Sweet diversity: Colonial goods and the rise of European living standards after 1492

When did overseas trade start to matter for living standards? Traditional real-wage indices suggest that living standards in Europe stagnated before 1800. In this paper, we argue thatwelfare rose substantially, but surreptitiously, because of an influx of new goods as a result ofoverseas trade. Colonial luxuries such as tea, coffee, and sugar transformed European diets afterthe discovery of America and the rounding of the Cape of Good Hope. These goods became household items in many countries by the end of the 18th century. We use three different methodsto calculate welfare gains based on price data and the rate of adoption of these new colonialgoods. Our results suggest that by 1800, the average Englishman would have been willing to forego 10% or more of his income in order to maintain access to sugar and tea alone. These findings are robust to a wide range of alternative assumptions, data series, and valuation methods.

The allometry of non-employment. What can compositional data analysis tell us about labour market performance across the UK's regions?

The low levels of unemployment recorded in the UK in recent years are widely cited asevidence of the country’s improved economic performance, and the apparent convergence of unemployment rates across the country’s regions used to suggest that the longstanding divide in living standards between the relatively prosperous ‘south’ and the more depressed ‘north’ has been substantially narrowed. Dissenters from theseconclusions have drawn attention to the greatly increased extent of non-employment(around a quarter of the UK’s working age population are not in employment) and themarked regional dimension in its distribution across the country. Amongst these dissenters it is generally agreed that non-employment is concentrated amongst oldermales previously employed in the now very much smaller ‘heavy’ industries (e.g. coal,steel, shipbuilding).This paper uses the tools of compositiona l data analysis to provide a much richer picture of non-employment and one which challenges the conventional analysis wisdom about UK labour market performance as well as the dissenters view of the nature of theproblem. It is shown that, associated with the striking ‘north/south’ divide in nonemployment rates, there is a statistically significant relationship between the size of the non-employment rate and the composition of non-employment. Specifically, it is shown that the share of unemployment in non-employment is negatively correlated with the overall non-employment rate: in regions where the non-employment rate is high the share of unemployment is relatively low. So the unemployment rate is not a very reliable indicator of regional disparities in labour market performance. Even more importantly from a policy viewpoint, a significant positive relationship is found between the size ofthe non-employment rate and the share of those not employed through reason of sicknessor disability and it seems (contrary to the dissenters) that this connection is just as strong for women as it is for men

Assessing the Political Viability of Labour Market Reform: The Case of Employment Protection

We analyze the political support for employment protection legislation. Unlike my previous work on the same topic, this paper pays a lot of attention to the role of obsolescence in the growth process. In voting in favour of employment protection, incumbent employees trade off lower living standards (because employment protection maintains workers in less productive activities) against longer job duration. The support for employment protection will then depend on the value of the latter relative to the cost of the former. We highlight two key deeterminants of this trade-off: first, the workers' bargaining power, second, the economy's growth rate-more precisely its rate of creative destruction.

Labour Market Formation Patterns in Nineteenth Century Catalonia

In this paper we portray the features of the Catalan textiles labour market in a period of technological change. Supply and demand for labour as well as a gendered view of living standards are presented. A first set of results is that labour supply adjusts to changes in labour demand trough the spread of new demographic attitudes. In this respect we imply that labour economic agents (or labour population) were able to modify the economic condition of their children. A second set of results refers to living standards and income distribution inequality. In this respect we see that unemployment and protectionism were the main sources breeding income inequality. A third set of results deals with the extreme labour market segmentation according to gender. Since women s real wages did not obey to an economic rationale we conclude that women were outside the labour market.

The Three Horsemen of Growth: Plague, War and Urbanization in Early Modern Europe

How did Europe overtake China? We construct a simple Malthusian model with two sectors, and use it to explain how European per capita incomes and urbanization rates could surge ahead of Chinese ones. That living standards could exceed subsistence levels at all in a Malthusian setting should be surprising. Rising fertility and falling mortality ought to have reversed any gains. We show that productivity growth in Europe can only explain a small fraction of rising living standards. Population dynamics - changes of the birth and death schedules - were far more important drivers of the longrun Malthusian equilibrium. The Black Death raised wages substantially, creating important knock-on effects. Because of Engel's Law, demand for urban products increased, raising urban wages and attracting migrants from rural areas. European cities were unhealthy, especially compared to Far Eastern ones. Urbanization pushed up aggregate death rates. This effect was reinforced by more frequent wars (fed by city wealth) and disease spread by trade. Thus, higher wages themselves reduced population pressure. Without technological change, our model can account for the sharp rise in European urbanization as well as permanently higher per capita incomes. We complement our calibration exercise with a detailed analysis of intra-European growth in the early modern period. Using a panel of European states in the period 1300-1700, we show that war frequency can explain a good share of the divergent fortunes within Europe.

From severance pay to self-insurance: Effects of severance payments savings accounts in Colombia

In 1990 Colombia replaced its traditional system of severance paymentswith a new system of severance payments savings accounts (SPSAs). Althoughseverance payments often are justified on the grounds that they provideinsurance against earnings loss, they also increase costs for employersand distort employment decisions. The impact of severance payments dependslargely on how much of the costs to employers can be shifted to workers.The theoretical analysis in this paper shows that, in contrast to atraditional system of severance payments, the system of SPSAs facilitatesthe shifting of severance payments costs to workers in the form of lowerwages. Empirical results using the Colombian National Household Surveysindicate that the introduction of SPSAs shifted around 80% of the totalseverance payments contributions to wages and had a positive effect onweekly hours. Results using the 1997 Colombian Living Standards MeasurementSurvey suggest that, although SPSAs in part replaced employer insurancewith self-insurance, SPSAs continue to play a consumption smoothing rolefor the non-employed.

Wage structures and family economies in the Catalan textile industry in an age of nascent capitalism

This paper deals with changes in managerial practices in Catalonia in anage of nascent capitalism (1830-1925) and adaptive family strategies inorder to face the absence of state welfare. During the 19 t h Century andin the absence of recorded labor contracts, human resources of the firmwere organized by means of implicit contracts and informal labor markets.With the advent of scientific organization of labor, wage per hour workedbegan to be recorded. This is why in the 1920s the perfect competitionmodel applies to our case. On the other hand, in the same period, and inthe absence of state welfare, ideas stemming from cooperative game theoryapply to the pattern of household income formation. Kin related networkswere used to improve the living standards of the household. In thisparticular direction we also show that there was a demonstration effectby means of which migrant s living standards were higher than those ofnatives.

Assesing the political viability of labour market reform: The case of employment protection

We analyze the political support for employment protection legislation.Unlike my previous work on the same topic, this paper pays a lot ofattention to the role of obsolescence in the growth process.In voting in favour of employment protection, incumbent employeestrade off lower living standards (because employment protectionmaintains workers in less productive activities) against longer jobduration. The support for employment protection will then depend onthe value of the latter relative to the cost of the former. Wehighlight two key deeterminants of this trade-off: first, the workers'bargaining power, second, the economy's growth rate-more preciselyits rate of creative destruction.

The political economy of employment protection

This paper develops a model of job creation and job destruction in agrowing economy with embodied technical progress, that we use toanalyze the political support for employment protection legislationssuch as the ones that are observed in most European countries.We analyze the possibility of Condorcet cycles due to the fact thatworkers about to become unemployed prefer both an increase and areduction in firing costs over the status quo. Despite this problem, we show the existence of local, and sometimes global majority winners.In voting in favour of employment protection, incumbent employeestrade off lower living standards (because employment protectionmaintains workers in less productive activities) against longer job duration. We show that the gains from, and consequently the politicalsupport for employment protection (as defined by maximunjob tenure) are larger, the lower the rate of creative destruction and the largerthe worker's bargaining power. Numerical simulations suggest a hump-shaped response of firing costs to these variables, as well as negative impact of exogeneous turnover on employment protection.

Living in the Wrong Neighbourhood: State Failure and its Implications for Neighbouring Countries

Why and how do failed states affect neighbouring countries? The attention of the international community towards state failure has grown significantly in recent years, improving the understanding of this phenomenon; nevertheless, the knowledge about the influence of state failure on neighbouring countries remain scarce. This research aims at contributing to filling up the existing gap by analyzing two different cases of state failure –Liberia and Afghanistan– and its consequences on four of their neighbours –Sierra Leone, Guinea, Pakistan and Tajikistan. More concretely, this research investigates the importance of insurgency movements in the relationship between these countries. The research argues that failed states generate conflict-enhancing mechanisms –which might lead to conflict outbreak– in their neighbours through the creation of informal networks. The empiric evidence shows how insurgency-based informal networks have a decisive role in the outbreak of conflict.

Open to the users' needs : combining user-centered design, standards and open source software

This case study introduces our continuous work to enhance the virtual classroom in order to provide faculty and students with an environment open to their needs, compliant with learning standards and, therefore compatible with other e-learning environments, and based on open source software. The result is a modulable, sustainable and interoperable learning environment that can be adapted to different teaching and learning situations by incorporating the LMS integrated tools as well as wikis, blogs, forums and Moodle activities among others.

OER in Portugal as agent of curriculum innovation and technological change. Inducing practices of "new" teaching standards

This research project aimed the following goal: promote the creation, use and disclosure of OER in a Group of Schools, involving schools and teachers from different learning levels, expecting to test and validate the use of OER, in a learning-teaching model towards curricular innovation. Defining as a starting point different subjects and teachers from distinct academic areas, we have implemented a set of activities leading to the creation of OER supported, when possible, in FLOSS tools. We adopted an action research methodology with a dual purpose: to act within a community of teachers and students, while increasing at the same time their knowledge, as well as the researcher's. The activity was developed cooperatively in order to process a certain reality of the teaching-learning process, through practical/reflective action towards it and inducing its implementation by others in the Portuguese School System, based on the production and sharing OER.

La insuficiència cardíaca i la qualitat de vida: aplicació del qüestionari “Minnesota Living With Heart Failure” a l’àmbit d’atenció primària

Conèixer la qualitat de vida (QV) mitjançant el qüestionari Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLWHFQ) en una població afecta d’insuficiència cardíaca atesa al nivell d’atenció primària mitjançant un estudi descriptiu transversal i observacional. La major part dels pacients són dones d’edat avançada amb disfunció diastòlica, d’etiologia hipertensiva. L’aplicació del MLWHFQ ha presentat puntuacions baixes. S’ha trobat significació estadística amb la classe funcional i el nombre d’ingressos en l’últim any, en malalts amb malaltia pulmonar obstructiva crònica i insuficiència renal crònica. No s’ha trobat correlació significativa amb la fracció d’ejecció, el tractament, ni amb la causa de la insuficiència cardíaca.

Sumak Kawsay, or the concept of living well, and perceptions about natural, urban and rural areas: the case of Cuenca (Ecuador)

This research explores critical environmental concepts from the standpoint of political ecology. It contrasts the Ecuadorian Kichua indigenous concept of Sumak Kawsay (i.e., living well), with discourses about natural, urban and rural areas. Sumak Kawsay was included in Ecuador’s 2008 constitution as an alternative to the neoclassical idea of development. This work reveals interesting insights from a variety of social and political viewpoints from both rural and urban areas. The research is based on the medium sized city of Cuenca, which is located in the southern Ecuadorian Andes. We used an adaptation of the Q Method to investigate stakeholders’ perceptions. Four remarkably well-defined viewpoints were revealed. Although these views contrast strongly with Sumak Kawsay, it is possible to transform this paradigm in the foundation of Cuenca’s public policies and institutional structure.

Sickness presenteeism in Spanish-born and immigrant workers in Spain

Background: Previous studies have shown that immigrant workers face relatively worse working and employment conditions, as well as lower rates of sickness absence than native-born workers. This study aims to assess rates of sickness presenteeism in a sample of Spanish-born and foreign-born workers according to different characteristics. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted amongst a convenience sample of workers (Spanish-born and foreign-born), living in four Spanish cities: Barcelona, Huelva, Madrid and Valencia (2008-2009). Sickness presenteeism information was collected through two items in the questionnaire ("Have you had health problems in the last year?" and "Have you ever had to miss work for any health problem?") and was defined as worker who had a health problem (answered yes, first item) and had not missed work (answered no, second item). For the analysis, the sample of 2,059 workers (1,617 foreign-born) who answered yes to health problems was included. After descriptives, logistic regressions were used to establish the association between origin country and sickness presenteeism (adjusted odds ratios aOR; 95% confidence interval 95%CI). Analyses were stratified per time spent in Spain among foreign-born workers. Results: All of the results refer to the comparison between foreign-born and Spanish-born workers as a whole, and in some categories relating to personal and occupational conditions. Foreign-born workers were more likely to report sickness presenteeism compared with their Spanish-born counterparts, especially those living in Spain for under 2 years [Prevalence: 42% in Spanish-born and 56.3% in Foreign-born; aOR 1.77 95%CI 1.24-2.53]. In case of foreign-born workers (with time in Spain < 2 years), men [aOR 2.31 95%CI 1.40-3.80], those with university studies [aOR 3.01 95%CI 1.04-8.69], temporary contracts [aOR 2.26 95%CI 1.29-3.98] and salaries between 751-1,200€ per month [aOR 1.74 95% CI 1.04-2.92] were more likely to report sickness presenteeism. Also, recent immigrants with good self-perceived health and good mental health were more likely to report presenteeism than Spanish-born workers with the same good health indicators. Conclusions: Immigrant workers report more sickness presenteeism than their Spanish-born counterparts. These results could be related to precarious work and employment conditions of immigrants. Immigrant workers should benefit from the same standards of social security, and of health and safety in the workplace that are enjoyed by Spanish workers.