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The Blair government’s healthcare reforms sought to reduce patient waiting times through targets and sanctions – crude instruments of which economists are often sceptical. But this column says that they worked.
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I would recommend the system of mortgage credit used in Denmark, where loan-to-value ratios and underwriting standards are strictly enforced by a single, strong regulator. These mortgages are transformed into instantly tradable bonds.
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Our results indicate that an optimal level of central bank transparency exists. Many central banks, in emerging economies in particular, are still likely to benefit from increasing transparency. This is far less evident for major central banks in the world like the Federal Reserve System, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England.
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The most striking result is just how low turnout is among those under 30 compared to older voters. No age group 18-29 managed to reach 45% turnout in 2000, and only two made it in 2004. Not one single age group over 30 fell so low in either year.
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The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, provides the first evidence that Tasmania’s giant kangaroos and marsupial ‘rhinos’ and ‘leopards’ were still roaming the island when humans first arrived. The findings suggest that the mass extinction of Tasmania’s large prehistoric animals was the result of human hunting, and not climate change as previously believed.
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While many factors have been cited for the profound change in global amphibian populations, a new emerging infectious disease, chytridiomycosis, is thought to be directly responsible for wiping out more than 200 species. It poses the greatest threat to biodiversity of any known disease. An aquatic fungus of unknown origin, it’s the first of its kind to infect vertebrates, and only amphibians.