Jose A. Tapia

José A. Tapia teaches courses on international political economy, political economy of climate change, social development, and political parties at Drexel University. He previously worked for WHO, and the University of Michigan, and before moving to the US in 1989 he worked in Spain as a primary care doctor, and in the publishing industry. His research has been published in PNAS, Journal of Health Economics, Demography, American Journal of Epidemiology, Social Science & Medicine, Research in Political Economy, and other journals. His book on Chernobyl and the Mortality Crisis in Eastern Europe and the USSR was published by De Gruyter in 2022; Six Crises of the World Economy: Globalization and Economic Turbulence since the 1960s to the COVID-19 Pandemic is to be published in 2023 by Palgrave-Macmillan.

September 2023Field Notes

Why a Recession Might Not be Such a Bad Thing: Considerations on a “Hard Landing”

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The proper unit of analysis when discussing economic issues is not obvious... The tradition dating back to the 1930s and the economist Simon Kuznets is to focus macroeconomic discussions specifically on national economies, because the nation-state is the political unit for which attempts to deal with economic turbulence are assumed to be possible. However, it is obvious that in recent decades the process of globalization has intensified quickly, so that referring to recessions in national economies is increasingly irrelevant.
Gray bars correspond to years of crisis of the world economy as defined by a drop in gross capital formation (trillion 2010 US dollars) plotted with dots in the upper panel. In the lower panel annual global emissions of CO2 (gigatons), plotted from two sources, CAIT (squares) and WDI (triangles). The two series mostly overlap for the years 1990-2014. Note how the only significant decreases in world emissions of CO2 coincide with the crises of the global economy.

Dec/Jan 16–17Field Notes

A Door to the Unknown

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On November 5, just three days before the presidential election, Hillary Clinton was quoted on the first page of The New York Times saying she believed “our economy is posed to really take off and thrive.

October 2016Field Notes

On Time and a Half, Learning Disabilities, Secondary Gain, and the Business of Mental Health

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Though I have a medical degree and practiced general medicine for a brief period in Spain, I left clinical practice many years ago and have been involved in research and teaching in institutions of higher education in the United States for fifteen years.
Jean Honoré Fragonard, Seated Man Reading, 1774. Red chalk, 13 x 9 3/16 inches. Metmuseum.org under OASC.

April 2016Field Notes

An exchange on the perspectives for the world economy

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A reader from Holland has sent us some questions for José Tapia on his article, “Towards a New Global Recession? Perspectives for 2016 and Beyond,” which appeared in the February, 2016, issue of Field Notes.
An exchange on the perspectives for the world economy

February 2016Field Notes

Toward a New Global Recession? Economic Perspectives for 2016 and Beyond

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What economists call “macroeconomic variables” are numbers such as the gross domestic product, interest rates, tax revenue, government expenditure, exports, imports, consumption, and the like which are used to describe the economy at large.
Toward a New Global Recession? Economic Perspectives for 2016 and Beyond

Dec/Jan 14–15Field Notes

Are we really feeling healthier or just dying less? Questions for José Tapia

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Since the imposition of austerity policies on Portuguese society, I face a worse social situation in this small country, probably the poorest in Europe, every time I go back there. While the social consequences of austerity and the destruction of public services are probably less dramatic there than in Greece, they are nonetheless terrible. This is to introduce the few comments that follow on the recent interview of José Tapia (JT), “Health and Economic Crises” published in the Brooklyn Rail in October, 2014.
Average annual working time, hours per worker. Data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Dec/Jan 15–16Field Notes

Rising Mortality of US Whites Around Age 50 An American Tragedy?

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Rising death rates among non-Hispanic whites ages 45 – 54 were reported in early November in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the prestigious journal usually known in the scientific community as PNAS.
Mortality rate (deaths per 100,000 population) at ages 45 – 54 in four demographic groups of the US population. Based on data in CDC Wonder.

October 2014Field Notes

HEALTH AND ECONOMIC CRISES JOSÉ TAPIA

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Given that the Great Recession of 2008, despite its official termination in 2009, is clearly continuing on its gloomy way around the globe, it can only be cheering to learn that economic downturns are good for public health.
Mortality for all causes, for cardiovascular disease (C.V.D.), suicide, infant mortality, and mortality for the elderly (ages 75 and over) in Finland, Greece, and Iceland, 1990 - 2011. The shaded area corresponds to the period of the Great Recession. Age-adjusted rates per 100,000 population, except infant mortality, per 1000 live births. Source: WHO-Europe, data.euro.who.int/hfadb/

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