Gut Microbiota Manipulation in Foals—Naturopathic Diarrhea Management, or Unsubstantiated Folly?

Diarrhea in foals is a problem of significant clinical and economic consequence, and there are good reasons to believe microbiota manipulation can play an important role in its management. However, given the dynamic development of the foal microbiota and its importance in health and disease, any prophylactic or therapeutic efforts to alter its composition should be evidence based. The few clinical trials of probiotic preparations conducted in foals to date show underwhelming evidence of efficacy and a demonstrated potential to aggravate rather than mitigate diarrhea. Furthermore, recent studies have affirmed that variable but universally inadequate quality control of probiotics enables inadvertent administration of toxin-producing or otherwise pathogenic bacterial strains, as well as strains bearing transferrable antimicrobial resistance genes. Consequently, it seems advisable to approach probiotic therapy in particular with caution for the time being. While prebiotics show initial promise, an even greater scarcity of clinical trials makes it impossible to weigh the pros and cons of their use. Advancing technology will surely continue to enable more detailed and accurate mapping of the equine adult and juvenile microbiota and potentially elucidate the complexities of causation in dysbiosis and disease. In the meantime, fecal microbiota transplantation may be an attractive therapeutic shortcut, allowing practitioners to reconstruct a healthy microbiota even without fully understanding its constitution.

COVID-19 Pandemic Burden on Global Economy: A Paradigm Shift

The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus obstructed the Chinese economy and has expanded to the rest of the world at a rapid pace affecting at least 215 countries, areas and territories. The advancement of the disease and its economic repercussions is profoundly ambiguous, making it challenging for policymakers to formulate suitable microeconomic and macroeconomic policy responses. The scenarios in this paper illustrate how an outbreak could significantly affect the global economy in the short run. It has been estimated that each additional month of crisis would cost from about 2.5-3% of the global GDP and that the GDP growth would take a blow, reaching about 3-6%, depending on the country. Scenarios also suggest that GDP can drop by more than 10% and even exceed 15% in some countries. Via addressing the economic consequence of COVID-19 in different industries and countries, the paper presents assessments of the likely global economic costs of COVID-19 and the GDP growth of different countries. Economies will be negatively affected because of the high number of jobs at risk. Countries highly dependent on foreign trade are more negatively affected. Given that disease and its economic influence are highly unpredictable in numerous aspects, the global economy at the moment is the most critically threatened in history.

COVID-19 Pandemic Burden on Global Economy: A Paradigm Shift

The pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus obstructed the Chinese economy and has expanded to the rest of the world at a rapid pace affecting at least 215 countries, areas and territories. The advancement of the disease and its economic repercussions is profoundly ambiguous, making it challenging for policymakers to formulate suitable microeconomic and macroeconomic policy responses. The scenarios in this paper illustrate how an outbreak could significantly affect the global economy in the short run. It has been estimated that each additional month of crisis would cost from about 2.5-3% of the global GDP and that the GDP growth would take a blow, reaching about 3-6%, depending on the country. Scenarios also suggest that GDP can drop by more than 10% and even exceed 15% in some countries. Via addressing the economic consequence of COVID-19 in different industries and countries, the paper presents assessments of the likely global economic costs of COVID-19 and the GDP growth of different countries. Economies will be negatively affected because of the high number of jobs at risk. Countries highly dependent on foreign trade are more negatively affected. Given that disease and its economic influence are highly unpredictable in numerous aspects, the global economy at the moment is the most critically threatened in history.

Behavioral economy: population in the credit services market

The article discusses topical issues related to the current trends in the field of lending to population in Russia. The purpose of the work is to identify possible risks of individuals' actions in the market of credit services on the basis of analysis of statistical and sociological data. Based on the general scientific dialectic approaches used by the authors, the article shows dynamics of growth in the banks' loan portfolio, growth in lending volumes (banks and microfinance organizations), as well as households' debt from 2013 to 2019 in rubles and foreign currency (in general and in mortgages). Russian macro-regions are ranked by absolute indicator of debt and by its growth rate. Opportunities and risks have been identified for borrowers wishing to take advantage of the benefits provided by the State effective from April 2020 (refinancing, credit holidays). There were assessed the measures applied by the State, in particular, credit holidays for individuals and restrictions for banks in issuing loans through introduction of a mandatory debt load indicator, which will contribute to improvement of the current situation with huge debt and to reduction of social risks. Although in the long run — in terms of the overall impact on the country's economy — a reduction in public borrowing may reduce the contribution of consumer credit to economic growth and slow it down. It is concluded that despite the measures taken by the State, the existing level of the population borrowing is a great danger due to the reduction of income as the economic consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

News framing of the Ukraine crisis in the Russian and British media

This pilot study uses quantitative content analysis following the framework of generic frames, diagnostic and prognostic frames (Godefroidt et al. 2016) to compare the news framing of the Ukraine crisis in Russia and the UK from 30 November 2013 to 26 February 2014. The Moscow Times and The Guardian were chosen as examples of quality print media with online editions that are comparable in terms of quality, circulation rate, political stance, and more importantly – global targeting. The study argues that firstly, the media in both countries were more likely to report through conflict lens, followed by responsibility frame. Secondly, the difference between the Eastern and Western media was tracked. While the Russian media relatively preferred economic consequence frame reflecting the country’s geopolitical interests, the British media tended to use human-interest frame highlighting unfairness and non-proportionality.

The Debt-Equity Choice When Regulatory Thresholds are Based on Equity Values: Evidence from SOX 404

ABSTRACT When larger market values of equity result in being subject to costly regulation, firms have incentives to shift their sources of financing toward debt and away from equity. We use the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) as a setting to provide evidence of such incentives. Smaller firms were granted several reprieves and eventually exempted from the internal control audit requirements of SOX Section 404, which many consider the most costly and onerous aspect of SOX. Using a difference-in-differences design, we show that relative to control firms, firms just below the regulatory threshold have increased propensities to issue debt, decreased propensities to issue equity, and increased leverage levels in the post-SOX period. These results are consistent with firms altering their financing choices to maintain their exempt status and demonstrate an economic consequence of regulatory regimes that are tiered by equity values.