Social Security and Retirement During Transition: Microeconometric Evidence from Slovenia

In this paper we analyse old-age retirement decisions of Slovenian men and women eligible to retire in the period 1997-2003. In comparison to established market economies, we find relatively high hazard rates of retirement that decline with age. This peculiar pattern can be partly attributed to weak incentives to work inherent in the design of Social Security, and is reflected in predominantly negative values of accruals, and to transition-specific increase in wage inequality in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This is reflected in low wages and relativily high pensions of less productive (skilled) workers and vice versa. We also find that the probability of retirement increases with social security wealth and decreases with net wages, although the response to option value to work, when controlling for wage differences, is rather weak. Our results also imply that less educated persons, persons with greater private wealth, and persons entitled to severance payment are more likely to retire

College Major Choice and Ability: Why is General Ability not Enough?

The choice of college major is one of the most important decisions students make. In this paper we study the impact of ability on college major choice,using a data set for full-time students enrolled in four-year business and economics programs offered by the Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana. We distinguish between general and major-specific ability, which measure different dimensions of cognitive ability. We show that both measures are important in explaining individual decisions and that misleading results can follow from observing only commonly employed general ability. We also find important gender differences as males are more likely to base their major choice on the ability to complete coursework, while females are more likely to decide according to unobserved preferences

A review of production technologies and materials for manufacturing of cardiovascular stents

The purpose of this article is to give a general overview of the production technologies of stents with consideration of their design and materials. Since the beginning of the use of stents in medicine for atherosclerosis treatment, their development has changed rapidly. Various stents have also been developed with the development of materials science, treatment techniques and new manufacturing processes. In this way the development has shifted from the initial bare-metal stents (BMS), to drug-eluting stents (DES) and bio-resorbable stents (BRS), which are made of biodegradable polymers or metals. Various studies agree that it will be necessary to further review the experimentally obtained material properties with analytical and numerical studies. Here, the computational modelling (Finite element analysis - FEA and Computational fluid dynamics - CFD) was found as a valuable tool when evaluating stent mechanics and optimizing stent design. The development of the stent manufacturing technologies has also changed and been supplemented over the years. Nowadays, 3D printing could be an exciting manufacturing method to produce polymeric bio-materials, suitable for the latest generation of bio-degradable stents applications.</jats:p