On the exhaustiveness of truncation and dropping strategies in many-to-many matching markets

We consider two–sided many–to–many matching markets in which each worker may work for multiple firms and each firm may hire multiple workers. We study individual and group manipulations in centralized markets that employ (pairwise) stable mechanisms and that require participants to submit rank order lists of agents on the other side of the market. We are interested in simple preference manipulations that have been reported and studied in empirical and theoretical work: truncation strategies, which are the lists obtained by removing a tail of least preferred partners from a preference list, and the more general dropping strategies, which are the lists obtained by only removing partners from a preference list (i.e., no reshuffling). We study when truncation / dropping strategies are exhaustive for a group of agents on the same side of the market, i.e., when each match resulting from preference manipulations can be replicated or improved upon by some truncation / dropping strategies. We prove that for each stable mechanism, truncation strategies are exhaustive for each agent with quota 1 (Theorem 1). We show that this result cannot be extended neither to group manipulations (even when all quotas equal 1 – Example 1), nor to individual manipulations when the agent’s quota is larger than 1 (even when all other agents’ quotas equal 1 – Example 2). Finally, we prove that for each stable mechanism, dropping strategies are exhaustive for each group of agents on the same side of the market (Theorem 2), i.e., independently of the quotas.

Unemployment insurance : severance payments and informality in developing countries

We analyze whether the introduction or an increase of unemployment insurance (UI hereafter) beneÖts in developing countries reduces the e§ort made by unemployed workers to secure a new job in the formal sector. We adopt a comparative static approach and we consider the consequences of an increase of current UI beneÖts on unemployed workersídecision variables in this same period, i.e. we focus on an intra-temporal trade-o§, allowing us to assume away moral hazard complications. When there is no informal sector, unemployed workers may devote their time between e§ort to secure a new job in the formal sector and leisure. In the presence of an informal sector, unemployed workers may also devote time to remunerated informal activities. Consequently, the amount of e§ort devoted to secure a new (formal) job generates an opportunity cost, which ceteris paribus, reduces the amount of time devoted to remunerated activities in the informal sector. We show that in the presence of an informal sector, an increase of current UI beneÖts decreases this marginal opportunity cost and therefore unambiguously increases the e§ort undertaken to secure a new job in the formal sector. This intra-temporal e§ect is the only one at play in presence of one-shot UI beneÖts or with severance payments mechanism.

Why labor income shares seem to be constant?

The common assumptions that labor income share does not change over time or across countries and that factor income shares are equal to the elasticity of output with respect to factors have had important implications for economic theory. However, there are various theoretical reasons why the elasticity of output with respect to reproducible factors should be correlated with the stage of development. In particular, the behavior of international trade and capital flows and the existence of factor saving innovations imply such a correlation. If this correlation exists and if factor income shares are equal to the elasticity of output with respect to factors then the labor income share must be negatively correlated with the stage of development. We propose an explanation for why labor income share has no correlation with income per capita: the existence of a labor intensive sector which produces non tradable goods.

Does the unemployment benefit institution affect the productivity of workers? evidence from a field experiment

We investigate whether and how the type of unemployment benefit institution affects productivity. We designed a field experiment to compare workers’ productivity under a welfare system, where the unemployed receive an unconditional monetary transfer, with their productivity under a workfare system, where the transfer is received conditional on the unemployed spending some time on ancillary activities. First, we find that having an unemployment benefit institution, regardless of whether it makes transfers conditional or unconditional, increases workers’ productivity. Second, we find that productivity is higher under Welfare than under Workfare. Becoming unemployed under Welfare comes at the psychological cost of a drop in self-esteem, presumably due to the shame or stigma associated with receiving an unconditional unemployment benefit. We document the empirical relevance of precisely this channel. The differences we observe in productivity suggest that this psychological cost acts as an extra nonmonetary incentive for workers under Welfare to put a higher effort in their work.

Equality of educational opportunity employing Pisa data: taking both achievement and access into account

La medición de la desigualdad de oportunidades con las bases de PISA implican varias limitaciones: (i) la muestra sólo representa una fracción limitada de las cohortes de jóvenes de 15 años en los países en desarrollo y (ii) estas fracciones no son uniformes entre países ni entre periodos. Lo anterior genera dudas sobre la confiabilidad de estas mediciones cuando se usan para comparaciones internacionales: mayor equidad puede ser resultado de una muestra más restringida y más homogénea. A diferencia de enfoques previos basados en reconstrucción de las muestras, el enfoque del documento consiste en proveer un índice bidimensional que incluye logro y acceso como dimensiones del índice. Se utilizan varios métodos de agregación y se observan cambios considerables en los rankings de (in) equidad de oportunidades cuando solo se observa el logro y cuando se observan ambas dimensiones en las pruebas de PISA 2006/2009. Finalmente se propone una generalización del enfoque permitiendo otras dimensiones adicionales y otros pesos utilizados en la agregación.

Inequality of opportunity in educational achievement in Latin America: evidence from PISA 2006-2009

We assess inequality of opportunity in educational achievement in six Latin American countries, employing two waves of PISA data (2006 and 2009). By means of a non-parametric approach using a decomposable inequality index, GE(0), we rank countries according to their degree of inequality of opportunity. We work with alternative characterizations of types: school type (public or private), gender, parental education, and combinations of those variables. We calculate incremental contributions of each set of circumstances to inequality. We provide rankings of countries based on unconditional inequalities (using conventional indices) and on conditional inequalities (EOp indices), and the two sets of rankings do not always coincide. Inequality of opportunities range from less than 1% to up to 27%, with substantial heterogeneity according to the year, the country, the subject and the specificication of circumstances. Robustness checks based on bootstrap and the use of an alternative index confirm most of the initial results.

Bogotá no tiene mar pero tiene playa: el vallenato y sus intérpretes costeños en Bogotá

La Playa es un sector de la ciudad de Bogotá, donde se encuentra la oferta de músicos informales más grande de Colombia: mariachis, tríos de cuerda y grupos vallenatos. En esta investigación, se analiza la migración de músicos vallenatos provenientes del Caribe colombiano a este sector de la capital del país; se examina el trabajo de estos músicos en La Playa; y se revisa el proceso de consolidación del vallenato como música nacional.

Informality in the City: a Theoretical Analysis

This thesis theoretically studies the relationship between the informal sector (both in the labor and the housing market) and the city structure.

Expansion of higher education and the equality of opportunity in Colombia. 'Expansión de la educación superior y de la igualdad de oportunidades en Colombia'.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación

Can job-worker mismatches help to explain wages and job satisfaction differences among comparable workers?. '¿Pueden los desajustes entre el empleo y el trabajador ayudar a explicar los salarios y las diferencias de satisfacción en el trabajo entre trabajadores comparables?'.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Proyecto Deloa-Equal : una estrategia de intervenci??n para la igualdad de oportunidades

Resumen en ingl??s y catal??n. Monogr??fico con el t??tulo: Perspectiva de g??nero en la acci??n socioeducativa

The factor structure of the Spanish version of the Work-Family Culture Scale in a sample of workers from the advertising sector

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

Gestão e trabalhadores do conhecimento em Tecnologias da informação (UML)

RESUMO: O conhecimento existe desde sempre, mesmo num estado latente condicionado algures e apenas à espera de um meio (de uma oportunidade) de se poder manifestar. O conhecimento é duplamente um fenómeno da consciência: porque dela procede num dado momento da sua vida e da sua história e porque só nela termina, aperfeiçoando-a e enriquecendo-a. O conhecimento está assim em constante mudança. À relativamente pouco tempo começou-se a falar de Gestão do Conhecimento e na altura foi muito associada às Tecnologias da Informação, como meio de colectar, processar e armazenar cada vez mais, maiores quantidades de informação. As Tecnologias da Informação têm tido, desde alguns anos para cá, um papel extremamente importante nas organizações, inicialmente foram adoptadas com o propósito de automatizar os processos operacionais das organizações, que suportam as suas actividades quotidianas e nestes últimos tempos as Tecnologias da Informação dentro das organizações têm evoluído rapidamente. Todo o conhecimento, mesmo até o menos relevante de uma determinada área de negócio, é fundamental para apoiar o processo de tomada de decisão. As organizações para atingirem melhores «performances» e conseguirem transcender as metas a que se propuseram inicialmente, tendem a munir-se de mais e melhores Sistemas de Informação, assim como, à utilização de várias metodologias e tecnologias hoje em dia disponíveis. Por conseguinte, nestes últimos anos, muitas organizações têm vindo a demonstrar uma necessidade crucial de integração de toda a sua informação, a qual está dispersa pelos diversos departamentos constituintes. Para que os gestores de topo (mas também para outros funcionários) possam ter disponível em tempo útil, informação pertinente, verdadeira e fiável dos negócios da organização que eles representam, precisam de ter acesso a bons Sistemas de Tecnologias de Informação. Numa acção de poderem agir mais eficazmente e eficientemente nas tomadas de decisão, por terem conseguido tirar por esses meios o máximo de proveito possível da informação, e assim, apresentarem melhores níveis de sucesso organizacionais. Também, os Sistemas de «Business Intelligence» e as Tecnologias da Informação a ele associadas, utilizam os dados existentes nas organizações para disponibilizar informação relevante para as tomadas de decisão. Mas, para poderem alcançar esses níveis tão satisfatórios, as organizações necessitam de recursos humanos, pois como podem elas serem competitivas sem Luís Miguel Borges – Gestão e Trabalhadores do Conhecimento em Tecnologias da Informação (UML) ULHT – ECATI 6 trabalhadores qualificados. Assim, surge a necessidade das organizações em recrutar os chamados hoje em dia “Trabalhadores do Conhecimento”, que são os indivíduos habilitados para interpretar as informações dentro de um domínio específico. Eles detectam problemas e identificam alternativas, com os seus conhecimentos e discernimento, eles trabalham para solucionar esses problemas, ajudando consideravelmente as organizações que representam. E, usando metodologias e tecnologias da Engenharia do Conhecimento como a modelação, criarem e gerirem um histórico de conhecimento, incluindo conhecimento tácito, sobre várias áreas de negócios da organização, que podem estar explícitos em modelos abstractos, que possam ser compreendidos e interpretados facilmente, por outros trabalhadores com níveis de competência equivalentes. ABSTRACT: Knowledge has always existed, even in a latent state conditioning somewhere and just waiting for a half (an opportunity) to be able to manifest. Knowledge is doubly a phenomenon of consciousness: because proceeds itself at one point in its life and its history and because solely itself ends, perfecting it and enriching it. The knowledge is so in constant change. In the relatively short time that it began to speak of Knowledge Management and at that time was very associated with Information Technologies, as a means to collect, process and store more and more, larger amounts of information. Information Technologies has had, from a few years back, an extremely important role in organizations, were initially adopted in order to automate the operational processes of organizations, that support their daily activities and in recent times Information Technologies within organizations has evolved rapidly. All the knowledge, even to the least relevant to a particular business area, is fundamental to support the process of decision making. The organizations to achieve better performances and to transcend the goals that were initially propose, tend to provide itself with more and better Information Systems, as well as, the use of various methodologies and technologies available today. Consequently, in recent years, many organizations have demonstrated a crucial need for integrating all their information, which is dispersed by the diver constituents departments. For top managers (but also for other employees) may have ready in time, pertinent, truthful and reliable information of the organization they represent, need access to good Information Technology Systems. In an action that they can act more effectively and efficiently in decision making, for having managed to get through these means the maximum possible advantage of the information, and so, present better levels of organizational success. Also, the systems of Business Intelligence and Information Technologies its associated, use existing data on organizations to provide relevant information for decision making. But, in order to achieve these levels as satisfactory, organizations need human resources, because how can they be competitive without skilled workers. Thus, arises the need for organizations to recruit called today “Knowledge Workers”, they are the individuals enable to interpret the information within a specific domain. They detect problems and identify alternatives, with their knowledge and discernment they work to solve these problems, helping considerably the organizations that represent. And, using Luís Miguel Borges – Gestão e Trabalhadores do Conhecimento em Tecnologias da Informação (UML) ULHT – ECATI 8 methodologies and technologies of Knowledge Engineering as modeling, create and manage a history of knowledge, including tacit knowledge, on various business areas of the organization, that can be explicit in the abstract models, that can be understood and interpreted easily, by other workers with equivalent levels of competence.

Workers' compensation for occupational hearing loss: what we know or don't know

This papers looks at workers' compensation laws for each state to determine if there have been any updates in the laws since a 2000 survey by Dobie and Megerson. The study also examines what information is available to audiologists testing patients in workers' compensation claims.

Chronic pesticide poisoning from persistent low-dose exposures in Ecuadorean floriculture workers: toward validating a low-cost test battery

Chronic pesticide poisoning is difficult to detect. We sought to develop a low-cost test battery for settings such as Ecuador’s floriculture industry. First we had to develop a case definition; as with all occupational diseases a case had to have both sufficient effective dose and associated health effects. For the former, using canonical discriminant analysis, we found that adding measures of protection and overall environmental stressors to occupational category and duration of exposure was useful. For the latter, factor analysis suggested three distinct manifestations of pesticide poisoning. We then determined sensitivity and specificity of various combinations of symptoms and simple neurotoxicity tests from the Pentox questionnaire, and found that doing so increased sensitivity and specificity compared to use of acethylcholinesterase alone – the current screening standard. While sensitivity and specificity varied with different case definitions, our results support the development of a low-cost test battery for screening in such settings.