"Computers and the Wage Structure"

A leading explanation for the rapid growth in U.S. wage inequality in the last twenty years, consistent with both human capital and postindustrial theories, is that advanced technology has increased job skill requirements and reduced the demand for less skilled workers. Krueger's study (1993) showing a wage premium associated with using computers at work is one of the few that seems to provide direct supportive evidence. In this paper I use previously unexamined data to suggest that measured returns to computer use are upwardly biased. In addition, I find that most of the growth of inequality since 1979 occurred in the early 1980s, which is inconsistent with a primary role for computers. Finally, computer use at work had equalizing impacts on the gender wage gap and elsewhere in the wage distribution, as well as disequalizing impacts on the wage gaps between education groups. When the contribution of computer use to all components of the variance of wages is taken into account, computers seem to have had a net equalizing impact in the period Krueger studied. This casts significant doubt on this technology-based explanation of the growth in wage inequality.

Computers and the Wage Structure

A leading explanation for the rapid growth in U.S. wage inequality in the last twenty years, consistent with both human capital and postindustrial theories, is that advanced technology has increased job skill requirements and reduced the demand for less-skilled workers. Krueger's study (1993) showing a wage premium associated with using computers at work is one of the few that seems to provide direct supportive evidence. In this paper I use previously unexamined data to suggest that measured returns to computer use are upwardly biased. In addition, I find that most of the growth of inequality since 1979 occurred in the early 1980s, which is inconsistent with a primary role for computers. Finally, computer use at work had equalizing impacts on the gender wage gap and elsewhere in the wage distribution, as well as disequalizing impacts on the wage gaps between education groups. When the contribution of computer use to all components of the variance of wages is taken into account, computers seem to have had a net equalizing impact in the period Krueger studied. This casts significant doubt on this technology-based explanation of the growth in wage inequality.

pony - The occam-pi Network Environment

Although concurrency is generally perceived to be a `hard' subject, it can in fact be very simple --- provided that the underlying model is simple. The occam-pi parallel processing language provides such a simple yet powerful concurrency model that is based on CSP and the pi-calculus. This paper presents pony, the occam-pi Network Environment. occam-pi and pony provide a new, unified, concurrency model that bridges inter- and intra-processor concurrency. This enables the development of distributed applications in a transparent, dynamic and highly scalable way. The first part of this paper discusses the philosophy behind pony, explains how it is used, and gives a brief overview of its implementation. The second part evaluates pony's performance by presenting a number of benchmarks

Privacy self-regulation and the changing role of the state : from public law to social and technical mechanisms of governance

This paper provides a structured overview of different self-governance mechanisms for privacy and data protection in the corporate world, with a special focus on Internet privacy. It also looks at the role of the state, and how it has related to privacy selfgovernance over time. While early data protection started out as law-based regulation by nation-states, transnational self-governance mechanisms have become more important due to the rise of global telecommunications and the Internet. Reach, scope, precision and enforcement of these industry codes of conduct vary a lot. The more binding they are, the more limited is their reach, though they – like the state-based instruments for privacy protection – are becoming more harmonised and global in reach nowadays. These “social codes” of conduct are developed by the private sector with limited participation of official data protection commissioners, public interest groups, or international organisations. Software tools - “technical codes” - for online privacy protection can give back some control over their data to individual users and customers, but only have limited reach and applications. The privacy-enhancing design of network infrastructures and database architectures is still mainly developed autonomously by the computer and software industry. Here, we can recently find a stronger, but new role of the state. Instead of regulating data processors directly, governments and oversight agencies now focus more on the intermediaries – standards developers, large software companies, or industry associations. And instead of prescribing and penalising, they now rely more on incentive-structures like certifications or public funding for social and technical self-governance instruments of privacy protection. The use of technology as an instrument and object of regulation is thereby becoming more popular, but the success of this approach still depends on the social codes and the underlying norms which technology is supposed to embed

Can the XY+Z Heisenberg Model Be Compressed Using the Yang-Baxter Equation? An Exploration of the Compression of Quantum Time Dynamic Circuits Describing Heisenberg Spin Chains

Quantum computing is currently deployed on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices, which are only able to simulate circuits reliably on shallow depth quantum circuits. A promising problem on near-term quantum computers is quantum time dynamics (QTD). However, QTD circuits grow with increasing time simulations making them difficult to simulate on NISQ devices. This thesis project explores QTD simulations in variations of 1D Heisenberg spin chains with nearest-neighbor and transverse external field interactions with an eye towards studying the dynamics in broader classes of spin models. I first study the quantum Yang-Baxter equation (YBE) and how it has been shown to compress simulations of QTD of spin models without external magnetic fields and its relationship to the free fermion model. I then combine this research with similar attempts at compressing QTD simulations of spin models that include an external field like the XY+Z model. I find that the XY+Z model cannot be compressed and deployed on a NISQ device because the YBE cannot be performed on the model perfectly, however, a more generalized transverse field model can be compressed

Labour Administration Reforms in China

[Excerpt] This publication provides an explanation of the comprehensive labour administration system in China, including its recent advances, with emphasis on its public services functions, such as public employment, labour inspection and social insurance services. With the recent improvements to both the legal framework and the institutions of labour administration, it is believed that these public services will play bigger and more active roles in ensuring compliance with legislation and protecting the legitimate rights and interests of employers and workers alike