Climate change and state evolution.

Despite the vast evidence on the short-run effects of adverse climate shocks on the economy, our understanding of their long-run impact on institutions is limited. To tackle such a key issue, a vast body of research has focused on ancient societies because of the limited complexity of their economies and their unparalleled experience with environmental and institutional change. Notably, the "collapse archaeology" literature has reported countless correlations consistent with the mantra that severe droughts are bound to trigger institutional crises. This conclusion, however, has been recently challenged by a stream of papers that, building on more detailed data on Bronze Age Mesopotamia and a more credible theory-based empirical strategy, have yielded the following two results. First, severe droughts pushed the elites to grant strong political and property rights to the nonelites to convince them that a sufficient part of the returns on joint investments would be shared via public good provision and, thus, to cooperate and accumulate a culture of cooperation. Second, a more favorable climate allowed the elites to elicit cooperation under less inclusive political regimes as well as a weaker culture of cooperation and, possibly, incomplete property rights. These patterns emphasize the importance of considering the asymmetric effect of droughts and, more generally, combining natural and social sciences for the evaluation of climate-related policies.

A novel dataset on a culture of cooperation and inclusive political institutions in 90 European historical regions observed between 1000 and 1600.

A culture of cooperation, which is the implicit reward from cooperating in any prisoner's dilemma and investment types of activity, and inclusive political institutions, which enable the citizenry to better select public-spirited representatives and check their decisions, are key for economic development. To foster research on the determinants and impact of these institutions, we illustrate a novel data set employed in [1] and [4] and gathering a measure of the activity of the Cistercians and the Franciscans, which is a proxy for the citizens' culture, and a constraints on the elite's decision-making power score, which is a proxy for the inclusiveness of political institutions, for a panel of 90 European historical regions spanning the 1000-1600 period.

A novel dataset on horizontal property rights in 126 jurisdictions.

The law and the economy are deeply influenced by horizontal property rights, which are the rules regulating legal direct and indirect takings between private parties. To foster research on the determinants and impact of these institutions, we illustrate here a novel data set partially employed in (Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe, Carmine Guerriero, 2015; Dari-Mattiacci, Giuseppe, Carmine Guerriero, Zhenxing Huang, 2016) [3], [4], and (Guerriero Carmine, 2016) [6] and describing the acquisition of ownership through adverse possession of personal and real property and the use of government takings to transfer real property from a private party to another private party in 126 jurisdictions. These data are based on the laws and judicial decisions prevailing in each jurisdiction between 1981 and 2011.

A novel dataset on legal traditions, their determinants, and their economic role in 155 transplants.

The law and the economy are deeply influenced by the legal tradition or origin, which is the bundle of institutions shaping lawmaking and dispute adjudication. The two principal legal traditions, common law and civil law, have been transplanted through colonization and occupation to the vast majority of the jurisdictions in the world by a group of European countries. Here, I illustrate a novel dataset recording the lawmaking institution employed by 155 of these jurisdictions at independence and in 2000 and four discretion-curbing adjudication institutions adopted by 99 of these "transplants" at the same two points in time. Contrary to the "legal origins" scholars׳ assumption, 25 transplants changed the transplanted lawmaking institution and 95 modified at least one of the transplanted lawmaking and adjudication rules. In "Endogenous Legal Traditions" (Guerriero, 2016a) [12], I document that these reforms are consistent with a model of the design of legal institutions by societies heterogeneous in their endowment of both the extent of cultural heterogeneity and the quality of the political process. In "Endogenous Legal Traditions and Economic Outcomes" (Guerriero, 2016b) [13] moreover, I show the relevance of considering legal evolution and the endogeneity between legal traditions and economics outcomes. The data illustrated here also include the proxies for the determinants of legal evolution I use in "Endogenous Legal Traditions" (Guerriero, 2016a) [12] and the novel measure of economic outcomes I employ in "Endogenous Legal Traditions and Economic Outcomes" (Guerriero, 2016b) [13].

Follow-up of intestinal metaplasia in the stomach: When, how and why.

Gastric cancer remains the second most frequent cause of cancer-related mortality in the world. Screening programs in some Asian countries are impractical in the majority of other countries worldwide. Therefore, follow-up of precancerous lesions is advisable for secondary gastric cancer prevention. Intestinal metaplasia (IM) is recognized as a precancerous lesion for gastric cancer, increasing the risk by 6-fold. IM is highly prevalent in the general population, being detected in nearly 1 of every 4 patients undergoing upper endoscopy. The IM prevalence rate is significantly higher in patients with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection, in first-degree relatives of gastric cancer patients, in smokers and it increases with patient age. IM is the "breaking point" in the gastric carcinogenesis cascade and does not appear to regress following H. pylori eradication, although the cure of infection may slow its progression. Gastric cancer risk is higher in patients with incomplete-type IM, in those with both antral and gastric body involvement, and the risk significantly increases with IM extension over 20% of the gastric mucosa. Scheduled endoscopic control could be cost-effective in IM patients, depending on the yearly incidence of gastric cancer in IM patients, the stage of gastric cancer at diagnosis discovered at surveillance, and the cost of endoscopy. As a pragmatic behavior, yearly endoscopic control would appear justified in all IM patients with at least one of these conditions: (1) IM extension > 20%; (2) the presence of incomplete type IM; (3) first-degree relative of gastric cancer patients; and (4) smokers. In the remaining IM patients, a less intensive (2-3 years) could be proposed.