293 research outputs found

    Essays on Firms and Labor Markets in Developing Countries

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    This thesis consists of three chapters on firms and labor markets in developing countries. The first chapter employs a labor market experiment to compare the effects of a demand-side and a supply-side policy aimed at addressing youth unemployment: vocational training and firm-provided training. The findings demonstrate that vocational training is a more cost-effective strategy to assist young job seekers transition into the labor market. This is because vocationally trained workers, whose skills are certified and can be demonstrated to potential employers, receive significantly higher rates of job offers when unemployed. The second chapter investigates how youth search for jobs in a developing country context and identifies the key factors influencing their ability to secure good jobs. To accomplish this, it relies on a field experiment that combines two standard labor market interventions: vocational training, vocational training combined with matching youth to firms, and matching only. The analysis highlights the foundational but separate roles of skills and expectations in job search, how interventions cause youth to become optimistic or discouraged, and how this matters for long run sorting and individual labor market outcomes. The third chapter examines how imperfect consumer information about available goods in the market influences firms' location choices within a city. By combining a novel data collection with a quantitative equilibrium model of consumer search and firm location, the study reveals that information frictions lead to substantial firm agglomeration within cities and hinder high-quality firms' ability to attract customers, enabling lower-quality competitors to survive. Through counterfactual scenarios, this chapter demonstrates the importance of considering consumer information frictions for an accurate assessment of the welfare implications of urban policies

    The Vibrancy and Resilience of British High Streets

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    British high streets have endured significant economic and cultural challenges both in the leadup to and as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The volatile and challenging socio-economic environment has been brought about by the lingering effects of the 2008 recession, high business rates, competition from online retailers, and the impact and implications of the global pandemic. The changes to the high street retail landscape have been recorded using new sources of data that can supplement traditional data sources such as local government retail surveys. New sources of data such as consumer data, property portal data and mobility data are more spatially and temporally granular. As a result, local governments, the retail sector and stakeholders can use these emerging forms of data to create more easily updateable measures of high street composition and performance. This thesis utilises the Local Data Company’s Britain-wide database on retail location, type and vacancy. The data ranges between the start of 2017 and June of 2021, containing around 800,000 records of occupiers. The analysis within this thesis starts by describing the composition and vibrancy of British high streets in the lead-up to the pandemic. Next, the thesis provides an evaluation of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shift towards remote working on the viable resilience of commuter towns. This section is followed by an exploration of the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on the resilience of Britain’s high streets. Finally, the application of new forms of data in informing local government high street regeneration policy is studied as part of a knowledge exchange with the London Borough of Camden. This thesis contributes to our understanding of how the circumstances of different British high streets can be monitored and mapped, with the goal of improving understanding of vibrancy, resilience, and potential for regeneration

    Rethinking Collective Anxieties as a Genre in Post-9/11 Hollywood Movies

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    Dieses Buch ruft das Genre Kino der (kollektiven) Ängste ins Leben und beschreibt und analysiert dieses Genre anhand beispielhafter Fallstudien nach dem 9/11. Es liefert vielschichtige Filmanalysen zu vier Hollywood-Filmen; Crash (2004), The Brave One (2007), The Company Men (2010) und The Purge: Election Year (2016). Diese Forschung stellt einen Versuch dar, eine abgrenzende Definition dieses Kinos als filmisches (Sub-)Genre zu konzipieren und einen Überblick über die Eigenschaften dieses Kinos zu geben, wobei besonderes Augenmerk auf post-9/11 Filme mit der Angst-Narrativ der inneren Bedrohung gelegt wird. Dieses Genre steht an der Schnittstelle ästhetischer Erkenntnisse, historischer Entwicklungen, kultureller Phänomene und politisch-ideologischer Schattierungen, was die Hybridisierung zu einem der Hauptmerkmale dieser Filmgattung macht. Diese Studie betrachtet das kollektive Angstkino nach dem 9/11 als eine Ansammlung historischer Ängste, von denen einige aus genau dieser Zeit stammen (wie der Patriot Act und die ständigen Alarmstufen Rot), während andere auf frühere Epochen der US-Geschichte zurückgehen (wie die Ankunft der ersten europäischen Siedler in einer unbekannten feindlichen Umgebung, die Hexenjagd in Salem, der Rote Schrecken, die Bürgerrechtsbewegung und die satanische Panik). Anders gesagt, das Buch untersucht die inneren Assoziationen der Filme mit einer Reihe historischer Ängste von der Gründung Amerikas bis zur Gegenwart. Darüber hinaus geht diese Studie den Echos dieser Ängste nach und beleuchtet ihre Ausdrucksformen und ihre Echos in anderen Filmen, literarischen Werken, Genres und Mythen. Obwohl die untersuchten Ängste oft mit relativ spezifischen Problemen verbunden sind (wie Race-Ängste und Kulturkriege, Kriminalitätsängste und Waffenkultur, Wirtschaftsängste und der Finanzcrash sowie politische Ängste und Wahlparanoia), sind sie immer noch überwiegend, nach Ansicht der Autorin, das Produkt eines halben Jahrhunderts neoliberaler Politik.This book brings 'the cinema of (collective) anxieties' to life as a genre, and it describes and analyzes this genre based on exemplary post-9/11 case studies. Thus, it provides multilayered film analyses of four Hollywood movies; Crash (2004), The Brave One (2007), The Company Men (2010), and The Purge: Election Year (2016). This research constitutes an attempt to conceptualize a demarcating definition of this cinema as a cinematic (sub)genre and to provide an outline of the traits and characteristics of this cinema while paying special attention to the cycle of post-9/11 movies depicting the fear narrative of internal threat. This genre stands at a junction of aesthetic realizations, historical developments, cultural phenomena, and political-ideological shades, which makes hybridization one of the leading features of this cinematic genre. This study approaches the post-9/11 collective anxiety cinema as an accumulation of historical anxieties, some of which stem from this very period (such as the Patriot Act and the constant Red Alerts), while others date back to earlier eras in US history (such as the arrival of the first European settlers in an unknown hostile environment, the Salem Witch Hunt, the Red Scare, the civil rights movement, and the Satanic panic). In other words, the book explores the films' inner associations with bundles of historical anxieties from the inception of America until the current era. Furthermore, this study traces the echoes of these anxieties and highlights their forms of expression and their echoes in other movies, literary works, genres, and myths. Although the examined anxieties are often tied to relatively specific problems (like racial anxieties and culture wars; crime anxieties and gun culture; economic anxieties and the financial crash; political anxiety and election paranoia), they are still largely, in the author's view, the product of half a century of neoliberal policies

    Systematic Approaches for Telemedicine and Data Coordination for COVID-19 in Baja California, Mexico

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    Conference proceedings info: ICICT 2023: 2023 The 6th International Conference on Information and Computer Technologies Raleigh, HI, United States, March 24-26, 2023 Pages 529-542We provide a model for systematic implementation of telemedicine within a large evaluation center for COVID-19 in the area of Baja California, Mexico. Our model is based on human-centric design factors and cross disciplinary collaborations for scalable data-driven enablement of smartphone, cellular, and video Teleconsul-tation technologies to link hospitals, clinics, and emergency medical services for point-of-care assessments of COVID testing, and for subsequent treatment and quar-antine decisions. A multidisciplinary team was rapidly created, in cooperation with different institutions, including: the Autonomous University of Baja California, the Ministry of Health, the Command, Communication and Computer Control Center of the Ministry of the State of Baja California (C4), Colleges of Medicine, and the College of Psychologists. Our objective is to provide information to the public and to evaluate COVID-19 in real time and to track, regional, municipal, and state-wide data in real time that informs supply chains and resource allocation with the anticipation of a surge in COVID-19 cases. RESUMEN Proporcionamos un modelo para la implementación sistemática de la telemedicina dentro de un gran centro de evaluación de COVID-19 en el área de Baja California, México. Nuestro modelo se basa en factores de diseño centrados en el ser humano y colaboraciones interdisciplinarias para la habilitación escalable basada en datos de tecnologías de teleconsulta de teléfonos inteligentes, celulares y video para vincular hospitales, clínicas y servicios médicos de emergencia para evaluaciones de COVID en el punto de atención. pruebas, y para el tratamiento posterior y decisiones de cuarentena. Rápidamente se creó un equipo multidisciplinario, en cooperación con diferentes instituciones, entre ellas: la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, la Secretaría de Salud, el Centro de Comando, Comunicaciones y Control Informático. de la Secretaría del Estado de Baja California (C4), Facultades de Medicina y Colegio de Psicólogos. Nuestro objetivo es proporcionar información al público y evaluar COVID-19 en tiempo real y rastrear datos regionales, municipales y estatales en tiempo real que informan las cadenas de suministro y la asignación de recursos con la anticipación de un aumento de COVID-19. 19 casos.ICICT 2023: 2023 The 6th International Conference on Information and Computer Technologieshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3236-

    Screen Industries in East-Central Europe

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    This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book provides an alternative perspective into the audiovisual and media industries of eastern and central Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. In doing so, it offers insight into the ways the screen industries of small nations are positioned in and respond to globalization and digitalization. Petr Szczepanik suggests that for these ‘digital peripheries’, globalization and digitalization are as yet incomplete, stumbling processes, closely intertwined with and mediated by deeply local circumstances and players. Instead of a top-down economic or political overview, this book places central focus on the lived realities of producers as key initiators, facilitators, and cultural intermediaries. Drawing on in-depth interviews, it looks closely at how their agency is circumscribed by the limited scale and peripheral positioning of the markets in which they operate, and how they struggle to come to terms with these constraints through their business strategies, creative thinking and professional self-perceptions. Each of the seven chapters provides a close study of one such production practice. This includes but is not limited to independent producers limited by the size of their home markets; the ‘service producers’ working on large Western projects in Prague and Budapest and short-form online video production with its promise of dynamic growth in the era of mobile. However diverse, all these cases illustrate that while many industry practices and actors remain territorially and nationally bound, it is impossible to understand the full complexity of media markets and producer practices in the internet era without considering transcultural networks and flows. Theoretically building on the literature in critical media industry studies, this book offers a comparative analytical framework for studying small and/or peripheral media industries beyond east-central Europe

    Volume II Acquisition Research Creating Synergy for Informed Change, Thursday 19th Annual Acquisition Research Proceedings

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    ProceedingsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

    Assuming Data Integrity and Empirical Evidence to The Contrary

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    Background: Not all respondents to surveys apply their minds or understand the posed questions, and as such provide answers which lack coherence, and this threatens the integrity of the research. Casual inspection and limited research of the 10-item Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), included in the dataset of the World Values Survey (WVS), suggested that random responses may be common. Objective: To specify the percentage of cases in the BRI-10 which include incoherent or contradictory responses and to test the extent to which the removal of these cases will improve the quality of the dataset. Method: The WVS data on the BFI-10, measuring the Big Five Personality (B5P), in South Africa (N=3 531), was used. Incoherent or contradictory responses were removed. Then the cases from the cleaned-up dataset were analysed for their theoretical validity. Results: Only 1 612 (45.7%) cases were identified as not including incoherent or contradictory responses. The cleaned-up data did not mirror the B5P- structure, as was envisaged. The test for common method bias was negative. Conclusion: In most cases the responses were incoherent. Cleaning up the data did not improve the psychometric properties of the BFI-10. This raises concerns about the quality of the WVS data, the BFI-10, and the universality of B5P-theory. Given these results, it would be unwise to use the BFI-10 in South Africa. Researchers are alerted to do a proper assessment of the psychometric properties of instruments before they use it, particularly in a cross-cultural setting

    Taxation in the Digital Economy

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    A robust and efficient tax administration in a modern tax system requires effective tax policies and legislation. Policy frameworks should cover all aspects of tax administration and include the essential processes of capturing, processing, analyzing, and responding to information provided by taxpayers and others concerning taxpayers’ affairs. By far the greatest challenges facing tax administrations in all countries are those posed by the continuing developments in the digital economy. Whereas societies are grappling to come to terms with the transitions from the third industrial or digital revolutions, revenue authorities grapple with the consequences for the sustainability of their tax bases and the efficient administration and collection of taxes. This book presents a critical review of the status of tax systems in Asia and the Pacific in the era of the digital economy. The book suggests how countries can maximize their domestic resource mobilization when confronted by the challenges that digitalization inevitably produces, as well as how they can best harness or take advantage of aspects of digitalization to serve their own needs. The full implications of the COVID-19 crisis are still too uncertain to predict, but it is clear that the crisis will accelerate the trend towards digitalization and also increase pressures on public finances. This, in turn, may shape the preference for, and the nature of, both multilateral and unilateral responses to the tax challenges posed by digitalization and the need to address them. This book will be a timely reference for those researching on taxation in digital economy and for policy makers.
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