Do internal labour markets survive in the New Economy? The Case of France

Following the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT), firms may react to increasing skill requirements either by training or hiring the new skills, or a combination of the two. Using matched datasets with about 1,000 French plants, we assess the relative importance of these external and internal labour market strategies. We show that skill upgrading following technological and organisational changes takes place mostly through internal labour markets adjustments. Consistently with the results in the literature, we find that the intensive use of ICT is associated with an upward shift in the occupational structure within firms. We show that about one third of the upgrading of the occupational structure is due to hiring and firing workers from and to the external labour market, whereas two-thirds are due to promotions. Moreover, we find no compelling evidence of external labour market strategies based on "excess turnover". In contrast, French firms heavily rely on training in order to upgrade the skill level of their workforce. When looking at potential heterogeneity across firms in skill upgrading strategies, we find that all firms rely much more on promotions than on external movements in order to shift their occupational structure upward. In contrast, different training patterns are found across sectors: the use of ICT is strongly correlated with training for all occupational groups in manufacturing sectors, whereas this is not the case in services. This difference is robust to controlling for other sources of heterogeneity and may be explained by the fact that labour turnover is much higher in services than in manufacturing.technical change ; labour turnover ; skill bias ; training ; internal labour markets

The Substitution of Worksharing and Short-Time Compensation in France: A Difference-in-differences Approach

The short-time compensation (STC) program aims at avoiding redundancies in case of strong short-term downturns. In the literature, STC is an instrument of both job security and flexibility. This paper investigates the impact of worksharing on STC in France. The form of worksharing examined in this study is the reduction of the standard or contractual hours worked per week to 35 hours in France. We quantify the average decrease in the STC recourse with difference-in-differences estimators assessed on a balanced panel of French establishments. We highlight a substitution effect between STC and worksharing due to their internal flexibility role. As a consequence, STC seems to be less used as a flexibility device and the worksharing policy would refocus STC on its employment protection role.

MINORITY LANGUAGE POLICY REGARDING PERSONAL NAMES – AN OVERVIEW

Language Policy (LP) with language planning as its implementation is now a well-established field; yet, as evidenced by the scarcity of scholarly literature, seldom concerned with personal names. The paper looks at personal names (given names and surnames) and discusses the ways in which they can be perceived as objects of minority LP. Policies regarding personal names are analysed within the framework of the traditional division of language planning into status, corpus and acquisition planning. These policies are then further examined according to other dimensions: what the object of a LP is, who its agent is, what motivates a LP, what effects it exerts, and how a LP is carried out. Finally, the paper looks at EU minority legislation with reference to personal names,especially at the country-specific opinions which reflect the FCNM monitoring process, highlighting areas of controversy. In conclusion, it is shown how vital personal names are to personal and group identity and, consequently, how control over them helps the nation-state control a minority, although – it is argued – not every regulation constitutes a minority LP

Gottfried Benn and the formation of two German states in 1949: selected aspects of his complex attitude to the state as such and to West Germany

The paper is mainly concerned with Gottfried Benn’s complex attitude to the state and history. By means of introductory prefigurations, such as existential tensions related to the conflict between Protestant ethics and modern aesthetics, there emerges Benn’s difficult and complex relation to the state as such, seen as a product of history, and to its particular examples, starting from the Second Reich until the initial phase of West Germany. Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of art, is of great importance in this context. This issue is discussed using Benn’s key works such as Roman des Phänotyp or Doppelleben. Benn’s literary and life self-creations played a vital role in his relations with the political reality and the state, which is discussed at the end of this analysis. His ambivalent relation to early West Germany has a strong biographical basis, i.e. his involvement with the history of the Nazi Germany on the one hand, and on the other – the period of his literary fame at the end of his life.The paper is mainly concerned with Gottfried Benn’s complex attitude to the state and history. By means of introductory prefigurations, such as existential tensions related to the conflict between Protestant ethics and modern aesthetics, there emerges Benn’s difficult and complex relation to the state as such, seen as a product of history, and to its particular examples, starting from the Second Reich until the initial phase of West Germany. Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of art, is of great importance in this context. This issue is discussed using Benn’s key works such as Roman des Phänotyp or Doppelleben. Benn’s literary and life self-creations played a vital role in his relations with the political reality and the state, which is discussed at the end of this analysis. His ambivalent relation to early West Germany has a strong biographical basis, i.e. his involvement with the history of the Nazi Germany on the one hand, and on the other – the period of his literary fame at the end of his life.The paper is mainly concerned with Gottfried Benn’s complex attitude to the state and history. By means of introductory prefigurations, such as existential tensions related to the conflict between Protestant ethics and modern aesthetics, there emerges Benn’s difficult and complex relation to the state as such, seen as a product of history, and to its particular examples, starting from the Second Reich until the initial phase of West Germany. Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of art, is of great importance in this context. This issue is discussed using Benn’s key works such as Roman des Phänotyp or Doppelleben. Benn’s literary and life self-creations played a vital role in his relations with the political reality and the state, which is discussed at the end of this analysis. His ambivalent relation to early West Germany has a strong biographical basis, i.e. his involvement with the history of the Nazi Germany on the one hand, and on the other – the period of his literary fame at the end of his life

Random Approach to Optimization of Overlay Public-Resource Computing Systems

The growing need for computationally demanding systems triggers the development of various network-oriented computing systems organized in a distributed manner. In this work we concentrate on one kind of such systems, i.e. public-resource computing systems. The considered system works on the top of an overlay network and uses personal computers and other relatively simple electronic equipment instead of supercomputers. We assume that two kinds of network flows are used to distribute the data in the public-resource computing systems: unicast and peer-to-peer. We formulate an optimization model of the system. After that we propose random algorithms that optimize jointly the allocation of computational tasks and the distribution of the output data. To evaluate the algorithms we run numerical experiments and present results showing the comparison of the random approach against optimal solutions provided by the CPLEX solver

A P2P Computing System for Overlay Networks

A distributed computing system is able to perform data computation and distribution of results at the same time. The input task is divided into blocks, which are then sent to system participants that offer their resources in order to perform calculations. Next, a partial result is sent back by the participants to the task manager (usually one central node). In the case when system participants want to get the final result, the central node may become overloaded, especially if many nodes request the result at the same time. In this paper we propose a novel distributed computation system, which does not use the central node as the source of the final result, but assumes that partial results are sent between system participants. This way we avoid overloading the central node, as well as network congestion. There are two major types of distributed computing systems: grids and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing systems. In this work we focus on the latter case. Consequently, we assume that the computing system works on the top of an overlay network. We present a complete description of the P2P computing system, considering both computation and result distribution. To verify the proposed architecture we develop our own simulator. The obtained results show the system performance expressed by the operation cost for various types of network flows: unicast, anycast and Peer-to-Peer. Moreover, the simulations prove that our computing system provides about 66% lower cost compared to a centralized computing system

Cut layer of a circular saw with radial run-out of cutting edges

U radu se obrađuje utjecaj radijalnog ispona zubi kružne pile na promjene debljine strugotine za svaku oštricu i na promjenu ukupne debljine strugotine za sve zube na pili. Osim toga, analiziran je i utjecaj položaja obratka u odnosu na list pile na debljinu strugotine.This paper presents the influence of the radial run-out of circular saw blade teeth on changes of cut layer thickness for each blade and change of total cut layer thickness for the saw. Additionally the influence is presented of workpiece position in relation to the saw on cut layers thickness