AN AGGREGATED INDEX OF HUMAN CAPITAL

In this paper, taking the model of Arrazola and Hevia (Applied Economics Letters, 11 – 145-8, 2004) as a starting point, we propose a homogeneous measure of human capital of individuals, which permits interpersonal comparisons. This indicator has been set up for a sample of Spanish men and women and compared to the results obtained when using Portela's proposal to construct a human capital indicator (Economics Letters, 72, 27-32, 2001). It was concluded that both from a theoretical and empirical point of view, the properties of the index proposed in this article are better than those of Portela''s suggested measure.human capital.

Direct or Mediated Relationships? Civic Involvement and Social Accountability in the Bolsa Família Programme

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes are key to reducing the effects of the economic crisis among the poor in Latin America. Their implementation, however, entails two risks: an increase in political clientelism (exchange of votes for favours) and the widening of the power gap between the poor population and local authorities. In order to gain access to the programme and receive financial aid, families rely on the authorities in charge of registering beneficiaries and checking compliance with conditionalities. As a result, government actors enjoy a better power position at the local level and/or are able to ask for political support in return. (...)

Marginal effects in the double selection regression model: an illustration for the wages of women in Spain

In this article we obtain different marginal effects for continuous variables in the context of a double selection regression model, in which it is assumed that the model's disturbances have a normal distribution. Using data of Spanish women, we illustrate these effects by estimating a double selection regression model for the analysis of the economic return from education in the context of the Mincerian wage equation.wage equation

Emerging market fluctuations : what makes the difference ?

Aggregate fluctuations in emerging countries are quantitatively larger and qualitatively different in key respects from those in developed countries. Using data from Mexico and Canada, this paper decomposes these differences in terms of shocks to aggregate efficiency and shocks that distort the decisions of households about how much to invest, consume, and work in a standard model of a small open economy. The decomposition exercise suggests that most of these differences are explained by fluctuations in aggregate efficiency, distortions in labor decisions over the business cycle, and, most importantly, fluctuations in country risk. Other distortions are quantitatively less important.Economic Theory&Research,Political Economy,Emerging Markets,Currencies and Exchange Rates,Investment and Investment Climate

Privatization and nationalization cycles

This paper studies the cycles of nationalization and privatization in resource-rich economies as a prime instance of unstable institutional reform. The authors discuss the available evidence on the drivers and consequences of privatization and nationalization, review the existing literature, and present illustrative case studies. This leads to the main contribution of the paper: a static and dynamic model of the choice between private and national regimes for the ownership of natural resources. In the model, the basic tradeoff is given by equality (national ownership) versus efficiency (private ownership). The connection between resource ownership and the equality-efficiency tradeoff is given by the incentives for effort that each regime elicits from workers. The resolution of the tradeoff depends on external and domestic conditions that affect the value of social welfare under each regime. This leads to a discussion of how external conditions—such as the commodity price—and domestic conditions—such as the tax system-- affect the choice of private vs. national regimes. In particular, the analysis identifies the determinants of the observed cycles of privatization and nationalization.Economic Theory&Research,Political Economy,Emerging Markets,Labor Policies,Markets and Market Access

An optimization model for metabolic pathways

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website through the link below. Copyright @ The Author 2009.Motivation: Different mathematical methods have emerged in the post-genomic era to determine metabolic pathways. These methods can be divided into stoichiometric methods and path finding methods. In this paper we detail a novel optimization model, based upon integer linear programming, to determine metabolic pathways. Our model links reaction stoichiometry with path finding in a single approach. We test the ability of our model to determine 40 annotated Escherichia coli metabolic pathways. We show that our model is able to determine 36 of these 40 pathways in a computationally effective manner. Contact: [email protected] Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online (http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/btp441/DC1)

Saving and growth in Egypt

This study illustrates the mechanisms linking national saving and economic growth, with the purpose of understanding the possibilities and limits of a saving-based growth agenda in the context of the Egyptian economy. This is done through a simple theoretical model, calibrated to fit the Egyptian economy, and simulated to explore different potential scenarios. The main conclusion is that if the Egyptian economy does not experience progress in productivity -- stemming from technological innovation, improved public management, and private-sector reforms -- then a high rate of economic growth is not feasible at current rates of national saving and would require a saving effort that is highly unrealistic. For instance, financing a constant 4 percent growth rate of gross domestic product per capita with no improvement in total factor productivity would require a national saving rate of around 50 percent in the first decade and 80 percent in 25 years. However, if productivity rises, sustaining and improving high rates of economic growth becomes viable. Following the previous example, a 2 percent growth rate of total factor productivity would allow a 4 percent growth rate of gross domestic product per capita with national saving rate in the realistic range of 20-25 percent of gross domestic product.Economic Growth,Access to Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,Achieving Shared Growth