From Shadow to Green: Linking Environmental Fiscal Reforms and the Informal Economy

47 p.

Financial Futures Markets and Their Impact on the Real Economy in Middle and Low Income Countries

This project analyses the influence of the futures market on middle and low income countries. In it, I attempt to show that investments made by large investment funds in this market, as well as by certain pension plans, bring major consequences whose effects are more evident in less developed countries. The cornerstones of the work are as follows; to attempt to see the existing relationship between the commodity futures market and its underlying assets; analysing products such as wheat, rice and corn in-depth, because these are the most basic foodstuffs at a global level; to determine how an increase in trading in these markets can affect the lives of people in the poorest countries; to analyse investor concern regarding the consequences that their investments may have. Throughout the project we will see how large speculators use production forecasting models to determine the shortage of a commodity in order to take a position in the futures market to profit from it. In addition we will see how an increase in trading in this market causes an increase in the price of the underlying asset in the spot market. As for investor concern, I can say it is negligible, but the idea of running pension plans or investment funds that follow some social criteria has been welcomed by those interviewed, which makes me think that different legislation is possible. This legislation will only come into existence if it is demanded by the people. A fact that now becomes complicated because without a minimum financial basis, they cannot even know how the large investment funds trade with hunger in the world. The day when most people understand how large speculators profit from famine will be the day to put pressure on governments to begin to put limits on speculation. This makes financial awareness necessary in order to achieve a curb in excessive speculation.

Skate elektriko baten gauzatzea, hautabideak eta diseinua.

[EU]Lan honetan hutsetik hasita skate motorizatu baten diseinu bat egin da, Industria Teknologian Ingeniaritzako Graduan eskuratutako jakintzak erabiliz. Skatea gazteengan oso erabilia den garraiobide bat da aisia dela-eta, eta sinpletasuna eta ekonomia kontuan hartuta, aisia eta ingurugiroarekiko konpromisoa nahasten dira diseinu honekin. Lanak bide argi bat dauka: hasieran merkatuaren egoera aztertzen da, gero diseinu posible batzuk proposatu ahal izateko, eta hortik aukera bat jorratu ahal izateko. Hortaz, prozesua hasieratik hasita, egitura hau izango du lanak: Hasteko, skate motorizatuen merkatuko egoera zein den aztertzen da, ondoren eta helburuak zeintzuk diren kontutan izanda, diseinu posible batzuk proposatu ahal izateko, alternatiben analisien atalean ageri direnak. Proposamen horiek aztertu egiten dira, alde on eta txarrak desberdinduz eta horietako soluzio bat aukeratuz. Aukeratutako diseinuaren CAD modelo bat eraikitzen da, ondoren egoera fisikoa matematikoki modelizatzeko eta beharrezko kalkuluak egin ahal izateko, metodologia atalean eta eranskinetan ageri direnak, hala nola, azelerazio jakin bat lortzeko behar den potentzia, transmisioan beharrezkoak diren kalkuluak kokatu beharreko elementuak zeintzuk diren erabaki ahal izateko, etab. Bide honetan, jorraturiko diseinuaz gain beste diseinu optimizatu eta konplexuago bat proposatzen da, ikerketa bidea zabalik duena, enpresa mundura gehiago zuzendua. Azkenik, lana burutzeko bete behar izan diren ataza bakoitzaren deskribapena eta iraupena, aurrekontua eta gastu aitorpena, arriskuen analisia eta proiektu honetatik atera ditugun ondorioak ematen dira.

Análisis de dos economías de la Unión Europea: Alemania y España

CASTELLANO. Alemania, un país muy afectado tras el nazismo y las diferentes guerras en las cuales se vio involucrado, adoptó una Economía Social de Mercado (ESM) en 1948, que le permitió abrir sus puertas hacia la internacionalización, lo cual había estado fuertemente regulado hasta entonces. Esta apertura de fronteras ha favorecido al comercio exterior el cual está muy desarrollado. Además, una moderada inflación, un bajo nivel de deuda pública, alta cualificación de la población, el potente desarrollo industrial manufacturero y su capacidad de recuperación de la crisis económica que estalló en 2007, entre otros, hace de Alemania un país muy próspero. España, tras su recuperación de la época del franquismo la cual había castigado de forma severa a este país, se recuperó hasta niveles superiores a Alemania en cuestión de confianza empresarial. En cambio, en 2007, momento de estallido de crisis, la producción de varios sectores se vio muy reducida (principalmente el sector de la construcción), la tasa de desempleo aumentó de forma descontrolada… Actualmente, este país se encuentra en proceso de recuperación el cual se basa mucho en el turismo y por consiguiente en el sector servicios que año tras año ha ido evolucionando hasta convertirse en uno de los motores de esta economía.

Wage factors in the Basque Economy

[EN] This project aims to determine the factors which influence workers’ wages in the Basque Country, taking data from the INE (Spanish Statistical Office). In first place, I will decide which variables to choose and describe them. Then they will be used to build a wage model. At this point I will observe their behaviour according to their values and the possible differences between them. Once these variables are described, they will be used to develop an econometric model that will allow to see the different effects of the variables on the endogenous variable, in this case the gross annual wage. Finally, all the analysed data will be taken and examined to draw the final conclusions and see how workers’ age, training or gender affect their salary. [EN]

Neurolinguistic measure of typological effects in multilingual transfer: introducing an ERP methodology

This article has two main objectives. First, we offer an introduction to the subfield of generative third language (L3) acquisition. Concerned primarily with modeling initial stages transfer of morphosyntax, one goal of this program is to show how initial stages L3 data make significant contributions toward a better understanding of how the mind represents language and how (cognitive) economy constrains acquisition processes more generally. Our second objective is to argue for and demonstrate how this subfield will benefit from a neuro/psycholinguistic methodological approach, such as event-related potential experiments, to complement the claims currently made on the basis of exclusively behavioral experiments. Palabras clave

Income tax progressivity, growth, income inequality and welfare

This paper analyzes the effects of personal income tax progressivity on long-run economic growth, income inequality and social welfare. The quantitative implications of income tax progressivity increments are illustrated for the US economy under three main headings: individual effects (reduced labor supply and savings, and increased dispersion of tax rates); aggregate effects (lower GDP growth and lower income inequality); and welfare effects (lower dispersion of consumption across individuals and higher leisure levels, but also lower growth of future consumption). The social discount factor proves to be crucial for this third effect: a higher valuation of future generations' well-being requires a lower level of progressivity. Additionally, if tax revenues are used to provide a public good rather than just being discarded, a higher private valuation of such public goods will also call for a lower level of progressivity.

Anisotropic expansion and SNIa: An open issue

We review the appropriateness of using SNIa observations to detect potential signatures of anisotropic expansion in the Universe. We focus on Union2 and SNLS3 SNIa datasets and use the hemispherical comparison method to detect possible anisotropic features. Unlike some previous works where nondiagonal elements of the covariance matrix were neglected, we use the full covariance matrix of the SNIa data, thus obtaining more realistic and not underestimated errors. As a matter of fact, the significance of previously claimed detections of a preferred direction in the Union2 dataset completely disappears once we include the effects of using the full covariance matrix. Moreover, we also find that such apreferred direction is aligned with the orthogonal direction of the SDSS observational plane and this suggests a clear indication that the SDSS subsample of the Union2 dataset introduces a significant bias, making the detected preferred direction unphysical. We thus find that current SNIa surveys are inappropriate to test anisotropic features due to their highly non-homogeneous angular distribution in the sky. In addition, after removal of the highest in homogeneous sub-samples, the number of SNIa is too low. Finally, we take advantage of the particular distribution of SNLS SNIa sub- sample in the SNLS3 data set, in which the observations were taken along four different directions. We fit each direction independently and find consistent results at the 1 sigma level. Although the likelihoods peak at relatively different values of Omega(m), the low number of data along each direction gives rise to large errors so that the likelihoods are sufficiently broad as to overlap within 1 sigma. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http:// creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/).