Worksharing and access discounts in the postal sector with asymmetrics information

This paper analyses the optimal worksharing discount granted to mailers and entrants in a liberalized sector when there is asymmetric information about the Post Office's cost. When the regulator is unable to ascertain which part of total cost of sorting has to be attributed to each sorting facility, the optimal 'accesss discount' given to the entrants is set in a pro-competitive way, thus facilitating the entry of firms that are less afficient than the Post Office. Howerver, with the same asymmetry of information, the optimal 'worksharing discount' given to the mailers is set to favor the Post Office, even when it is less efficient than the mailers in providing the sorting.

Sequential decisions in allocation problems

[eng] In the context of cooperative TU-games, and given an order of players, we consider the problem of distributing the worth of the grand coalition as a sequentia decision problem. In each step of process, upper and lower bounds for the payoff of the players are required related to successive reduced games. Sequentially compatible payoffs are defined as those allocation vectors that meet these recursive bounds. The core of the game is reinterpreted as a set of sequentally compatible payoffs when the Davis-Maschler reduced game is considered (Th.1). Independently of the reduction, the core turns out to be the intersections of the family of the sets of sequentially compatible payoffs corresponding to the different possible orderings (Th.2), so it is in some sense order-independent. Finally, we analyze advantagenous properties for the first player

The determinants of industrial location in Spain, 1856-1929

Durant el segle XIX, l'economia espanyola va transitar per les primeres etapes de la industrialització. Aquest procés es va donar en paral·lel a la integració del mercat domèstic de béns i factors, en un moment en què les reformes liberals i la construcció de la xarxa ferroviària, entre d'altres, van generar una important caiguda en els costos detransport. Al mateix temps que es donava aquesta progressiva integració del mercat domèstic espanyol, es van produir canvis significatius en la pauta de localització industrial. D'una banda, hi hagué un augment considerable de la concentració espacial de la indústria des de mitjans de segle XIX i fins a la Guerra Civil, i d¿altra, un increment de l'especialització regional. Ara bé, quines van ser les forces que van generar aquests canvis? Des d¿un punt de vista teòric, el model de Heckscher-Ohlin suggereix que la distribució a l'espai de l¿activitat econòmica ve determinada per l'avantatge comparativa dels territoris en funció de la dotació relativa de factors. Al seu torn, els models de Nova Geografia Econòmica (NEG) mostren l'existència d'una relació en forma de campana entre el procés d'integració econòmica i el grau de concentració geogràfica de l'activitat industrial. Aquest article examina empíricament els determinants de la localització industrial a Espanya entre 1856 i 1929, mitjançant l'estimació d¿un model que combina els elements de tipus Heckscher-Ohlin i els factors apuntats des de la NEG, amb l'objectiu de contrastar la força relativa dels arguments vinculats a aquestes dues interpretacions a l'hora de modular la localització de la indústria a Espanya. L'anàlisi dels resultats obtinguts mostra que tant la dotació de factors com els mecanismes de tipus NEG van ser elements determinants que expliquen la distribució geogràfica de la indústria des del segle XIX, tot i que la seva força relativa va anar variant amb el temps.

La forma lògica de les oracions d'acció i la tesi d'Anscombe

This paper has three sections. In the first one, I expose and discuss Davidson's semantic account of adverbial sentences: the basic idea is that these sentences involve quantification over events, and I defend that view from opposing perspectives like the theory of adverbs as predicate modifiers. In the second section I defend the claim that in english constructions following the scheme: ¿X did V by T-ings¿, we are referring to the same action of X; what is sometimes called ¿The Anscombe Thesis¿. Again I discuss competing theories only to conclude that the Anscombe Thesis is true. In the third section, however, it is shown that to assume as premisses these two theses -Davidson's account and the Anscombe Thesis- leads to a serious conflict. Alternative solutions are worked out and rejected. It is also argued that the only tenable solution depends on certain metaphysical assumptions. Finally, however, I will cast doubt on this solution.

Option valuation as an expectation in the complex domain: The Black-Scholes case

It is very well known that the first succesful valuation of a stock option was done by solving a deterministic partial differential equation (PDE) of the parabolic type with some complementary conditions specific for the option. In this approach, the randomness in the option value process is eliminated through a no-arbitrage argument. An alternative approach is to construct a replicating portfolio for the option. From this viewpoint the payoff function for the option is a random process which, under a new probabilistic measure, turns out to be of a special type, a martingale. Accordingly, the value of the replicating portfolio (equivalently, of the option) is calculated as an expectation, with respect to this new measure, of the discounted value of the payoff function. Since the expectation is, by definition, an integral, its calculation can be made simpler by resorting to powerful methods already available in the theory of analytic functions. In this paper we use precisely two of those techniques to find the well-known value of a European call

Sequential decisions in allocation problems

[eng] In the context of cooperative TU-games, and given an order of players, we consider the problem of distributing the worth of the grand coalition as a sequentia decision problem. In each step of process, upper and lower bounds for the payoff of the players are required related to successive reduced games. Sequentially compatible payoffs are defined as those allocation vectors that meet these recursive bounds. The core of the game is reinterpreted as a set of sequentally compatible payoffs when the Davis-Maschler reduced game is considered (Th.1). Independently of the reduction, the core turns out to be the intersections of the family of the sets of sequentially compatible payoffs corresponding to the different possible orderings (Th.2), so it is in some sense order-independent. Finally, we analyze advantagenous properties for the first player

Worksharing and access discounts in the postal sector with asymmetrics information

This paper analyses the optimal worksharing discount granted to mailers and entrants in a liberalized sector when there is asymmetric information about the Post Office's cost. When the regulator is unable to ascertain which part of total cost of sorting has to be attributed to each sorting facility, the optimal 'accesss discount' given to the entrants is set in a pro-competitive way, thus facilitating the entry of firms that are less afficient than the Post Office. Howerver, with the same asymmetry of information, the optimal 'worksharing discount' given to the mailers is set to favor the Post Office, even when it is less efficient than the mailers in providing the sorting.

Public health expenditure and spatial interactions in a decentralized national health system

One of the limitations of cross-country health expenditure analysis refers to the fact that the financing, the internal organization and political restraints of health care decision-making are country-specific and heterogeneous. Yet, a potential solution is to examine the influence of such effects in those countries that have undertaken decentralization processes. In such a setting, it is possible to examine potential expenditure spillovers across the geography of a country as well as the influence of the political ideology of regional incumbents on public health expenditure. This paper examines the determinants of public health expenditure within Spanish region-states (Autonomous Communities, ACs), most of them subject to similar financing structures although exhibiting significant heterogeneity as a result of the increasing decentralization, region-specific political factors along with different use of health care inputs, economic dimension and spatial interactions

Structure and spatial variability of Pinus uncinata Ram. growth forms at two contrasting treeline ecotones in the Spanish Pyrenees.

Describimos la distribución espacial de individuos de Pinus uncinata clasificados según su forma de crecimiento y tamaño en dos ecotonos poco perturbados del límite altitudinal del árbol situados en los Pirineos Centrales españoles (Ordesa, O; Tessó, T). En cada sitio situamos una parcela rectangular (30 140 m), que incluía los límites del árbol y del bosque, y cuyo lado mayor seguía el gradiente altitudinal. En ambos sitios, los individuos vivos eran más grandes y tenían un mayor número de cohortes de acículas pendiente abajo. La distribución de las clases de individuos según su forma de crecimiento y tamaño en el sitio O seguía una secuencia de mayor tamaño pendiente abajo, desde abundantes individuos policórmicos arbustivos (krummholz) con pocas cohortes de acículas (1-3) hasta individuos arbóreos mayores unicórmicos con varias cohortes de acículas (4-12). Por el contrario, los cambios estructurales en el ecotono del sitio T fueron graduales y no siguieron de forma tan clara dicha secuencia

The global report of trafficking in persons: analysis and results

L'Oficina de les Nacions Unides contra la Droga i el Delicte en el seu informe "Global Report on Trafficking in Persons" de 2012 recull que "l'explotació sexual és, amb gran diferència, la forma de tràfic de persones detectades amb més freqüència, concretament en xifres un total del 79 % dels casos. Enllaç a l'informe sencer: http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/Trafficking_in_Persons_2012_web.pdf

La ment forma part de la teva vida, aprèn a cuidar-la!

L’objectiu d’aquest estudi és crear un programa de prevenció de la demència a partir d’activitats i ocupacions significatives. S’utilitzarà la metodologia quantitativa i es realitzarà un estudi experimental i seqüencial. L’estudi es realitzarà al medi rural, concretament a Ripoll (Sant Bernabé). Per tal de poder obtenir la els participants per la realització de l’estudi s’utilitzarà el mostreig aleatori estratificat amb el qual s’obtindrà dos grups de 16 persones de 50 a 55 anys. Els instruments que s’utilitzaran per tal de poder obtenir les dades de l’estudi són el “Qüestionari internacional d’activitat física” (2002), la bateria neuropsicològica anomenada “Test de Barcelona abreviat” (1997), “L’escala de qualitat de vida” (2008), i per acabar s’utilitzarà el “Test KIMED” (2004). Una primera limitació pot ser que l’ajuntament no ens faciliti les dades per tal de poder realitzar el mostreig aleatori estratificat per tal de poder aconseguir la mostra. També pot ser que l’ajuntament no cedeixi el lloc per tal de poder realitzar la intervenció. Un altre possible limitació pot ser el temps atmosfèric. I per acabar també ens podem torbar amb l’abandonament del programa per part d’un o més participants.

FROM TOTAL INSTITUTION TO EXTITUTION? Discussions on the future of monastic life in the Benedictine women’s monasteries of Catalonia (Spain

On the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Federation of Benedictine Women’s Monasteries of Catalonia (Spain), the five monasteries represented are discussing the following question: what will monastic life be like in the future? This question is added to the debate about “new forms of monasticism”, “urban monastic life” and, in a more general sense, to the modernisations and “the opening up” of the precepts and practices of monastic life at this time. Faced with the ambitious monastic questioning, the author responds with five deliberately provocative debates developed out of a consideration of various chapters of the Rule of St. Benedict that raise profound questions when it comes to responding to the question presented here. Having described these five debates, by way of a summary, the article presents three ideal types of monastery in relation to the current processes of deinstitutionalisation that represent, in an overall way, three provisional responses and serve as a focus for the question discussed here.

Characterization of Reward Functions in Networks with Costs

In this paper we study network structures in which the possibilities for cooperation are restricted and can not be described by a cooperative game. The benefits of a group of players depend on how these players are internally connected. One way to represent this type of situations is the so-called reward function, which represents the profits obtainable by the total coalition if links can be used to coordinate agents' actions. The starting point of this paper is the work of Vilaseca et al. where they characterized the reward function. We concentrate on those situations where there exist costs for establishing communication links. Given a reward function and a costs function, our aim is to analyze under what conditions it is possible to associate a cooperative game to it. We characterize the reward function in networks structures with costs for establishing links by means of two conditions, component permanence and component additivity. Finally, an economic application is developed to illustrate the main theoretical result.

Cultural events and tourist development in Catalonia (Spain)

From the point of view of local development cultural tourism events represent an opportunity since they are distributed homogeneously by the Catalan territory and are experiencing a vertiginous growth as a way to differentiate the existing supply. In our study a sample of 264 telephone surveys made to organizers of events in Catalonia has been compiled, with the purpose of characterizing the existing supply, thematic typologies, management models, commercialization inputs and economic impact. The results allow us to characterize events from the point of view of their tourist potential. Finally some recommendations are set out to develop future tourism policies based on events according to product differentiation, seasonality, competitiveness and creativity.

Experimental Results and Evaluation of SmartBox Stimulation Device in a P2P E-learning System

In this paper, we present the experimental results and evaluation of the SmartBox stimulation device in P2P e-learning system which is based on JXTA-Overlay. We also show the design and implementation of the SmartBox environment that is used for stimulating the learners motivation to increase the learning efficiency. The SmartBox is integrated with our P2P system as a useful tool for monitoring and controlling learners¿ activity. We found by experimental results that the SmartBox is an effective way to increase the learner¿s concentration. We also investigated the relation between learner¿s body movement, concentration, and amount of study. From the experimental results, we conclude that the use of SmartBox is an effective way to stimulate the learners in order to continue studying while maintaining the concentration.