What's Behind the Increase in Inequality?

The focus of this paper is the increase in earnings inequality over the last 30-plus years. Economists have well-developed theories that explain differences in wage levels among different categories of workers. Differences in educational attainment and skills are a major source of these differences; large organizations typically employ workers with a wide range of skills and responsibilities and pay them accordingly. As a result, the level of wage inequality within organizations is quite large. This paper does not challenge these results. It argues, however, that these theories are not adequate to explain a relatively recent phenomenon: the increase in recent decades in wage inequality among workers with similar levels of education and similar demographic characteristics who are employed in similar occupations but in different firms or establishments. These differences in wages are how most people experience inequality. Yet much of the analysis by economists has focused on developments that have enabled leading firms in the U.S. to increase their ability to extract monopoly rents.This paper reviews a wide-ranging literature that examines the increased ability of leading firms to extract monopoly rents. It also reviews the more recent and still thin literature on the increase in inequality among workers with similar characteristics but different employers. The contribution of this paper is the identification of a mechanism that reconciles these two strains of economic research and explains how the increase in rent extraction is linked to the increasingly unequal pay of U.S. workers with similar characteristics. I draw on joint work with Rosemary Batt (2014) to identify new opportunities for rent seeking behavior, and on joint work with Annette Bernhardt, Rosemary Batt and Susan Houseman (2016, 2017) on domestic outsourcing, inter-firm contracting and the growing importance of production networks to establish a mechanism that connects the increase in rents with this new type of increase in wage inequality

Poverty, Poaching and Trafficking: What are the links?

A rapid review of academic and grey literature revealed that the links between poverty, poaching and trafficking are under-researched and poorly understood. Yet, the assumption that poaching occurs because of poverty is omnipresent, with little ‘hard evidence’ to support the claim. Despite this, the authors are confident that the links are there, based on the evidence gathered. However, their understandings are hampered by a series of factors: trafficking and poaching are overwhelmingly framed as an issue of conservation/biodiversity loss rather than of poverty and development; it is difficult to collect clear and detailed data on poaching precisely because of its illicit nature; and many of the cases examined are also linked in with conflict zones, making research even more challenging

Restructuring and rescaling water governance in mining contexts: the co-production of waterscapes in Peru

The governance of water resources is prominent in both water policy agendas and academic scholarship. Political ecologists have made important advances in reconceptualising the relationship between water and society. Yet, while they have stressed both the scalar dimensions, and the politicised nature, of water governance, analyses of its scalar politics are relatively nascent. In this paper, we consider how the increased demand for water resources by the growing mining industry in Peru reconfigures and rescales water governance. In Peru, the mining industry’s thirst for water draws in, and reshapes, social relations, technologies, institutions and discourses that operate over varying spatial and temporal scales. We develop the concept of waterscape to examine these multiple ways in water is co-produced through mining, and become embedded in changing modes and structures of water governance, often beyond the watershed scale. We argue that an examination of waterscapes avoids the limitations of thinking about water in purely material terms, structuring analysis of water issues according to traditional spatial scales and institutional hierarchies, and taking these scales and structures for granted

Gap Analysis Report

Julkaistu versi

Participatory sensing as an enabler for self-organisation in future cellular networks

In this short review paper we summarise the emerging challenges in the field of participatory sensing for the self-organisation of the next generation of wireless cellular networks. We identify the potential of participatory sensing in enabling the self-organisation, deployment optimisation and radio resource management of wireless cellular networks. We also highlight how this approach can meet the future goals for the next generation of cellular system in terms of infrastructure sharing, management of multiple radio access techniques, flexible usage of spectrum and efficient management of very small data cells

Damage identification in structural health monitoring: a brief review from its implementation to the Use of data-driven applications

The damage identification process provides relevant information about the current state of a structure under inspection, and it can be approached from two different points of view. The first approach uses data-driven algorithms, which are usually associated with the collection of data using sensors. Data are subsequently processed and analyzed. The second approach uses models to analyze information about the structure. In the latter case, the overall performance of the approach is associated with the accuracy of the model and the information that is used to define it. Although both approaches are widely used, data-driven algorithms are preferred in most cases because they afford the ability to analyze data acquired from sensors and to provide a real-time solution for decision making; however, these approaches involve high-performance processors due to the high computational cost. As a contribution to the researchers working with data-driven algorithms and applications, this work presents a brief review of data-driven algorithms for damage identification in structural health-monitoring applications. This review covers damage detection, localization, classification, extension, and prognosis, as well as the development of smart structures. The literature is systematically reviewed according to the natural steps of a structural health-monitoring system. This review also includes information on the types of sensors used as well as on the development of data-driven algorithms for damage identification.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

The association between family and community social capital and health risk behaviours in young people: an integrative review

Background: Health risk behaviours known to result in poorer outcomes in adulthood are generally established in late childhood and adolescence. These ‘risky’ behaviours include smoking, alcohol and illicit drug use and sexual risk taking. While the role of social capital in the establishment of health risk behaviours in young people has been explored, to date, no attempt has been made to consolidate the evidence in the form of a review. Thus, this integrative review was undertaken to identify and synthesise research findings on the role and impact of family and community social capital on health risk behaviours in young people and provide a consolidated evidence base to inform multi-sectorial policy and practice.<p></p> Methods: Key electronic databases were searched (i.e. ASSIA, CINAHL, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Embase, Medline, PsycINFO, Sociological Abstracts) for relevant studies and this was complemented by hand searching. Inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied and data was extracted from the included studies. Heterogeneity in study design and the outcomes assessed precluded meta-analysis/meta-synthesis; the results are therefore presented in narrative form.<p></p> Results: Thirty-four papers satisfied the review inclusion criteria; most were cross-sectional surveys. The majority of the studies were conducted in North America (n=25), with three being conducted in the UK. Sample sizes ranged from 61 to 98,340. The synthesised evidence demonstrates that social capital is an important construct for understanding the establishment of health risk behaviours in young people. The different elements of family and community social capital varied in terms of their saliency within each behavioural domain, with positive parent–child relations, parental monitoring, religiosity and school quality being particularly important in reducing risk.<p></p> Conclusions: This review is the first to systematically synthesise research findings about the association between social capital and health risk behaviours in young people. While providing evidence that may inform the development of interventions framed around social capital, the review also highlights key areas where further research is required to provide a fuller account of the nature and role of social capital in influencing the uptake of health risk behaviours.<p></p&gt

Exercise as Labour: Quantified Self and the Transformation of Exercise into Labour

The recent increase in the use of digital self-tracking devices has given rise to a range of relations to the self often discussed as quantified self (QS). In popular and academic discourse, this development has been discussed variously as a form of narcissistic self-involvement, an advanced expression of panoptical self-surveillance and a potential new dawn for e-health. This article proposes a previously un-theorised consequence of this large-scale observation and analysis of human behaviour; that exercise activity is in the process of being reconfigured as labour. QS will be briefly introduced, and reflected on, subsequently considering some of its key aspects in relation to how these have so far been interpreted and analysed in academic literature. Secondly, the analysis of scholars of “digital labour” and “immaterial labour” will be considered, which will be discussed in relation to what its analysis of the transformations of work in contemporary advanced capitalism can offer to an interpretation of the promotion and management of the self-tracking of exercise activities. Building on this analysis, it will be proposed that a thermodynamic model of the exploitation of potential energy underlies the interest that corporations have shown in self-tracking and that “gamification” and the promotion of an entrepreneurial selfhood is the ideological frame that informs the strategy through which labour value is extracted without payment. Finally, the potential theoretical and political consequences of these insights will be considered