El contexto de la democracia y la participación en el sistema capitalista

La siguiente reflexión analiza las estructuras y los elementos del Estado moderno, sus primeras manifestaciones, pasando por su evolución y los fundamentos teóricos que se le fueron sumando en el contexto de la democracia capitalista y sus diversas formas de expresión en las distintas sociedades. Ubicadas en el marco formal del Estado moderno encontramos al mercado político en el que aparecen tanto la teoría de la representatividad como los partidos políticos; organizaciones indispensables para efectuarla y sin los cuales sería difícil comprender la política en sus modalidades de interlocución, negociación y demandas sociales. En este sentido también se mencionan cuestiones referentes a la administración tecnocrática del Estado y la precisión de los marcos teóricos de algunos de sus principales representantes, así como las referentes a la construcción de la ingeniería social de la democracia

f(R)f(R) quantum cosmology: avoiding the Big Rip

Extended theories of gravity have gathered a lot of attention over the last years, for they not only provide an excellent framework to describe the inflationary era but also yields an alternative to the elusive and mysterious dark energy. Among the different extended theories of gravity, on this work we focus on metric $f(R)$ theories. In addition, it is well known that if the late-time acceleration of the universe is stronger than the one induced by a cosmological constant then some future cosmic singularities might arise, being the Big Rip the most virulent one. Following this reasoning, on this work, we analyse the Big Rip singularity in the framework of $f(R)$ quantum geometrodynamics. Invoking the DeWitt criterium, i. e. that the wave function vanishes at the classical singularity, we proof that a class of solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation fulfilling this condition can be found. Therefore, this result hints towards the avoidance of the Big Rip in metric $f(R)$ theories of gravity.Comment: V1:13 pages. Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Pedro F. Gonzalez-Diaz (our former PhD supervisor). V2: 9 pages (new style), minor clarifications included, no physics changes, 6 references added. Version accepted for publication in Physical Review

Complementarity between human capital and trade in regional technological progress

The effect of openness and trade orientation on economic growth remains a highly contentious issue. Trade facilitates knowledge diffusion and the adoption of more advanced and efficient technologies which faster total factor productivity (TFP) growth and, hence, per capita income. New technologies that diffuse by trade require a sufficiently qualified labour force to adapt them into the domestic productive environment. Thus, openness and human capital accumulation will lead to TFP growth, and the larger the complementarity between both variables the higher TFP growth. The paper discusses the implications of these assumptions and tests their empirical validity using a pool of data for the industrial sector in the Spanish regions in a period in which both the stock of human capital and openness experienced a not able improvement. Key words: trade, human capital, technological progress and regions. JEL category: C23, D24, O33.

Complementarity between human capital and trade in regional technological progress

The effect of openness and trade orientation on economic growth remains a highly contentious issue in the literature. Trade facilitates the spread of knowledge and the adoption of more advanced and efficient technologies, which hastens total factor productivity (TFP) growth and, hence, per capita income. New technologies that spread through trade require a sufficiently skilled labour force to adapt them to the domestic productive environment. Thus, openness and human capital accumulation will lead to TFP growth and the greater the complementarity between both variables, the higher the TFP growth. This paper discusses the implications of these assumptions and tests their empirical validity, using a pool of data for manufacturing industry in Spanish regions in a period in which both the stock of human capital and openness experienced a notable increase.technological progress, industry, human capital, trade

Predictors of problematic internet and mobile phone usage in adolescents

This study uses an innovative statistical strategy to test the role of certain variables as predictors of problematic Internet and mobile phone usage among adolescents in Spain and in the United Kingdom . A paper-and-pencil questionnaire was used, with socio-demographics and patterns of technology usage as variables, and two tests were administered: the Problematic Internet Entertainment Use Scale for Adolescents (PIEUSA) and the Mobile Phone Problem Use Scale for Adolescents (MPPUSA). The overall sample size was 2228 high school students aged between 11 and 18 from Barcelona and London. PIEUSA and MPPUSA scores were transformed into normed scores, and both were then dichotomized according to three statistical criteria as cut-off points (i.e., median, 80th percentile, and extreme scores below the 25th percentile and above the 75th percentile) in order to establish the relationship between the variables above and the excessive use of the Internet or mobile phones, using a binary logistic regression. The results show that the best predictive model for both technologies includes socio-demographic variables as predictors of extreme scores for excessive Internet and mobile phone usage, with good sensitivity, specificity and classification accuracy, as well as a notable capacity for discrimination according to the receiver-operating characteristic curve. Implications of these findings are discussed

Public infrrastructure and the performance of manufacturing industries: Short-and long-run

We present a theoretical framework for determining the short- and long-run effects of infrastructure. While the short-run effects have been the focus of most previous studies, here we derive long-run elasticities by taking into account the adjustment of quasi-fixed inputs to their optimum levels. By considering the impact of infrastructure on private investment decisions, we observe how, apart from the direct effect on costs in the short-run, infrastructure exerts an indirect source of influence in the long-run through their effect on private capital. The model is applied to manufacturing industries in the Spanish regions.long-run vs short-run equilibrium, public ingrastructure, manufacturing costs