Falls are a leading cause of death from injury among older persons in the United States, and about one in three older persons falls each year. Yet, reliable estimates of the incidence of fall injury events in a population-based setting are not readily available. Therefore, the authors analyzed population-based surveillance data, between July 1985 and June 1987, from the Study to Assess Falls Among the Elderly, Miami Beach, Florida. The rate of fall injury events coming to acute medical attention increased exponentially with age for both elderly men and women (predominantly white), reaching a high for those aged 85 years or more of 138.5 per 1,000 for males and 158.8 per 1,000 for females. Compared with males, females had a higher incidence of fractures other than skull. Males were nearly twice as likely to die, however, following a fall injury event than were females. Of those fall injury events identified through the surveillance system, about 42% resulted in hospital admission. The mean length of hospital stay was 11.6 days overall and was 15.5 days for hip fracture, 9.8 days for skull fracture/intracranial injury, 11.2 days for all other fractures, and 9.1 days for all other injuries. About 50% of fall injury events that occurred at home and required hospital admission resulted in a person being discharged to a nursing home.

Theoretical models and empirical studies exploring the relationship between income inequality and growth reach a disappointing inconclusive answer. We postulate in this paper that one reason for this inconclusive result is that income inequality consist at least in two different sorts of inequality, inequality of opportunity and effort. These two types of inequality would affect growth through opposite channels. As a result, the relationship between income inequality and growth could be positive or negative depending on which kind of inequality is more relevant. We test this proposal using depurated data of the PSID database for 24 US states from 1980 to 2000. We estimate regressions that relate growth with overall income inequality, inequality of opportunity and other widespread used control variables. We find robust support for a negative relationship between inequality of opportunity and growth and a positive relationship between growth and income inequality.JEL Classification: D63, H00.Key Words: income inequality; inequality of opportunity; economic growth. INTRODUC TIONAn upsurge literature on income inequality and growth has emerged over the last two decades. The development of endogenous growth theory has provided the tools to handle the relationships between income inequality and economic growth within a dynamic equilibrium setting. Relaxing the representative-agent assumption raises two main questions. The first concerns the effects of income and wealth inequality on growth. The second addresses the reverse causation from growth to inequality, and disputes about the Kuznets (1955) hypothesis, according to which development and growth should eventually reduce income inequality.We concentrate on the first channel of influence, that is, on the effects of income inequality on growth. In this respect, two sets of growth models have been proposed in the literature: models where inequality is necessary for growth and models where inequality is harmful for growth. As it will become clear in the next section, the prevalence of a positive or negative relationship between income inequality and growth from a theoretical perspective is not possible since income inequality may affect economic growth in both directions through many different channels. For example, wealth and human capital heterogeneity across individuals produces a negative relationship between income inequality and growth because capital markets are imperfect. Meanwhile, income inequality may courage people s effort and, therefore, economic growth. In this manner, opposite forces give rise to a confusing picture of the relationship between economic growth and inequality. Worst still, the empirical evidence on the link from initial income inequality to future growth is mixed. Thus, there is a general inconclusiveness of cross-sectional and panel data studies of the relationship between income inequality and growth. In this respect, Ehrhart (2009) acknowledges in a recent survey on this topic that the overall rather disappointing econometric ...

Social distancing and lockdown measures taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 may have distributional economic costs beyond the contraction of GDP. Here we evaluate the capacity of individuals to work under a lockdown based on a Lockdown Working Ability index which considers their teleworking capacity and whether their occupation is essential or closed. Our analysis reveals substantial and uneven potential wage losses across the distribution all around Europe and we consistently find that both poverty and wage inequality rise in all European countries. Under four different scenarios (2 months of lockdown and 2 months of lockdown plus 6 months of partial functioning of closed occupations at 80%, 70% and 60% of full capacity) we estimate for 29 European countries an average increase in the headcount poverty index that goes from 4.9 to 9.4 percentage points and a mean loss rate for poor workers between 10% and 16.2%. The average increase in the Gini coefficient ranges between 3.5% to 7.3% depending on the scenario considered. Decomposing overall wage inequality in Europe, we find that lockdown and social distance measures produce a double process of divergence: both inequality within and between countries increase.

The 14-3-3 protein Rad24 modulates the availability of Cdc42 GEF Gef1, spatially regulating Cdc42 activity during cell morphogenesis. Gef1 is sequestered in the cytoplasm upon 14-3-3 interaction, mediated by Orb6 kinase. The resulting competition for Gef1 promotes anticorrelated Cdc42 oscillations at cell tips.

Current fall-prevention strategies of finding and changing all environmental hazards in all community-dwelling older persons' homes may have less potential effect than previously thought. The usefulness of grab bars, however, appears to warrant further evaluation.