Clustering tales from the Greek construction sector: lessons from experience

The idea of increasing regional and national economic competitiveness through the implementation of cluster strategies is not something new. In each business sector, in each country, the creation of clusters has been used to capitalise on sector characteristics and address country specific productivity needs. While clusters have met with significant success in many context, the Greek context and in particularly the Greek Construction sector has not been so fruitful. This paper, through the development of a conceptual framework, questionnaires with 92 firms and interviews with 10 key firms, sought to investigate the critical success factors for the creation of a cluster within the challenging context of the Greek construction sector. Using evidence of good practicefrom other European countries facing similar challenges and the empirical data, the findings indicated a series of factors which firms could adopt, mitigate against or manage to help improve the potential success of the cluster. The findingstherefore have important implications for interventions not only by the state and local authorities that will encourage construction firms to participate in a cluster, but also by the managers/owners/practitioners for the creation of the required foundations for their participation in an environment where competitors cooperate

Extracting the chiral anomaly from gamma pi --> pi pi

We derive dispersive representations for the anomalous process gamma pi --> pi pi with the pi pi P-wave phase shift as input. We investigate how in this framework the chiral anomaly can be extracted from a cross-section measurement using all data up to 1 GeV, and discuss the importance of a precise representation of the gamma pi --> pi pi amplitude for the hadronic light-by-light contribution to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; version published in Phys. Rev.

Public Debt Consolidation and its Distributional Effects. ESRI WP629, July 2019

We build a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous households, namely Rich and Poor, and capitalskill complementarity structure in the production function, to study aggregate and distributional implications of fiscal consolidation policies when the government uses a rich set of spending and tax instruments. Fiscal policy is conducted through constrained optimized fiscal rules. Our results show that, in the long run, fiscal consolidation enhances both aggregate efficiency and equity; however, it may hurt Rich households depending on which fiscal instrument takes advantage of the fiscal space created. Along the transition, wage inequality significantly increases due to the capital skill complementarity structure of the production function. Specifically, this happens because debt consolidation crowds in capital and this favours Rich (skilled) households. On the other hand, the reduction in interest rates and government bonds lead to a decrease in Rich households income coming from capital and government bonds which eventually decrease income inequality. Finally, a rather novel finding is that the combination of asset and skill heterogeneity amplifies the increase in wage inequality in the early phase of fiscal consolidation

Co-culture of 1-cell outbred mouse embryos on bovine kidney epithelial cells: effect on development, glycolytic activity, inner cell mass: trophectoderm ratios and viability

In an attempt to enhance embryo development, we have co-cultured 1-cell OF1 mouse embryos on bovine kidney epithelial (Madine-Darby bovine kidney; MDBK) cells in a complex medium called complex mouse tubal fluid (cMTF; based on the energy substrate levels found in the mouse oviduct, containing non-essential amino acids, glutamine and EDTA). To determine the quality of the blastocysts obtained, we examined several parameters: morphology, total cell numbers, inner cell mass (ICM): trophectoderm (TE) ratio, glycolytic activity and viability after transfer. A significantly lower number of blastocysts developed on MDBK cells compared with cMTF medium. cMTF blastocysts had a significantly higher glycolytic activity and a lower blastocyst cell number than those grown in co-culture, while both in-vitro groups had higher ICM: TE ratios compared with in vivo. Blastocysts grown on MDBK cells displayed an elevated ICM number compared with those grown in cMTF medium alone. However, the percentage of fetuses after transfer remained drastically low in both culture groups compared with in-vivo blastocysts. In conclusion, co-culture did not increase the number of zygotes reaching the blastocyst stage. Although co-culture blastocysts show some similarities to in-vivo embryos in cell number and glycolytic activity, no enhancement in viability was observe

Fertilization and early embryology: Differential effect of epithelial cell-conditioned medium fractions on preimplantation mouse embryo development

Coculture studies using preimplantation embryos have led to a number of conflicting studies. In the human, ethical considerations have led to the preferential use of epithelial cell lines as distinct from human Fallopian tube cells. In an attempt to isolate factors influencing embryo development we have cultured 2-cell OF1 mouse embryos in media [Ménézo's B2 and Whittingham's T6 supplemented with vitamins and amino acids (T6VA)] conditioned on two types of kidney epithelial cells (MBDK and Vero). Different molecular weight fractions of conditioned medium were used to show the absence or presence of specific embryotrophic factors. With MDBK cells, B2 conditioned medium enhanced embryo development up to the blastocyst stage, while no blastocysts developed in B2 alone. When using T6VA medium, both the control and conditioned media showed a high percentage of blastocyst formation (57.0 and 54.0% respectively), while the different molecular weight fractions showed no added improvement. With Vero cells, B2 alone, B2 conditioned medium and fractions were all detrimental to embryo development. A high percentage of blastocyst formation (between 64.7 and 75.8%) was observed in T6VA alone, T6VA conditioned medium and fractions. Low blastocyst formation in a control medium can show strong positive results when medium is conditioned by cells. In contrast, a good base medium, such as T6VA, can equal the results using conditioned medium. Different cells in contact with different types of medium show variability in the pattern of responses, highlighting the presence of false positives in coculture studie

On the Composition of Public Spending and Taxes

This paper studies the implications of changes in the fiscal (spending-tax) policy mix when all categories of spending and taxes are according to their functional breakdown. In so doing, we build a general equilibrium OLG model which naturally incorporates the main functional categories of public spending and taxes as in the euro area. Departing from the crisis year of 2008, the main result is that an increase in public spending on education and health would have outperformed all other changes in fiscal policy that have either happened or have been debated in policy circles

O-225. Early cleavage of in-vitro fertilized human embryos to the 2-cell stage: a novel indicator of embryo quality and viability

A number of non-invasive methods have been proposed to evaluate embryo viability in human in-vitro fertilization programmes. In addition to biochemical analyses, a common method for the selection of embryos prior to transfer involves assessment of embryo quality and morphology. We propose a new method to evaluate embryo viability based on the timing of the first cell division. Fertilized embryos that had cleaved to the 2-cell stage 25 h post-insemination were designated as 'early cleavage' embryos while the others that had not yet reached the 2-cell stage were designated as 'no early cleavage'. In all cases the early cleavage embryos were transferred when available. Early cleavage was observed in 27 (18.9%) of the 143 cycles assessed. There were significantly (chi2 = 4.0; P = 0.04) more clinical pregnancies in the early cleavage group, 9/27 (33.3%), compared with the no early cleavage group, 17/116 (14.7%). No difference was found when comparing key parameters (age, stimulation protocol and semen characteristics) of couples belonging to both groups, pointing to an intrinsic property or factor(s) within the early cleaving embryos. We propose 'early cleavage' as a simple and effective non-invasive method for selection and evaluation of embryos prior to transfe

Tuition Fees, as User Prices, and Private Incentives

This paper studies the aggregate and distributional implications of introducing tuition fees for public education services into a tax system with income and consumption taxes. The setup is a neoclassical growth model where agents differ in capital holdings. We show that the introduction of tuition fees (a) improves individual incentives to work and/or save and (b) can be both efficient and equitable. The focus is on the role of tuition fees as an extra price and how this affects private incentives