Historic and potential technology transition paths of grid battery storage: Co-evolution of energy grid, electric mobility and batteries

Scarcity of fuels, changes in environmental policy and in society increased the interest in generating electric energy from renewable energy sources (RES) for a sustainable energy supply in the future. The main problem of RES as solar and wind energy, which represent a main pillar of this transition, is that they cannot supply constant power output. This results inter alia in an increased demand of backup technologies as batteries to assure electricity system safety. The diffusion of energy storage technologies is highly dependent on the energy system and transport transition pathways which might lead to a replacement or reconfiguration of embedded socio-technical practices and regimes (by creating new standards or dominant designs, changing regulations, infrastructure and user patterns). The success of this technology is dependent on hardly predictable future technical advances, actor preferences, development of competing technologies and designs, diverging interests of actors, future cost efficiencies, environmental performance, the evolution of market demand and design and evolution of our society.

How to improve urban mobility in Lisbon: intermodality and information and ticketing systems

Urban mobility is one of the main challenges facing urban areas due to the growing population and to traffic congestion, resulting in environmental pressures. The pathway to urban sustainable mobility involves strengthening of intermodal mobility. The integrated use of different transport modes is getting more and more important and intermodality has been mentioned as a way for public transport compete with private cars. The aim of the current dissertation is to define a set of strategies to improve urban mobility in Lisbon and by consequence reduce the environmental impacts of transports. In order to do that several intermodal practices over Europe were analysed and the transport systems of Brussels and Lisbon were studied and compared, giving special attention to intermodal systems. In the case study was gathered data from both cities in the field, by using and observing the different transport modes, and two surveys were done to the cities users. As concluded by the study, Brussels and Lisbon present significant differences. In Brussels the measures to promote intermodality are evident, while in Lisbon a lot still needs to be done. It also made clear the necessity for improvements in Lisbon’s public transports to a more intermodal passenger transport system, through integration of different transport modes and better information and ticketing system. Some of the points requiring developments are: interchanges’ waiting areas; integration of bicycle in public transport; information about correspondences with other transport modes; real-time information to passengers pre-trip and on-trip, especially in buses and trams. After the identification of the best practices in Brussels and the weaknesses in Lisbon the possibility of applying some of the practices in Brussels to Lisbon was evaluated. Brussels demonstrated to be a good example of intermodality and for that reason some of the recommendations to improve intermodal mobility in Lisbon can follow the practices in place in Brussels.

Human mobility patterns at the smallest scales

We present a study on human mobility at small spatial scales. Differently from large scale mobility, recently studied through dollar-bill tracking and mobile phone data sets within one big country or continent, we report Brownian features of human mobility at smaller scales. In particular, the scaling exponents found at the smallest scales is typically close to one-half, differently from the larger values for the exponent characterizing mobility at larger scales. We carefully analyze 12-month data of the Eduroam database within the Portuguese university of Minho. A full procedure is introduced with the aim of properly characterizing the human mobility within the network of access points composing the wireless system of the university. In particular, measures of flux are introduced for estimating a distance between access points. This distance is typically non-Euclidean, since the spatial constraints at such small scales distort the continuum space on which human mobility occurs. Since two different ex- ponents are found depending on the scale human motion takes place, we raise the question at which scale the transition from Brownian to non-Brownian motion takes place. In this context, we discuss how the numerical approach can be extended to larger scales, using the full Eduroam in Europe and in Asia, for uncovering the transi- tion between both dynamical regimes.

Radio mobility in the digital era: interactivity, participation and content share possibilities in Iberian broadcasters

In the context of the scientific research into radio, recent years have encouraged many theories about the meaning of a post-radio (Oliveira & Portela, 2011), thus enlisting several parameters regarding the inclusion of contemporary radio in the digital and online environments. This digital migration has led to the development of mobile applications for radio, broadening the communicative potential of audiences (Aguado, Feijoo & Martínez, 2013), as well as promoting convergence of interactive content among listeners-users. Aware of this opportunity, the main broadcasters in Spain and Portugal have broadened their radiophonic scope to the mobile platform, especially geared towards smartphones through the development of mobile applications, commonly known as apps (Cerezo, 2010). As a symbol of a culture in permanent changing, smartphones not only provide greater easiness in terms of access and interaction, but also afford larger opportunities for disseminating content among audiences, a phenomenon that some studies have labelled as user distributed content (Villi, 2012). This article presents an exploratory analysis of the current policies of the main Spanish and Portuguese radio broadcasters regarding mobile applications, evaluating the different levels of interaction and participation in these platforms. This observation led to the conclusion, among other findings, that the mobile platform represents a supplementary channel for traditional FM radio, rather than a new medium with its own language and expression.

Movilidad social en barrios de Córdoba: Villa La Tela y áreas colindantes. Social Mobility in Neighborhoods of Cordoba: Villa La Tela and Adjacent Areas.

Esta investigación propone aproximarse al conocimiento y comprensión de los diversos mecanismos de movilidad social en Villa La Tela barrios adyacentes (ciudad de Córdoba). Si bien las poblaciones objetivo poseen diferentes niveles de vida, este proyecto no se propone la comparación entre ambos sectores urbanos, sino la identificación de diversos patrones de movilidad social vigentes. Se intenta también aproximarse indirectamente al esquema de estratificación social vigente en la ciudad de Córdoba. El equipo se propone avanzar en la definición de una estrategia metodológica que permita comprender de una manera integral los diversos mecanismos de movilidad social. Se propone articular una triangulación de métodos cuantitativos y cualitativos que aproveche las fortalezas de cada enfoque para efectuar una mirada multidisciplinaria de las condiciones de vida de la población en estudio. Se intenta también aprovechar la inserción que ya tienen algunos de los investigadores del equipo en los barrios, a fin de aportar conocimientos útiles a las organizaciones que realizan actividades de intervención social. El trabajo se propone en tres fases constituidas por tres instancias que no necesariamente se corresponden con tiempos cronológicos: análisis de información secundaria (censos de población, relevamientos de organismos gubernamentales y civiles) y de resultados de investigaciones previas; en otra fase se generará un espacio recreativo en la comunidad que permita identificar las percepciones subjetivas de los actores locales en relación a las condiciones de vida y la experiencia de movilidad social (etnodrama, etnografía fotográfica); finalmente se realizará una fase de trabajo de encuestas y entrevistas en profundidad a partir de los insumos producidos en las dos fases antes mencionadas. Se tomará para ello, como unidad de análisis socio-económica a los hogares, considerados como el espacio físico y social desde el cual se diseñan e implementan las estrategias familiares de vida de sus miembros. Se considera que el proyecto puede transferir los resultados -parciales y finales- alcanzados a las instituciones intervinientes en los barrios considerados. Esta transferencia constituye una actividad de extensión concreta, dado que las intervenciones en marcha están destinadas a mejorar las condiciones de vida de la población en términos materiales y culturales. La acción sinérgica entre las diversas instituciones que intervienen o investigan sobre estas comunidades es un compromiso, ya que de ello depende la calidad del impacto en las propias comunidades. En este sentido, la descripción de las experiencias intergeneracionales de movilidad social de los hogares y su significación subjetiva, puede considerarse de interés tanto para las instituciones como para la comunidad misma. De esta manera se espera devolver a las comunidades lo que éstas le ofrezcan al equipo de investigación, como flujo de intercambio recíproco de conocimiento y desarrollo humano. Desde el punto de vista metodológico, el equipo espera realizar una evaluación de los distintos abordajes cuantitativos y cualitativos a escala microsocial, a fin de realizar propuestas válidas para nuevas investigaciones en ámbitos locales. This research proposes to approach the knowledge and understanding of the various mechanisms of social mobility in adjacent neighborhoods of Villa La Tela (Cordoba, Argentina). Although the target populations have different levels of life, this project does not intend to compare urban areas, but the identification of different patterns of social mobility nowadays. Indirect approach is also intended to outline the existing social stratification in Cordoba city. We plan to define a methodological approach based on triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods, exploiting the strengths of each approach to make a multidisciplinary vision of the population living conditions. Project proposes phases consisting of three instances, that do not necessarily correspond with chronological time: 1) secondary data analysis (population censuses, surveys of government agencies and civilian organizations) and previous research results; 2) promotion of a recreation space in the community to identify the subjective perceptions of local actors in relation to living conditions and experience of social mobility; 3) finally there will be a phase of survey work and deep interviews from inputs produced in the two phases mentioned above. Households will be taken as socio-economic unit, also considered as social and physical space where family strategies of life are designed and implemented by its members. We considere this project can transfer the obtained results to the institutions involved in the concerned districts. This transfer is a specific outreach activity, since the interventions in place are aimed to improving the living conditions of population in material and cultural terms.

Assessing the structural change of strategic mobility: determinants under hypercompetitive environments

The primary purpose of this exploratory empirical study is to examine the structural stability of a limited number of alternative explanatory factors of strategic change. On the basis of theoretical arguments and prior empirical evidence from two traditional perspectives, we propose an original empirical framework to analyse whether these potential explanatory factors have remained stable over time in a highly turbulent environment. This original question is explored in a particular setting: the population of Spanish private banks. The firms of this industry have experienced a high level of strategic mobility as a consequence of fundamental changes undergone in their environmental conditions over the last two decades (mainly changes related to the new banking and financial regulation process). Our results consistently support that the effect of most explanatory factors of strategic mobility considered did not remain stable over the whole period of analysis. From this point of view, the study sheds new light on major debates and dilemmas in the field of strategy regarding why firms change their competitive patterns over time and, hence, to what extent the "contextdependency" of alternative views of strategic change as their relative validation can vary over time for a given population. Methodologically, this research makes two major contributions to the study of potential determinants of strategic change. First, the definition and measurement of strategic change employing a new grouping method, the Model-based Cluster Method or MCLUST. Second, in order to asses the possible effect of determinants of strategic mobility we have controlled the non-observable heterogeneity using logistic regression models for panel data.

Social exclusion mobility in Spain, 1994-2000

Social exclusion can be defined as a process leading to a state of multiple functioning deprivations. Cross-sectional headcount ratios of social exclusion may overstate the extent of the problem if most individuals do not remain in the same state in successive years. To address this issue, we need to focus on mobility. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse changes in the individual levels of social exclusion focusing on the extent to which individuals change place in social exclusion distribution.

The causal relationship between Individual’s choice behavior and self-reported satisfaction: the case of residential mobility in the EU

One of the most persistent and lasting debates in economic research refers to whether the answers to subjective questions can be used to explain individuals’ economic behavior. Using panel data for twelve EU countries, in the present study we analyze the causal relationship between self-reported housing satisfaction and residential mobility. Our results indicate that: i) households unsatisfied with their current housing situation are more likely to move; ii) housing satisfaction raises after a move, and; iii) housing satisfaction increases with the transition from being a renter to becoming a homeowner. Some interesting cross-country differences are observed. Our findings provide evidence in favor of use of subjective indicators of satisfaction with certain life domains in the analysis of individuals’ economic conduct.

On the characterisation and measurement of the welfare effects of income mobility from an ex-ante perspective

The paper employs a rank-dependent formulation of the social welfare function with time-separable utilities to evaluate the economic consequences of income mobility from an ex-ante perspective. The resultant class of measures can be decomposed not only in terms of structural and exchange mobility but also in terms of vertical and horizontal mobility, thereby encompassing two of the main approaches in the literature. We illustrate our measurement framework by comparing mobility in the USA and Germany using data from the Cross-National Equivalent File 1980-2005. We find that the pattern of income mobility in the USA was both less pro-poor and more horizontally inequitable than in Germany, but that the latter did not translate into higher levels of exchange mobility given higher levels of absolute inequality and the vertical stance of the growth process.

The names in Spain are mainly not in vain: Intergenerational mobility and the informational content of surnames

The paper presents a (genetic) model of the joint distribution of surnames and income. It shows that we can infer how important background is by looking at how informative surnames are. Extensions of the model allow for the possibility of assortative mating, and the introduction of ethnic differences in the income process (due to discrimination or any other reason).

Free Mobility and Taste-Homogeneity of Jurisdiction Structures

We consider a population of agents distributed on the unit interval. Agents form jurisdictions in order to provide a public facility and share its costs equally. This creates an incentive to form large entities. Individuals also incur a transportation cost depending on their location and that of the facility which makes small jurisdictions advantageous. We consider a fairly general class of distributions of agents and generalize previous versions of this model by allowing for non-linear transportation costs. We show that, in general, jurisdictions are not necessarily homogeneous. However, they are if facilities are always intraterritory and transportation costs are superadditive. Superadditivity can be weakened to strictly increasing and strictly concave when agents are uniformly distributed. Keywords: Consecutiveness, stratification, local public goods, coalition formation, country formation. JEL Classification: C71 (Cooperative Games), D71 (Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations), H73 (Interjurisdictional Differentials and Their Effects).

Human capital, social mobility and the skill premium

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model to highlight the role of human capital accumulation of agents differentiated by skill type in the joint determination of social mobility and the skill premium. We first show that our model captures the empirical co-movement of the skill premium, the relative supply of skilled to unskilled workers and aggregate output in the U.S. data from 1970-2000. We next show that endogenous social mobility and human capital accumulation are key channels through which the effects of capital tax cuts and increases in public spending on both pre- and post-college education are transmitted. In particular, social mobility creates additional incentives for the agents which enhance the beneficial effects of policy reforms. Moreover, the dynamics of human capital accumulation imply that, post reform, the skill premium is higher in the short- to medium-run than in the long-run.

Intergenerational Mobility and the Informative Content of Surnames

We propose a new methodology for measuring intergenerational mobility in economic wellbeing. Our method is based on the joint distribution of surnames and economic outcomes. It circumvents the need for intergenerational panel data, a long-standing stumbling block for understanding mobility. A single cross-sectional dataset is su cient. Our main idea is simple. If `inheritance' is important for economic outcomes, then rare surnames should predict economic outcomes in the cross-section. This is because rare surnames are indicative of familial linkages. Of course, if the number of rare surnames is small, this won't work. But rare surnames are abundant in the highly-skewed nature of surname distributions from most Western societies. We develop a model that articulates this idea and shows that the more important is inheritance, the more informative will be surnames. This result is robust to a variety of di erent assumptions about fertility and mating. We apply our method using the 2001 census from Catalonia, a large region of Spain. We use educational attainment as a proxy for overall economic well-being. Our main nding is that mobility has decreased among the di erent generations of the 20th century. A complementary analysis based on sibling correlations con rms our results and provides a robustness check on our method. Our model and our data allow us to examine one possible explanation for the observed decrease in mobility. We nd that the degree of assortative mating has increased over time. Overall, we argue that our method has promise because it can tap the vast mines of census data that are available in a heretofore unexploited manner.

Measuring intergenerational earnings mobility in Spain: a selection-bias-free approach

This paper analyses intergenerational earnings mobility in Spain correcting for different selection biases. We address the co-residence selection problem by combining information from two samples and using the two-sample two-stage least square estimator. We find a small decrease in elasticity when we move to younger cohorts. Furthermore, we find a higher correlation in the case of daughters than in the case of sons; however, when we consider the employment selection in the case of daughters, by adopting a Heckman-type correction method, the diference between sons and daughters disappears. By decomposing the sources of earnings elasticity across generations, we find that the correlation between child's and father's occupation is the most important component. Finally, quantile regressions estimates show that the influence of the father's earnings is greater when we move to the lower tail of the offspring's earnings distribution, especially in the case of daughters' earnings.

Mobility and Housing Satisfaction: An Empirical Analysis for Twelve EU Countries

Using panel data for twelve EU countries, we analyze the relationship between selfreported housing satisfaction and residential mobility. Our results indicate the existence of a positive link between the two variables and that housing satisfaction exerts a mediating effect between residential characteristics and dwellers' mobility propensities. Some interesting cross-country differences regarding the effect of other variables on mobility are also observed. Our results can be used in defining, implementing and evaluating housing and neighbourhood policies. Residential satisfaction is put forward as one of the most appropriate indicators of the success or failure of such policies. Keywords: Housing satisfaction, residential mobility JEL classification: R21, D19