An AdS/QCD model from tachyon condensation: II

A simple holographic model is presented and analyzed that describes chiral symmetry breaking and the physics of the meson sector in QCD. This is a bottom-up model that incorporates string theory ingredients like tachyon condensation which is expected to be the main manifestation of chiral symmetry breaking in the holographic context. As a model for glue the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein background is used. The structure of the flavor vacuum is analyzed in the quenched approximation. Chiral symmetry breaking is shown at zero temperature. Above the deconfinement transition chiral symmetry is restored. A complete holographic renormalization is performed and the chiral condensate is calculated for different quark masses both at zero and non-zero temperatures. The 0++, 0¿+, 1++, 1¿¿ meson trajectories are analyzed and their masses and decay constants are computed. The asymptotic trajectories are linear. The model has one phenomenological parameter beyond those of QCD that affects the 1++, 0¿+ sectors. Fitting this parameter we obtain very good agreement with data. The model improves in several ways the popular hard-wall and soft wall bottom-up models.

Obesity and the incidence of chronic diseases: a seemingly unrelated probit approach

Western societies can reduce avoidable mortality and morbidity by better understanding the relationship between obesity and chronic disease. This paper examines the joint determinants of obesity and of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and elevated cholesterol. It analyzes a broadly representative Spanish dataset, the 1999 Survey on Disabilities, Impairments and Health Status, using a health production theoretical framework together with a seemingly unrelated probit model approach that controls for unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity. Its findings provide suggestive evidence of a positive and significant, although specification-dependent, association between obesity and the prevalence of chronic illness

National Identity and the Preference for State Opting-Out in the Basque Country

We argue that preferences for secession are the expression of a common unobserved mechanisms determining national identity. This paper examines the hypothesis of independence of both preferences for secession (independent Euskadi) and Basque national identity in the light of Akerloff and Kranton (2000). We deal with psychological determinants of individuals' national identity formation as well as those that influence the propensity of individuals to support the secession of their perceived ¿imagined community¿ or nation.. We undertake econometric survey analysis for the Basque Country using a bivariate probit model and publicly available data from the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research. Our results provide robust evidence of a common determination of national identity and political preferences for the secession of the Basque Country consistently with Akerloff and Kranton model.

An AdS/QCD model from tachyon condensation: II

A simple holographic model is presented and analyzed that describes chiral symmetry breaking and the physics of the meson sector in QCD. This is a bottom-up model that incorporates string theory ingredients like tachyon condensation which is expected to be the main manifestation of chiral symmetry breaking in the holographic context. As a model for glue the Kuperstein-Sonnenschein background is used. The structure of the flavor vacuum is analyzed in the quenched approximation. Chiral symmetry breaking is shown at zero temperature. Above the deconfinement transition chiral symmetry is restored. A complete holographic renormalization is performed and the chiral condensate is calculated for different quark masses both at zero and non-zero temperatures. The 0++, 0¿+, 1++, 1¿¿ meson trajectories are analyzed and their masses and decay constants are computed. The asymptotic trajectories are linear. The model has one phenomenological parameter beyond those of QCD that affects the 1++, 0¿+ sectors. Fitting this parameter we obtain very good agreement with data. The model improves in several ways the popular hard-wall and soft wall bottom-up models.

Impact of Duration of Primary Education on School Enrollment, Graduation and Drop-outs: A Cross- Country Analysis

Using a panel data for non-OECD countries covering the period 1970-2012, this chapter analyzes the impact of the duration of primary education on school enrollment, drop-out and completion rates. The empirical results show that for children in elementary school one ad- ditional grade of primary education have a negative impact on the enrollment rate, while the e ect on drop-outs is positive. Analogously, it is obtained that an additional grade in primary education reduces the enrollment rate in secondary education. These results are in line with the fertility model approach, that is, in developing and underdeveloped countries parents do not have incentive to send children to school given the high perceived economic value of children.

Disparities in work, risk and health between immigrants and native-born Spaniards

We analyse the impact of working and contractual conditions, particularly exposure to job risks, on the probability of acquiring a permanent disability, controlling for other personal and firm characteristics. We postulate a model in which this impact is mediated by the choice of occupation, with a level of risk associated with it. We assume this choice is endogenous, and that it depends on preferences and opportunities in the labour market, both of which may differ between immigrants and natives. To test this hypothesis we apply a bivariate probit model to data for 2006 from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives provided by the Spanish Social Security system, containing records for over a million workers. We find that risk exposure increases the probability of permanent disability arising from any cause - by almost 5%.

Ownership change and banking efficiency in the new EU members

The aim of this study is to analyze how European integration and, especially, changes in ownership, has affected banking efficiency in Central and Eastern European countries which have recently experimented this process more intensely. Using a stochastic frontier approach (SFA) applied to panel data, we have estimated bank efficiency levels in a sample of 189 banks from 12 countries during the period 2000 to 2008 and we have analyzed the influence of some bank characteristics on these efficiency levels. The results show that European integration has significantly improved the cost efficiency of banks in these countries but profit efficiency has significantly decreased. We have found very small differences between different ownership types and only a very small impact of foreign ownership on cost efficiency, showing that the entry of foreign ownership is not enough to explain the significant variations in banking efficiency after the accession.

The Spatial Distribution of Spanish Transport Infrastructure between 1860 and 1930

The origin of Spanish regional economic divergence can be traced back at least until the seventeenth century, although its full definition took place during industrialisation. Historians have often included uneven regional infrastructure endowments among the factors that explain divergence among Spanish regions, although no systematic analysis of the spatial distribution of Spanish infrastructure and its determinants has been carried out so far. This paper aims at filling that gap, by offering a description of the regional distribution of the main Spanish transport infrastructure between the middle of the nineteenth century and the Civil War. In addition, it estimates a panel data model to search into the main reasons that explain the differences among the Spanish regional endowments of railways and roads during that period. The outcomes of that analysis indicate that both institutional factors and the physical characteristics of each area had a strong influence on the distribution of transport infrastructure among the Spanish regions.

The permanence of the client under uncertain estimations

Marketing has studied the permanence of a client within an enterprise because it is a key element in the study of the value (economic) of the client (CLV). The research that they have developed is based in deterministic or random models, which allowed estimating the permanence of the client, and the CLV. However, when it is not possible to apply these schemes for not having the panel data that this model requires, the period of time of a client with the enterprise is uncertain data. We consider that the value of the current work is to have an alternative way to estimate the period of time with subjective information proper of the theory of uncertainty.

Energy efficiency determinants: An empirical analysis of Spanish innovative firms

This paper examines the extent to which innovative Spanish firms pursue improvements in energy efficiency (EE) as an objective of innovation. The increase in energy consumption and its impact on greenhouse gas emissions justifies the greater attention being paid to energy efficiency and especially to industrial EE. The ability of manufacturing companies to innovate and improve their EE has a substantial influence on attaining objectives regarding climate change mitigation. Despite the effort to design more efficient energy policies, the EE determinants in manufacturing firms have been little studied in the empirical literature. From an exhaustive sample of Spanish manufacturing firms and using a logit model, we examine the energy efficiency determinants for those firms that have innovated. To carry out the econometric analysis, we use panel data from the Community Innovation Survey for the period 2008‐2011. Our empirical results underline the role of size among the characteristics of firms that facilitate energy efficiency innovation. Regarding company behaviour, firms that consider the reduction of environmental impacts to be an important objective of innovation and that have introduced organisational innovations are more likely to innovate with the objective of increasing energy efficiency. Keywords: energy efficiency, corporate targets, innovation, Community Innovation Survey. JEL Classification: Q40, Q55, O31

Gender diversity and innovation in manufacturing and service firms

Traditionally, researchers have considered the innovation process as being gender neutral. However, recently some studies have begun to take gender diversity into account as a determinant of firms’ innovation. This paper aims to analyse how the effect of gender diversity on innovation output at firm level is sensitive to team size. Using the Spanish PITEC (Panel de Innovación Tecnológica) from 2007 to 2012 for innovative manufacturing and service firms, we estimate a multivariate probit model to analyse how gender diversity both in R&D teams and in the total workforce affect product, process, marketing and organizational innovations. Our results show that gender-diverse teams increase the probability of innovating, and this capacity is positively related team size. Gender diversity, in both the R&D department and the total workforce, has a larger positive impact on the probability of carrying out product and organizational innovations in larger teams than it does in smaller teams. This effect is less clear-cut in the case of marketing and process innovation, where the impact is only significant for micro and small firms. Finally, size effects are of greater importance when we distinguish between the manufacturing and service sectors. JEL Code: O30, O31, J16

The impact of FTAs on MENA trade in agricultural and industrial products

This paper analyses the impact of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) on Middle East and North African Countries (MENA) trade for the period 1994-2010. The analysis distinguishes between industrial and agricultural trade to take into account the different liberalisation schedules. An augmented gravity model is estimated using up-to-date panel data techniques to control for all time-invariant bilateral factors that influence bilateral trade as well as for the so-called multilateral resistance factors. We also control for the endogeneity of the agreements and test for self-selection bias due to the presence of zero trade in our sample. The main findings indicate that North-South-FTAs and South-South- FTAs have a differential impact in terms of increasing trade in MENA countries, with the former being more beneficial in terms of exports for MENA countries, but both showing greater global market integration. We also find that FTAs that include agricultural products, in which MENA countries have a clear comparative advantage, have more favourable effects for these countries than those only including industrial products. JEL code: F10, F15

Firm Size and Short-Term Dynamics in Aggregate Entry and Exit

Much of the research on industry dynamics focuses on the interdependence between the sectorial rates of entry and exit. This paper argues that the size of firms and the reaction-adjustment period are important conditions missed in this literature. I illustrate the effects of this omission using data from the Spanish manufacturing industries between 1994 and 2001. Estimates from systems of equations models provide evidence of a conical revolving door phenomenon and of partial adjustments in the replacement-displacement of large firms. KEYWORDS: aggregation, industry dynamics, panel data, symmetry, simultaneity. JEL CLASSIFICATION: C33, C52, L60, L11

The demand elasticity on tolled motorways

This paper analyses the elasticities of demand in tolled motorways in Spain with respect to the main variables influencing it. The demand equation is estimated using a panel data set where the cross-section observations correspond to the different Spanish tolled motorways sections, and the temporal dimension ranges from the beginning of the eighties until the end of the nineties. The results show a high elasticity with respect to the economic activity level. The average elasticity with respect to petrol price falls around -0.3, while toll elasticities clearly vary across motorway sections. These motorway sections are classified into four groups according to the estimated toll elasticity with values that range from -0.21 for the most inelastic to -0.83 for the most elastic. The main factors that explain such differences are the quality of the alternative road and the length of the section. The long-term effect is about 50 per cent higher than the short term one; however, the period of adjustment is relatively short.

Locations and Relocations:Modelling, Determinants, and Interrelations

Empirical studies on industrial location do not typically distinguish between new and relocated establishments. This paper addresses this shortcoming using data on the frequency of these events in municipalities of the same economic-administrative region. This enables us to test not only for differences in their determinants but also for interrelations between start-ups and relocations. Estimates from count regression models for cross-section and panel data show that, although partial effects differ, common patterns arise in “institutional” and “neoclassical” explanatory factors. Also, start-ups and relocations are positive but asymmetrically related. JEL classification: C25, R30, R10. Keywords: cities, count data models, industrial location