survival of a secreted fibroblast growth factor binding protein upregulated during spinal cord injury.

The fibroblast growth factor binding protein (FGF-BP; GenBank accession no. NP_005121) is a secreted protein that mobilizes FGFs from the extracellular matrix, protects them from degradation, and enhances their biological activity. Several previous studies reported that FGF-BP is an early response gene upregulated during tissue repair processes including wound healing and atherogenesis. In this study we analyzed whether FGF-BP expression was impacted by spinal cord injury and could have an effect on neuronal cell viability. Immunohistochemical and in situ hybridization studies revealed a dramatic upregulation of FGF-BP protein and mRNA levels following unilateral hemisection and contusion injury of adult rat spinal cord. In spinal cord sections of laminectomized rats, increased FGF-BP expression was observed in the fibers and cell bodies ipsilateral to the lesion site but was absent in the uninjured spinal cord tissue contralateral to the lesion. Increased expression of FGF-BP was observed at all postinjury time points, examined with peak levels occurring at day 4, a time when injury-induced increased levels of FGF2 have also been reported to be maximal. Moreover, using PC12 cells as a neuronal model, we observed that exogenous FGF-BP increased the capacity of FGF2 to stimulate neurite outgrowth and to increase cell survival. At the molecular level, FGF-BP enhanced FGF2-induced protein tyrosine phosphorylation and AKT/PKB activation. Collectively, these results suggest that FGF-BP is an early response gene after spinal cord injury and that its upregulation in regenerating spinal cord tissue may provide a molecular mechanism for enhancing the initial FGF2-mediated neurotrophic effects occurring after such tissue damage.

Up-regulation of fibroblast growth factor-binding protein, by beta-catenin during colon carcinogenesis.

Fibroblast growth factor-binding protein (FGF-BP) releases immobilized FGFs from the extracellular matrix and can function as an angiogenic switch molecule in cancer. Here we show that FGF-BP is up-regulated in early dysplastic lesions of the human colon that are typically associated with a loss of adenomatous polyposis coli and up-regulation of beta-catenin. In addition, FGF-BP expression is induced in dysplastic lesions in ApcMin/+ mice in parallel with the up-regulation of beta-catenin. Also, in cell culture studies FGF-BP is induced by beta-catenin through direct activation of the FGF-BP gene promoter. We conclude that FGF-BP is a target gene of beta-catenin.