Based on the seminal paper of Case, Quigley and Shiller (2013), we investigate the effects of financial and housing wealth on consumption. Using quarterly data from 1975 to 2016, for all States of U.S. economy, and a different methodology in measuring wealth, we report relatively greater financial effects than housing effects on consumption. Specifically, in our basic utilized model, the calculated elasticity for financial wealth is 0.060, while for housing is 0.045. The results are not in agreement with the ones obtained by Case, Quigley and Shiller. In an attempt to investigate the disparity we proceed by incorporating the introduction of the Tax Reform Act in 1986, which increased incentives for owner-occupied housing investments. Finally, due to distributional factors at work, and taking into account the pronounced uneven distribution of wealth we investigate the effects of wealth for 8 states that include the Metropolitan areas comprising of the well known Case-Shiller 10-City Composite Index. Now the housing effect on consumption is much stronger and larger than the financial effect. Additionally, we forecast the consumption changes at the time of the high rise and large drops in house prices for these states. Forecasts showed a recession from the fall of Lehman Brothers until the fourth quarter of 2011. These forecasts were not verified. Probably, the new techniques used by politics played an important role. We also find that extreme behaviors cannot be predicted.

The research objectives was to determine the plants vegetation profile in forest revegetation and Mount Arjuna springs. The method used was descriptive method. While based on the techniques and tools used to research, the author uses the survey method to obtain facts that occur in the research area, namely in the area around the springs of Arjuna mount, Pasuruan, East Java, Indonesia. Data obtained in the field are then processed and analyzed using GIS, ArcView 3.3 and Google Earth programs. The results of the study explain the profile of plant vegetation, namely plant stratification, bird wealth, taxonomic wealth and plant density have a significant effect on forest revegetation and springs in Arjuna mount. The forest vegetation profile has a positive and significant effect on the preservation of springs. The better the profile of forest vegetation, the preservation of springs will be better, and vice versa.

This study x-rays the philosophical meanings, interpretations, and intersections of death and wealth in Igbo cosmology. Using such tools as oral interviews, ethnography and participant observations, the researcher extracted data from both primary and secondary sources to clarify some misconceptions surrounding wealth and death in Igbo religious and philosophical thought. This research is timely because amidst a growing literature on the Igbo people and culture, discourses on the complementarity and convergence of good death and wealth have lacked attention over the years. This work fills this gap through the application of hermeneutic approach which enabled an informed conclusion that the Igbo recognise two categories of death: the bad death and the good death. While The bad death is abhorred and avoided, the good death is the expectation of every Igbo human person as it is a strong component of wealth. The findings provide a better understanding of African Igbo culture, death, wealth, and the meanings they attach to life which is equally important for a harmonious relationship and a stable social order. The paper calls for a reexamination of the narratives surrounding peripheral interpretations given to this aspect of Igbo culture. It further contributed to the growing volumes of literature on Igbo history, indigenous philosophy, and religion, among others.

The authors developed a wealth curve (bell curve) that can predict a group of individuals’ wealth based on the composite intelligence score which is calculated based on the sum of the intelligence quotient and emotional awareness score. The intelligence quotient was defined as one's ability to perform, comprehend and learn, and emotional awareness was defined as the emotional ability to recognize and make sense of emotions. To move towards the right on the X-axis of the Kabir wealth curve (e.g., accumulate more wealth), individuals must improve emotional awareness and choose a professional career path that lands higher income, calculated risk-taking, and being connected with individuals that can lead to financial deals. Similarly, those facing social injustice can accumulate more wealth by improving emotional awareness, which will help them navigate challenging environments.

This study used the National Demographic and Health Survey 2013 data to provide empirical answer the question of the relevance of western education in Nigeria relative to ethnic-regional practices of almajiri in the light of women’s educational attainment and wealth index in Nigeria. Women are the most vulnerable in the cultural practices in Nigeria as women’s education in Sub-Saharan Africa is far below the world average. Nigeria was recently proclaimed the world capital of poverty because it is among one of the countries with the highest number of people living below poverty line in the world with a larger proportion of poor being women. Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Ordered Probit Model were employed to analyse the data. The results revealed a significant effect of western education on women asset accumulation and the precaurious position of women resulting from lack of western education. This implies that higher attainment of western education increases the likelihood of being wealthy. The counterfactual effect of ethnic-regional practices of almajiri confirmed the disadvantage and backwardness of women staying in the region or coming from the ethnicity. This partly explains the likelihood of the differences in the level of development across the geopolitical zones and women welfare. Based on the findings the study recommends that policy maker should provide easy access to quality education, especially at both pre-primary and primary levels for all especially women. Also issues of graduate unemployment should be addressed as it reduces return from education.

Rural households across developing countries rely on diversified sources of income and forest resource play important role in this regard. This study is designed with the objectives of assessing the contribution of forests to annual income of rural households and identifying its determinants with the case of Essera woreda forest in western Ethiopia. It also examined the gender dimensions of forest income and how this income varies with the wealth status of households key informants interview focus group discussion and household based questionnaire survey were used to collect data. On average income from crop production accounted for (40.7%) of the total annual household income. Forest income is second in importance contributing (32.6%), income from livestock off and non-farm activities and woodlots accounted for (13.6%), (11.4%) and (1.7%) of the total household income respectively. Firewood is the most used forest product and constituted the largest proportion (79%) of the total forest income. Forest income is more important for poor households (47.3%) than for medium (30.5%) or rich (20.2%) households. It is also more important for female headed households (58.2%) than for male headed households (29%). The gender dimension of forest income is also important within the household. Female members generated about four times more forest income (77% of the household forest income) than male members (23%). Policy to promote new forest management arrangement such as participatory forest management (PFM) needs to take in to account the major forest users and the types of products they depend on and be accompanied with other poverty reduction measures so that improved forest conservation outcome will not have negative consequences on local livelihoods particularly on poor and women who depend most on the forest.

Dynamics of human populations can be affected by various socio-economic factors through their influence on the natality and mortality rates, and on the migration intensity and directions. In this work we study an economic-demographic model which takes into account the dependence of the wealth production rate on the available resources. In the case of nonlocal consumption of resources the homogeneous in space wealth-population distribution is replaced by a periodic in space distribution for which the total wealth increases. For the global consumption of resources, if the wealth redistribution is small enough, then the homogeneous distribution is replaced by a heterogeneous one with a single wealth accumulation center. Thus, economic and demographic characteristics of nonlocal and global economies can be quite different in comparison with the local economy.

The practice of collecting, treating and management of solid waste prior to disposal has become a necessity in developing and modern societies. Over the years, it is known that most wastes that are disposed have a second hand value. However, the construction cost for conventional Material Recovery Facility(s) (MRFs) has been a major barrier for implementation. These technologies require considerable technical expertise, which is often not available in developing nations to successfully operate the MRFs. Covenant University; a private mission institution through her waste to wealth scheme is focused on managing and processing used materials to reusable products. These include Pet bottles, Paper wastes, Food wastes from cafeteria, plastic food packs, nylon, tin cans and others. Specific areas chosen for the Survey include the residential areas for staff and students and the two cafeterias. The waste generated was characterized based on the waste stream so as to quantify the amount of recyclable waste generated and most occurring. The survey involved the use of structured questionnaires, on-site observations and measurements. The study reveals an average amount of recyclable waste generated per day in the institution as 13.46% pet bottles, 4.03% paper, 55.56% food waste, 12.64% plastic, 9.63% nylon and 4.68% tin cans. The study established that adequate waste characterization is a requirement for effective integrated solid waste management which would boost resource recovery, reuse and recycling.

Background: Intelligence quotient (IQ) is a measure of intellectual ability of performing, comprehension, and learning. Previous studies reported that intelligence measures predict various measures of job performance and income. Emotional awareness (EA) is the measure of emotional capacity to recognize and make sense of one’s emotions, as well as those of others. A high level of emotional awareness (EA) indicates one can learn from expressed emotions quickly. Both IQ and EA are important for personal and professional success.Objective: This study tests the hypothesis that the average national income rank is best predicted by the combined effect of the population's average intelligence quotient (one's ability to perform and learn) and emotional awareness (ability to recognize and make sense of emotions).Method: The population’s average intelligence quotient (IQ), emotional awareness (EA), and indices of good governance, which include corruption perception index and educational expenses for each country, were obtained from public data sources. The outcome variable was per capita gross national income. All the variables that are statistically significant in univariate analysis were included in the multivariate regression analyses but excluded from the final model if not statistically significant.Result: The total number of countries included in the final analysis was 81 because of missing values in different variables. Intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional awareness (EA) were found to be highly correlated, at 0.77 and 0.32 respectively, with the per capita gross national income. The independent effects of intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional awareness (EA) were found significant in the multivariate model after adjusting for measures of good governance. The R square value for the final multivariate model was 0.82. The corruption perception index (CPI) and educational expenses were strongly correlated with other measures of good governance such as democracy index, functioning of government, electoral process and pluralism, political participation, and civil liberty, but these variables were found not significant in the multivariate model. Conclusion: The study concludes the effect of intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional awareness (EA) are complementary to each other but intelligence quotient (IQ) is a stronger predictor than emotional awareness (EA) for gross national income or wealth. We also find that indicators of good governance, including corruption perception index and educational expenses, have important associations with per capita gross national income. This study implies a nation may build more wealth if the educational system focuses on developing emotional awareness in addition to intelligence. The study concludes the effect of intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional awareness (EA) are complementary to each other but intelligence quotient (IQ) is a stronger predictor than emotional awareness (EA) for gross national income or wealth. We also find that indicators of good governance, including corruption perception index and educational expenses, have important associations with per capita gross national income. This study implies a nation may build more wealth if the educational system focuses on developing emotional awareness in addition to intelligence.

While entropy was introduced in the second half of the 19th century in the international vocabulary as a scientific term, in the 20th century it became common in colloquial use. Popular imagination has loaded “entropy” with almost every negative quality in the universe, in life and in society, with a dominant meaning of disorder and disorganization. Exploring the history of the term and many different approaches on it, we show that entropy has a universal stochastic definition which is not disorder. The accompanying principle of maximum entropy, which lies behind the Second Law, gives explanatory and inferential power to the concept and promotes entropy as the mother of creativity and evolution. As social sciences are often contaminated by subjectivity and ideological influences, we try to explore whether the maximum entropy, applied to the distribution of wealth quantified by annual income, can give an objective description. Using publicly available income data, we show that the income distribution is consistent with the principle of the maximum entropy. The increase of entropy is associated to increase of society’s wealth yet a standardized form of entropy can be used to quantify inequality. Historically, technology has played a major role in development and increase of the entropy of income. Such findings are contrary to the theories of ecological economics and other theories which use the term entropy in a Malthusian perspective.

In this paper we develop a “general equilibrium” (GE) model for the allocation of exhaustible natural resources to examine the impact of different extraction scenarios on intergenerational economic welfare. We apply a stylized GE model to Israel's natural gas (NG) market to evaluate economic indicators resulting from NG-extraction scenarios: a baseline scenario based on current policy in the NG sector, a conservative scenario based on a lower extraction rate, and an intensive scenario based on faster extraction. We also examine the impact of various resource income-allocation strategies on intergenerational economic welfare through the mechanism of a “sovereign wealth fund” (SWF). The results indicate that a higher NG-extraction rate combined with an appropriate investment strategy for NG profits is preferable from an economic perspective to a conservative rate. Investment of the government take from the NG market in research and development (R&D) of renewable electricity productivity can sustainably increase economic welfare.

The paper draws attention and opens the debate on major societal issues that concern not only Muslims but human societies, at large, because of their profound implications, afflictions, and their present and future transitive dimensions. The paper discusses two major issues that have attracted a great deal of attention in the recent past: wealth and income disparities, and global indebtedness. Four remedies have stressed upon and/or proposed to eradicate and/or lessen some of the burdens of these problems have been thoroughly examined. These are: - Stripping commercial banks of their power to create money out of thin air (i.e., Ex Nihilo). Thus, reviving financial reform in line with the spirit of the call for the “Establishment of a National Bank [in England]” in the 1820s by the renowned British economist David Ricardo (1772-1823). The Bank of England was a private commercial entity at that time. - Prohibiting of ‘harmful’ speculation activities in financial and economic transactions and/or imposing hefty taxes on transactions relating to such activities. The implementation of such a policy requires and clear-cut distinction between the ‘harmful’ and ‘non-harmful’ speculative activities in financial and non-financial markets. - Levying adequate and fair taxes on the wealthiest upper class at the global scene. Calls for such a policy is on rise in the past few years. For instance, “Speakers at the European Development Days summit in Brussels, [in 2017], said that a just tax system should be “at the heart” of the development debate, and that more transparency is needed to ensure that companies pay their fair share. Tax avoidance schemes used by multinational companies, such as moving profits to tax havens, result in global losses of around $650 billion a year in tax receipts — with developing countries losing $200 billion, according to a study from the International Monetary Fund”, (Edwards, 2017; Crivello et al., 2015, p. 21) - Establishing a neutral legislative and tax regimes for different modes of financing. Thus, providing ‘a level playing field’ for equity and debt modes of financing due to the current biasness of the tax regimes to debt-based financing instruments as it has been documented in various studies carried out by the IMF, the European Commission, and other international prominent bodies.

Geriatric decisional capacity assessment is a complex medico-legal activity that evaluates normal subjects involved in specific civil matter like wealth transfer, access to treatment or voluntary hospitalization. Our objective was to evaluate how geriatric extrajudicial capacity exams impacted a general psychiatric unit over a decade. We also assessed the value of a surrogate biomarker (neutrophils to lymphocyte ratio) as a screening factor in the capacity assessment process. 72 cases were assessed in one psychiatric unit over a decade (2009-2018). As population was fast ageing, the total number of capacity exams per year doubled in time. None of the subjects had an active diagnostic of severe cognitive impairment or active psychiatric disease. The percentage of subjects receiving an “absence of capacity” conclusion remained constant over time (approx. 20% of all cases). 81% of the subjects within this subgroup had a clinical diagnostic of mild cognitive impairment compared to 46% in the “presence of capacity” subgroup (p<0.001). The surrogate biomarker neutrophils to lymphocyte ratio was significantly higher in the “absence of capacity” subgroup, mainly related to a cognitive impairment diagnostic. The ratio has to be validated by larger studies before to be included in the capacity assessment process as an early screening tool.

Relying on Random Utility Theory (RUT) as the guiding mechanism for the Data Generating Process (DGP), this paper uses households consumption choices on cooking fuel, drinking water, and sanitation from the 2014 United States Agency for International Development's (USAID) Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data on Burkina Faso, to characterize and investigate the inter-linkages between health consciousness and environmental consciousness, and their relationship with wealth in a low income country context. We achieve this by specifying sequentially three econometric modeling frameworks: the first one being independent binary probit (IBP) models to describe each choice process, followed by a fully parametric trivariate probit (FPTP) model to account for choice dependency, and finally by a semi-parametric trivariate probit (SPTP) model to further relax the linearity assumption. Based on the Akaike Information criteria (AIC) and the estimated Trivariate model correlation coefficients, the SPTP framework is found to be the best specification for describing the observed consumption behaviors. The results show that increased wealth level raises households health and environmental consciousness, while leaving the relative preference ordering over the elements in the household consumption basket unchanged.

Abstract Big datasets are becoming increasingly common and can be challenging to understand and apply in public health. One method for lowering the dimensionality of these datasets and improving interpretability while minimizing information loss is data reduction using principal component analysis (PCA). It achieves this by successively maximizing variance through the creation of new, uncorrelated variables. PCA is an adaptive data analysis technique because it simplifies the process of finding new variables, or principal components, by solving an eigenvalue or eigenvector problem. These new variables are determined by the dataset being used, rather than by the analyst starting from scratch. It is also adaptable in another way because varieties of the method have been designed to adjust to various data structures and types. However, there are serious problems in the theoretical understanding and practical application of PCA in public health researchers, whereas its application is becoming popular in developing countries. Therefore, this article, which concentrated on using PCA to reduce data, began by outlining the fundamental concepts of PCA and going over what it can and cannot do, as well as when and how to use it. We also discussed the fundamental assumptions, benefits, and drawbacks of PCA. Furthermore, this article demonstrated and resolved PCA practical application problems in public health that most scholars are unaware of, such as variable preparation, variable inclusion and exclusion criteria for PCA, iteration steps, wealth index analysis, interpretation, and ranking.