Alexandros Polycarpou

Peer Review vs Metric‐Based Assessment: Testing for Bias in the Rae Ratings of UK Economics Departments

RAE ratings have been criticized as biased in favour of universities that are old, in England, large and represented on the panel. We investigate these accusations for the 1996 and 2001 RAE ratings of economics departments using independent rankings from the academic literature as quality controls. We find RAE ratings to be largely in agreement with the professions view of research quality as documented by independent rankings, although the latter appear to be more focused on research quality at the top end of academic achievement. Accusations of bias find no support in the data, except for panel membership in 1996.

An Econometric Analysis of Residential Water Demand in Cyprus

This paper analyses econometrically residential water demand in the three major urban areas of Cyprus, a semi-arid country with medium to high income levels. Water demand turns out to be inelastic, but not insensitive, to prices; price elasticity is less than unity in absolute terms, but significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that periodic interruptions in household water supply, which were applied as an urgent water saving measure in 2008–2009, did not encourage water conservation among the population. The paper discusses these results, pointing at the need for appropriate water pricing policies and long-term planning in order to move towards sustainable water resource management.

Developing a food basket for fulfilling physical and non-physical needs in Cyprus. Is it affordable?

Background An acceptable and affordable food basket (FB) is necessary to meet not only physical (healthy) needs but also the non-physical needs of individuals and communities. FBs were developed based on the Cypriot national food-based dietary guidelines for six types of household: single woman (±40 years), single man (±40 years), a couple (±40 years) without children, single woman (±40 years) with two children (10-year-old boy and 14-year-old girl), single man (±40 years) with two children and a couple (±40 years) with two children. Non-physical needs (kitchen equipment, physical activity and other related functions of food) were added to the baskets. The cost, acceptability and feasibility of FB were examined through the focus group discussions. Affordability was defined as the cost of the each basket as a percentage of household income (Guaranteed Minimum Income [GMI]). The budget for healthy food has the highest proportion in the total food budget (83-89%) compared with the other components. The part of the budget required for other functions of food is small compared with that of healthy food and ranged between 4.7 and 6.7% of the total monthly budget. For low-income families, the proportion of income that needs to be spent on the FB for physical needs and FB for physical and non-physical needs ranged from around 39 to 72% and 47 to 81%, respectively. The FB fulfilling physical and non-physical needs is not affordable among the low-income families (mainly with children) receiving the GMI scheme in Cyprus.

The Cypriot food basket for health and adequate social participation

Introduction: In many countries, grandparents as care-takers provide food to children or not. The influence of parents on the dietary habits of children and/or adolescents has been studied enough. However, not so for grandparents. Aim: To investigate the possible relationship between foods offered by their grandparents and consumption of that food by teenagers. Method and materials: Data was analyzed from 246 adolescents (aged 12-17.5 years), who had responded in self-administered questionnaires evaluating dietary habits that grandparents offered them food. For analytic purposes adolescents were split into two groups, different for each analysis based on the type of food grandparents brought: a) group A, my grandparents offer me “this type of food” and group B, my grandparents do not offer me “this type of food”. The food choices offered were salty snacks, sweets, fruits, sodas and other foods. Results: Statistical analysis revealed that group A consumed more often the food offered by grandparents compared to group B, only for fruits (p1⁄40.027) and sweets (p 0.001). Conclusions: Preliminary results revealed a positive relationship between food offered by grandparents and consumption of that food by adolescents, stimulating interest in possible participation of grandparents in health promotion programs for adolescents. However, since the sample was not representative of the population and that the study was cross-sectional, it is necessary to carry out larger and better designed study in order to confirm our findings.