Disentangling the Housing Satisfaction Puzzle: Does Homeownership Really Matter?

There is a general consensus that homeownership has beneficial effects for both individuals and society in many outcomes. However, research regarding the effect of homeownership on individuals' subjective well-being remains inconclusive. In this paper, for the first time, we provide empirical evidence for the link between homeownership and housing satisfaction using panel data. We use the eight waves of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) covering the period 1994-2001. We observe that renters who become homeowners not only experience a significant increase in housing satisfaction, but also after changing their tenure status, they obtain a different utility from the same housing context. This evidence might provide support to the hypothesis that a share of the differences in the perceived utility derived from housing can be attributed to (un)fulfilled expectations or aspirations regarding homeownership. Keywords: Housing satisfaction, subjective well-being, homeownership, fixed-effects, housing aspirations JEL classification: D1, R2.

A Sensitivity analysis of poverty definitions

We conduct a sensitivity analysis of several estimators related to household income, to explore how some details of the definitions of the variables concerned influence the values of the common estimates, such as the mean, median and (poverty) rates. The purpose of this study is to highlight that some of the operational definitions entail an element of arbitrariness which leaves an undesirable stamp on the inferences made. The analyses use both a cross-sectional and a longitudinal (panel) component of the EU-SILC database.

Vulnerability to poverty: A microeconometric approach and application to the Republic of Haiti

This paper investigates vulnerability to poverty in Haiti. Research in vulnerability in developing countries has been scarce due to the high data requirements of vulnerability studies (e.g. panel or long series of cross-sections). The methodology adopted here allows the assessment of vulnerability to poverty by exploiting the short panel structure of nested data at different levels. The decomposition method reveals that vulnerability in Haiti is largely a rural phenomenon and that schooling correlates negatively with vulnerability. Most importantly, among the different shocks affecting household's income, it is found that meso-level shocks are in general far more important than covariate shocks. This finding points to some interesting policy implications in decentralizing policies to alleviate vulnerability to poverty.

Estudi energètic de les llars del barri de Haër (Senegal)

En el present estudi s’han analitzat quines són les fonts energètiques utilitzades a les llars de Haër, així com les repercussions que aquestes tenen sobre el medi natural i socioeconòmic de les famílies. Per tal de poder identificar quines són aquestes fonts i els seus efectes, s’ha realitzat un inventari i una diagnosi energètica. S’ha estudiat l’ús de l’energia en dos àmbits domèstics principals: la il·luminació i el cuinat, analitzant la freqüència d’ús i quantificant el consum energètic familiar. Les fonts energètiques detectades són: llenya, carbó, gas, querosè, piles i espelmes, de les quals, la llenya, el querosè i el carbó són les majoritàriament utilitzades. El consum energètic per càpita és de 2.100 kWh/any. Per altra banda, l’obtenció d’algunes d’aquestes fonts energètiques, suposen un cost econòmic molt elevat per les economies familiars, arribant a suposar un 60% dels ingressos. A partir de les dades obtingudes a la diagnosi, s’ha aplicat un indicador per tal de quantificar la magnitud de l’impacte sobre el medi produït pel model energètic seguit dins de les llars. L’indicador estudiat ha estat la petjada energètica, amb la qual s’ha traduït aquest consum en unitats de superfície biològicament productiva, requerida per absorbir el CO2 emès. El resultat ha estat que una persona produeix anualment 2,09·10-2 tCO2, que requereix de 7,53·10-3 gha/persona de superfície forestal per ser absorbides. S’ha comparat aquest resultat amb la petjada energètica domèstica calculada pel poble d’Araós, el qual, amb un model energètic totalment diferent, té una petjada energètica de 1,53 gha/persona. Un cop detectats els problemes o impactes causats pel model energètic actual, es proposa una alternativa energètica per tal de reemplaçar algunes fonts convencionals, principalment el querosè dels quinqués. Així doncs, mitjançant l’aprofitament de l’energia solar, es plantegen dos models fotovoltaics adaptats a dues tipologies de llars diferents, amb l’objectiu de minimitzar el cost i optimitzar els recursos energètics. Finalment es planteja una solució financera per abordar el cost inicial de la instal·lació solar.

Why do educated mothers matter? A model of parental help

The paper investigates the role of mothers in affecting childrens' performance at school. It develops a theoretical model in which household is treated as an individual, whose utility depends on the performance at school of the student and on consumption. The model focuses on the possibilities through which mother’s help may affect pupil's performance in terms of time devoted to supervision and spillover effects. Empirical evidence, using Italian PISA 2006, shows that highly educated mothers have a positive impact on students' score only when they are highly qualified in the job market.

Simulating the Impact of Sectorial Productivity Gains on Two Regional Economies: Key Sectors from a Supply Side Perspective

In this paper we simulate and analyse the economic impact that sectorial productivity gains have on two regional Spanish economies (Catalonia and Extremadura). In particular we study the quantitative effect that each sector’s productivity gain has on household welfare (real disposable income and equivalent variation), on the consumption price indices and factor relative prices, on real production (GDP) and on the government’s net income (net taxation revenues of social transfers to households). The analytical approach consists of a computable general equilibrium model, in which we assume perfect competition and cleared markets, including factor markets. All the parameters and exogenous variables of the model are calibrated by means of two social accounting matrices, one for each region under study. The results allow us to identify those sectors with the greatest impact on consumer welfare as the key sectors in the regional economies. Keywords: Productivity gains, key sectors, computable general equilibrium

Re-opening the black box in societal metabolism: the application of MuSIASEM to water

In this paper we address the complexity of the analysis of water use in relation to the issue of sustainability. In fact, the flows of water in our planet represent a complex reality which can be studied using many different perceptions and narratives referring to different scales and dimensions of analysis. For this reason, a quantitative analysis of water use has to be based on analytical methods that are semantically open: they must be able to define what we mean with the term “water” when crossing different scales of analysis. We propose here a definition of water as a resource that deal with the many services it provides to humans and ecosystems. WE argue that water can fulfil so many of them since the element has many characteristics that allow for the resource to be labelled with different attributes, depending on the end use –such as drinkable. Since the services for humans and the functions for ecosystems associated with water flows are defined on different scales but still interconnected it is necessary to organize our assessment of water use across different hierarchical levels. In order to do so we define how to approach the study of water use in the Societal Metabolism, by proposing the Water Metabolism, tganized in three levels: societal level, ecosystem level and global level. The possible end uses we distinguish for the society are: personal/physiological use, household use, economic use. Organizing the study of “water use” across all these levels increases the usefulness of the quantitative analysis and the possibilities of finding relevant and comparable results. To achieve this result, we adapted a method developed to deal with multi-level, multi-scale analysis - the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach - to the analysis of water metabolism. In this paper, we discuss the peculiar analytical identity that “water” shows within multi-scale metabolic studies: water represents a flow-element when considering the metabolism of social systems (at a small scale, when describing the water metabolism inside the society) and a fund-element when considering the metabolism o ecosystems (at a larger scale when describing the water metabolism outside the society). The theoretical analysis is illustrated using two case which characterize the metabolic patterns regarding water use of a productive system in Catalonia and a water management policy in Andarax River Basin in Andalusia.

Neither Private nor Public: The Effects of Communal Provision of Water on Child Health in Peru

The literature on local services has focused on the effects of privatization and, if anything, has compared the effects of private and mixed public-private systems versus public provision. However, alternative forms of provision such as cooperatives, which can be very prevalent in many developing countries, have been completely ignored. In this paper, we investigate the effects of communal water provison (Comités Vecinales and Juntas Administrativas de Servicios de Saneamiento) on child health in Peru. Using detailed survey data at the household- and child-level for the years 2006-2010, we exploit the cross-section variability to assess the differential impact of this form of provision. Despite controlling for a wide range of household and local characteristics, the municipalities served by communal organizations are more likely to have poorer health indicators, what would result in a downward bias on the absolute magnitude of the effect of cooperatives. We rely on an instrumental variable strategy to deal with this potential endogeneity problem, and use the personnel resources and the administrative urban/rural classi fication of the municipalities as instruments for the provision type. The results show a negative and signi cant effect of comunal water provision on diarrhea among under- five year old children. Keywords: water utilities, cooperatives, child health, regulation, Peru. JEL Classi fication Numbers: L33; L50; L95

XML i Web Semàntica

En aquest treball es realitza una descripció dels llenguatges que constitueixen la base de la construcció de la Web Semàntica: l'XML, l'RDF i l'OWL. En concret, es realitza un estudi de la base de dades lèxica WordNet. Finalment, es presenta el disseny i la implementació d'una ontologia per representar les relacions lèxiques dels mots del català. A partir d'aquesta ontologia es crea una petita base de dades basada en la temàtica dels animals de companyia. Aquest cas pràctic permet extreure conclusions sobre els avantatges d'introduir metadades en els documents electrònics, i sobre les facilitats que ofereixen les aplicacions actuals pel desenvolupament d'aquest tipus de documents.

Diseño de un controlador para una matriz de Led tricolor basado en microprocesador

Diseño de un Controlador para una matriz de Led Tricolor basado en microprocesador, cuya función principal es la de representar en una matriz de 16 x 16 formada por LED Tricolor, una imagen dada por un archivo digital.

Gestión postventa

Proyecto final de carrera en el que una empresa, especializada en el segmento de los electrodomésticos, se ve en la necesidad de cambiar el sistema que tiene para gestionar la postventa de sus productos. Se han analizado los requerimientos del nuevo sistema, así como implementado la base de datos que satisface estos requerimientos junto con los procedimientos necesarios para la gestión que proporcionaran el único método de acceso. A parte de la gestión diaria de las incidencias, se han consolidado datos para generar estadísticas que permitan mejorar la eficiencia de la empresa.

Disseny i implementació d'un sistema per a gestionar la postvenda d'electrodomèstics

Treball centrat en el disseny i implementació d'una base de dades relacional (BD) per a la gestió d'incidències d'electrodomèstics, atenent als requeriments inicialment establerts. Inclou els procediments emmagatzemats, els sistema de diari (log). També es crea un magatzem de dades (DWH) i el procés d'extracció, transformació i càrrega (ETL) entre la BD i el DWH. Finalment es creen unes consultes específiques del DWH i una interfície HTML per a realitzar-les des d'un navegador i un servidor web.

Implantación de una Plataforma GNU/Linux en la gestión del hogar digital focalizada a la domótica,multimedia-ocio y las TICs.

In the near future, access to data and home automation systems in the home supported by the implementation of GNU-Linux operating systems in our homes, a reality of the first order for the implementation of real homes and automated digital awarding a cost reduction by the intensive use of the resources provided directly by the Open Software Community. The future possibilities seem almost endless: telecommuting, centralized household accounts, software distributed online training for young people in the house, multimedia at all levels, design and artistic creation (particularly through electronic digital displays are spreading rapidly in our homes), targeted towards home automation automated digital, integrated control of home security, digital entertainment ... and with free applications at no additional cost that can be easily downloaded from the usual repositories, ensuring the online update of these tools. In short, new ways of understanding in the home automation, telecommuting and digital entertainment within the broader framework of our Information Society.

Modelling structural zeros in compositional data

This analysis was stimulated by the real data analysis problem of householdexpenditure data. The full dataset contains expenditure data for a sample of 1224 households. The expenditure is broken down at 2 hierarchical levels: 9 major levels (e.g. housing, food, utilities etc.) and 92 minor levels. There are also 5 factors and 5 covariates at the household level. Not surprisingly, there are a small number of zeros at the major level, but many zeros at the minor level. The question is how best to model the zeros. Clearly, models that tryto add a small amount to the zero terms are not appropriate in general as at least some of the zeros are clearly structural, e.g. alcohol/tobacco for households that are teetotal. The key question then is how to build suitable conditional models. For example, is the sub-composition of spendingexcluding alcohol/tobacco similar for teetotal and non-teetotal households?In other words, we are looking for sub-compositional independence. Also, what determines whether a household is teetotal? Can we assume that it is independent of the composition? In general, whether teetotal will clearly depend on the household level variables, so we need to be able to model this dependence. The other tricky question is that with zeros on more than onecomponent, we need to be able to model dependence and independence of zeros on the different components. Lastly, while some zeros are structural, others may not be, for example, for expenditure on durables, it may be chance as to whether a particular household spends money on durableswithin the sample period. This would clearly be distinguishable if we had longitudinal data, but may still be distinguishable by looking at the distribution, on the assumption that random zeros will usually be for situations where any non-zero expenditure is not small.While this analysis is based on around economic data, the ideas carry over tomany other situations, including geological data, where minerals may be missing for structural reasons (similar to alcohol), or missing because they occur only in random regions which may be missed in a sample (similar to the durables)

Consumption heterogenity over the business cycle

We study consumption heterogeneity over the business cycle. Using household panel data from 1984 to 2010 in the US we find that the welfare cost of the business cycle is non-negligible, once agents heterogeneity is taken into account, and sums to about 1% of yearly consumption. This is due to the structure of comovements between the different parts of the consumption distribution, in particular the tails are highly volatile and negatively related to each other. We also find that business cycle fluctuations originating from exogenous financial shocks only hit the top end of the consumption distribution and therefore reduce consumption inequality.