Research work in Tokyo Institute of Technology

Research carried out in Tokyo Institute of Technology. The objective is to determine the influence of Interfacial Transition Zone (ITZ) around Lightweight aggregate in concrete on Chloride ion diffusivity. The ITZ of conventional concretes is the weakest point of concrete. The accumulating water on ITZ zone forms the most permeable area inside the concrete. Hence ITZ paves the way for chloride ion diffusion. The quality of ITZ depends on type and quality of aggregates used, water-cement ratio and also the method used for the production of concrete. It has been used two types of lightweight aggregates will be used, Chinese and Japanese, with different absorption capacities. The idea is to produce concrete with same effective water - cement ratio, using the same aggregates in two different conditions, dry and saturated, and compare the chloride ion diffusivity in these concretes (by diffusion test). A comparison of ITZ thickness of these concretes by SEM and EDAX-maps is also proposed. The chloride ion diffusion of concretes produced with the same effective water – cement ratio and same aggregates (dry and ssd) will depend, mainly, on ITZ.

What works best for getting the unemployed back to work: employment services or small-business assistance programs? evidence from Romania

Recent empirical evidence has found that employment services and small-business assistance programmes are often successful at getting the unemployed back to work. Â One important concern of policy makers is to decide which of these two programmes is more effective and for whom. Â Using unusually rich (for transition economies) survey data and matching methods, I evaluate the relative effectiveness of these two programmes in Romania. Â While I find that employment services (ES) are, on average, more successful than a small-business assistance programme (SBA), estimation of heterogeneity effects reveals that, compared to non-participation, ES are effective for workers with little access to informal search channels, and SBA works for less-qualified workers and those living in rural areas. Â When comparing ES to SBA, I find that ES tend to be more efficient than SBA for workers without a high-school degree, and that the opposite holds for the more educated workers.

Reversal of opinion: the implications of the work of Acemoglu and Robinson for marxist thought

This paper describes the implications for Marxist thought of the work of Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. In the first two periods of this they explained how the rise of democracy brought prosperity to Europe  and why the same process had not worked in Latin America because of the possibility of coups. The implication is that mass poverty can better be alleviated by safeguarding democracy rather than moving to socialism. In the last period A and R have formalized doubts about the efficacy of democracy in this role. The implication here is that Marxists should work to find a system of government that is immune to elite dominance. Hugo Chávez is taken as an example.

Work values, endogenous sentiments and redistribution

We examine the interactions between individual behavior, sentiments and the social contract in a model of rational voting over redistribution. Agents have moral "work values". Individuals' self-esteem and social consideration of others are endogenously determined comparing behaviors to moral standards. Attitudes toward redistribution depend on self-interest and social preferences. We characterize the politico-economic equilibria in which sentiments, labor supply and redistribution are determined simultaneously. The equilibria feature different degrees of "social cohesion" and redistribution depending on pre-tax income inequality. In clustered equilibria the poor are held partly responsible for their low income since they work less than the moral standard and hence redistribution is low. The paper proposes a novel explanation for the emergence of different sentiments and social contracts across countries. The predictions appear broadly in line with well-documented differences between the United States and Europe.

Work, risk and health: differences between immigrants and natives in Spain

We analyze the impact of working and contractual conditions, particularly exposure to job risks, on the probability of acquiring a disability. We postulate a model in which this impact is mediated by the choice of occupation, with a level of risk associated to 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 use data from the Continuous Sample of Working Lives of the Spanish SS system. It contains individual, job and firm information of over a million workers, including a representative sample of immigrants. We find that risk exposure increases the probability of permanent disability by 5.3%; temporary employment also influences health. Migrant status -with differences among regions of origin- significantly affects both disability and the probability of being employed in a risky occupation. Most groups of immigrants work in riskier jobs, but have lower probability of becoming disabled. Nevertheless, our theoretical hypothesis that disability and risk are jointly determined is not valid for immigrants: i.e. for them working conditions is not a matter of choice in terms of health.

Productivity in southern European small firms: When and how work organization complements process innovation

The aim of this paper is to analyse the effects of human capital, advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT), and new work organizational practices on firm productivity, while taking into account the synergies existing between them. This study expands current knowledge in this area in two ways. First, in contrast with previous works, we focus on AMT and not ICT (information and communication technologies). Second, we use a unique employer-employee data set for small firms in a particular area of southern Europe (Catalonia, Spain). Using a small firm data set, allows us to analyse the particular case of small and medium enterprises, since we cannot assume they have the same characteristics as large firms. The results provide evidence in favor of the complementarity hypothesis between human capital, advanced manufacturing technologies, and new work organization practices, although we show that the complementarity effects depend on what type of work organization practices are used by a firm. For small and medium Catalan firms, the only set of work organization practices that improve the benefits of human capital and technology investment are those practices which are more quality oriented, such as quality circles, problem-solving groups or total quality management.

Contextualizing the impact of work organization on employee satisfaction

The paper assesses the relationship between the use of alternative workplace practices (AWP) and job satisfaction. Using a unique employeremployee data set with rich information on both firm and employee characteristics we test whether there is a positive impact of AWPs on job satisfaction (motivation hypothesis) or it is negative (intensification hypothesis). We expand a growing empirical literature focusing on small and medium size firms from a southern European area. Our results show an overall positive effect, depending on the specific practice considered. We also obtain some sort of time-dependence with the effects turning from negative to positive once the practice has been implemented for some time. Keywords: Job satisfaction, work organization, unobserved heterogeneity.

Global work with immigrant children (GWIK)

El programa GWIK (Global work with immigrant children) tiene como objetivo poner en contacto diferentes universidades europeas y americanas dedicadas a la formación de trabajadores sociales y educadores sociales con la misión de ofrecer espacios de intercambio de experiencias prácticas para estudiantes y profesorado alrededor del tema de la infancia inmigrada.

Women's work histories in Italy: education as investment in reconciliation and legitimacy?

Within pre-enlargement Europe, Italy records one of the widest employment rate gaps between highly and poorly educated women, as well one of the largest differences in the share, among working women, of public sector employment. Building on these stylized facts and using the Longitudinal Survey of Italian Households (ILFI), we investigate the working trajectories of three cohorts of Italian women born between 1935 and 1964 and observed from their first job until they are in their forties. We use mainly, but not exclusively, event history analysis in order to identify the main factors that influence entry into and exit from paid work over the life course. Our results suggest that in the Italian context, where employment protection policies have also been used as surrogate measures to favour reconciliation between family and work, and where traditional gender norms still persist, education is so important for women's employment decisions because it represents an investment in 'reconciliation' and 'work legitimacy' over and above investment in human capital.

Effects of prison work programmes on the employability of ex-prisioners

This paper presents the main results of a study that relates information from the prison system with information for the Spanish Social Security in order to study the employability of the former inmates of prisons in Catalonia, Spain who obtained final release from 1/1/2004 to 31/12/2007. The results show that 43.6% of the ex-prisoners find a job after serving their sentences, but their integration in the labour market tends to be fragile, confirming that it is a very vulnerable group. It was also found that prison work has a favourable effect on employability and that vocational training could be useful for those who have not previously worked and have no education or job skills.

When mothers work and fathers care. Joint household fertility decisions in Denmark and Spain

We analyze second birth decisions within the theoretical framework of joint household decision making, comparing two countires that represent the international extremes in terms of women's career behaviour, Denmark and Spain. Using all 8 ECHP panels we apply discrete time estimations of the likelihood of a second birth and show that in Spain, fertility behaviour continues to conform to the classic "Becker model" while in Denmark we identify a radically new behavioral pattern according to which career-women's fertility is conditional of their partners' contribution to care for the children.

Poverty and children's work in Spain and Latin America. Some preliminary remarks.

In the first part of this paper we try to test the relationship between mothers earnings, fertility and children's work in the Spanish (Catalan) context of the first third of the 20th century. Specific human capital investment of adult working women had as an outcome the sharp increase of their real wage and also the increase of the opportunity cost of time devoted to house work including child rearing. Fertility evolution is endogenous to the model and decreases as a result of women real wage increases. Human capital investment of labouring women and mandatory schooling of children shift the labour supply function to a new steady state in which the slope is steeper. According to recent papers this model applies to 20th century Spain and it causes the abolition of children's work. Nonetheless the model do not apply to 20th century Latin America. Despite the positive evolution of literacy and life expectancy in this region, other factors involved poor results of the educational human capital investment. In this paper we remark the role of the increasing share of the informal sector of the economy ruled on the bases of women's and children's work. Second we stress the role of high income inequality evolution and endogamic school supplies to explain the limits of increasing literacy on more remarkable human capital improvements.

Do you work or do you study? Children's work in a comparative historical perspective

In this paper we compare two historical scenarios very different one to each other bothin institutional and geographical terms. What they have in common is the situation ofrelative poverty of most of the population. On the one side we are dealing withhistorical industrializing Catalonia in the North East of Spain, a country exhibiting pooreconomic yields in the context of European and non European industrializing nations inthe 19th century. We compare children s work patterns in 19th century Catalonia withthose of current developing countries in Latin America, Africa and South and East Asia.This kind of exercise in which the nexus of the comparison are the levels of wealth ofcountries that are unsuccessful to achieve high standards of economic growth allows usto combine the micro historical analysis (in the Catalan case) with the macrocomparative approach in current developing countries. By means of both, the microhistorical analysis and the macro regression analysis we obtain the result that adultwomen s skills and real wages are a key factor when we want to explain the patterns ofchildren work. While female real wages increased a sharp rate in 19th century Cataloniawe obtain very different results in the case of developing countries. This differentgender bias helps to explain why in some cases children continue to work and also whysome parts of the world continue to be poor according to our regression analysis.

The implicit theory of historical change in the work of Alan S. Milward

Alan S. Milward was an economic historian who developed an implicit theory ofhistorical change. His interpretation which was neither liberal nor Marxist positedthat social, political, and economic change, for it to be sustainable, had to be agradual process rather than one resulting from a sudden, cataclysmicrevolutionary event occurring in one sector of the economy or society. Benignchange depended much less on natural resource endowment or technologicaldevelopments than on the ability of state institutions to respond to changingpolitical demands from within each society. State bureaucracies were fundamentalto formulating those political demands and advising politicians of ways to meetthem. Since each society was different there was no single model of developmentto be adopted or which could be imposed successfully by one nation-state onothers, either through force or through foreign aid programs. Nor coulddevelopment be promoted simply by copying the model of a more successfuleconomy. Each nation-state had to find its own response to the political demandsarising from within its society. Integration occurred when a number of nation states shared similar political objectives which they could not meet individuallybut could meet collectively. It was not simply the result of their increasinginterdependence. It was how and whether nation-states responded to thesedomestic demands which determined the nature of historical change.