The Hirsch spectrum: a novel tool for analysing scientific journals

This paper introduces the Hirsch spectrum (h-spectrum) for analyzing the academic reputation of a scientific journal. h-Spectrum is a novel tool based on the Hirsch (h) index. It is easy to construct: considering a specific journal in a specific interval of time, h-spectrum is defined as the distribution representing the h-indexes associated to the authors of the journal articles. This tool allows defining a reference profile of the typical author of a journal, compare different journals within the same scientific field, and provide a rough indication of prestige/reputation of a journal in the scientific community. h-Spectrum can be associated to every journal. Ten specific journals in the Quality Engineering/Quality Management field are analyzed so as to preliminarily investigate the h-spectrum characteristic

Improving the Measurement of Human Development

We propose a new Human Development Index that involves a number of changes with respect to the present one, even though it keeps the basic structure of the index (namely, preserving “health”, “education” and “material wellbeing” as the three basic dimensions of human development). The first change refers to the substitution of the arithmetic mean by the geometric mean, as a way of aggregating the different dimensions in a more sensible way. The second one leads to the introduction of distributive considerations in the evaluation of material wellbeing. The last change consists of the introduction of new variables to approach health and education, looking for a higher sensitivity of the index with respect to the differences between countries. These new variables are specially indicated for the analysis of human development in highly developed countries. Besides the conceptual discussion, that includes a characterization of the chosen aggregation formula, we present a comparative analysis of this new index and the standard one, focusing on the OECD countries.Human Development, multiplicative indices, distributive concerns, highly developed countries, HDI

A Survey of Quality Engineering-ManagementJournals by Bibliometric Indicators

This paper analyses some of the most popular scientific journals in the Quality field from the point of view of three bibliometric indicators: the Hirsch (h) index for journals, the total number of citations and the h-spectrum. In particular, h-spectrum is a novel tool based on h, making it possible to (i) identify a reference profile of the typical authors of a journal; (ii) compare different journals; and (iii) provide a rough indication of their ‘bibliometric positioning' in the scientific community. Results of this analysis can be helpful for guiding potential authors and members of the scientific community in the Quality Engineering/Management area. A large amount of empirical data are presented and discusse

Will Fat Taxes Cause Americans to Become Fatter? Some Evidence from US Meats

Price and income elasticities of fat from meats are estimated by decomposing composite demand for meat into the produ ct of total calories, the fraction of calories eat as fat, and a residual measure of quality. This demand-characteristic system provides estimates of the impact of prices and income on the fraction of calories eaten as fat as well as their affect on the total consumption of fat. Empirical estimates of the comp ensated own-price elasticities of meats suggest that a fat tax designed to raise revenues to finance nutritional education efforts may increase the total consumption of fat.Agricultural and Food Policy, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Corruption and quality of public institutions: evidence from Generalized Method of Moment

The aim of this paper was to re-examine the relationship between the quality of public institutions and corruption. Estimations from generalized method of moments show that better public institutions (regulation, bureaucracy, political structures) are associated with lower levels of corruption.corruption, public institutions.

Measuring long-term inequality of opportunity

In this paper, we introduce and apply a general framework for evaluating long-term income distributions according to the Equality of Opportunity principle. Our framework allows for both an exante and an ex-post approach to EOp. Our ex-post approach relies on a permanent income measure defined as the minimum annual expenditure an individual would need in order to be as well off as he could be by undertaking inter-period income transfers. There is long-term ex-post inequality of opportunity if individuals who exert the same effort have different permanent incomes. In comparison, the ex-ante approach focuses on the expected permanent income for individuals with identical circumstances. Hence, the ex-ante approach pays attention to inequalities in expected permanent income between different types of individuals. To demonstrate the empirical relevance of a long-run perspective on EOp, we exploit a unique panel data from Norway on individuals’ incomes over their working lifespan.equality of opportunity, social welfare, inequality, permanent income, intertemporal choice, ex-ante, ex-post.

Agricultural productivity growth in the European Union and transition countries

Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) index has been extensively applied in the literature to measure productivity growth decomposition. This study applies a parametric decomposition of a Generalized Malmquist TFP index to measure and compare the levels and trends in agricultural productivity in European countries, making use of the most-recent data available from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations. The aim of this study is to measure TFP developments in agriculture of transition countries after breakdown of socialism and to compare their TFP growth with other European countries. The Generalized Malmquist productivity index can be decomposed into technological change, technical efficiency change and scale efficiency change. These measures will provide insightful information for policymakers in designing proper policies to promote a higher growth rate in agriculture in transition countries. -- G E R M A N V E R S I O N: Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) Index gehört zu den meist verwendeten Methoden der Produktivitätsanalyse und ihrer Zerlegung. In diesem Paper wird ein parametrisches Verfahren eingesetzt, um die Produktivitätsentwicklungen in der europäischen Agrarwirtschaft zu analysieren. Die statistische Datenbasis basiert auf der Datenbank der Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of United Nations. Das Ziel dieses Forschungsvorhabens ist es, die Produktivitätsentwicklungen in den Agrar- und Ernährungssektoren der Transformationsländern Mittel- und Osteuropas sowie der ehemaligen Sowjetunion zu messen und diese mit dem Wachstum in der Europäischen Union zu vergleichen. Methodisch kann Malmquist Index zerlegt werden in technical change, efficiency change and scale efficiency change. Dieser Zerfall des Indexes kann wichtige Informationen für die Politikgestalter und Forscher hinsichtlich der weiteren Entwicklung des Agrarsektors in betroffenen Ländern bringen.Transition countries,Malmquist,Multifactor Productivity,agriculture,Transformation,Malmquist Index,Agrarsektor,Multifactor Productivity