The improvement of oral reading in the upper grades

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

The specific aims of the commercial curricula in junior and senior high schools

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Evolution of sociality in Anelosimus Spiders

Most spiders are solitary and aggressive towards cohorts, but some have been found to live in groups and forage communally, even sharing in brood care. The benefits of group living outweigh the costs of inbreeding for these spiders, but how sociality has developed in arachnids is yet unknown. In this study I test the neoteny hypothesis for the origin of sociality in spiders in the Anelosimusgenus, which contains many of the known social spiders. The neoteny hypothesis predicts that due to retaining juvenile traits and maturing at an earlier morph, social spiders will have smaller body sizes than their solitary relatives. Using a novel phylogenetic tree of Anelosimusspecies and other outgroups, I used correlative ancestral reconstruction of traits along with analyses of variance to see if body size decreased with an increase in social level. The tree contained 8 evolutionary replicas of sociality (9 social species, 8 independent evolutions of sociality), therefore making it the perfect platform to test the neoteny hypothesis. There was no difference in body size between sociality levels, and the neoteny hypothesis was rejected. I did however, find evidence that social spiders have smaller clutch sizes, as well as a female-biased sex ratio. This supports the hypothesis that social species evolved small clutch sizes with more females to combat extreme oscillations in their population size, and tells us more about how their sociality may have come to be

The specific aims of the commercial curricula in junior and senior high schools

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Education and growth: an industry-level analysis of the Portuguese manufacturing

TThis paper investigates the education–growth link at the more disaggregate industry level in the Portuguese manufacturing sector with a focus on different levels of education. The insights from new growth theory and a modified and augmented version of the Benhabib and Spiegel (1994) specification are the basis for the empirical analysis of the role of education in innovation and imitation activities highlighting a role for specific schooling levels across industries according to their technological characteristics and its interaction with international trade. We use data for the period 1986–1997, fourteen Portuguese manufacturing industries and panel data econometric techniques. Our most robust finding concerns the relevance of technology spillovers embodied in imports for productivity growth, as long as manufacturing industries employ workers with skills provided by secondary education. The Portuguese manufacturing industry cannot rely on automatic technological catch up for productivity growth so active trade and education policies are crucial to recover from the present bottom position in the rank of OECD productivity levels.education, innovation, technology diffusion, productivity growth, panel data

Human capital, mechanisms of technological diffusion and the role of technological shocks in the speed of diffusion: Evidence from a panel of Mediterranean countries

Our main goal is to ascertain the importance of human capital as a facilitator of technological diffusion in a sample of seven Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Cyprus, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey) for the period 1960-2000. First, we estimate the technological progress growth rate and the technological gap between each country in our sample and the technological leader (the USA), following the methodology of Benhabib and Spiegel (2002). We then address the issue of the importance of technology diffusion for the TFP growth rate through the Nelson and Phelps (1966) hypothesis - the potential speed of technology diffusion is inversely related to the degree of technological backwardness of the follower country and its ability to absorb new technologies will depend positively on its human capital level. The non-linear specification of the TFP growth rate proposed by Benhabib and Spiegel (2002) is estimated to control for the type of technological diffusion: logistic or exponential. The empirical analysis is applied to two samples: a smaller one consisting of the above-mentioned countries, and a larger one that includes some European countries. First, we studied the unit root characteristic of the TFP growth rate series using unit root panel tests. The results obtained allowed the use of traditional econometric methods for both equations. For the first equation estimations were performed using the NLLS estimation procedure, as it is a non-linear equation. The second equation, was estimated using OLS with robust errors, the fixed effects model and the random effects model, as it is a linear equation. The empirical importance of human capital in fostering technological diffusion is also addressed through the FDI channel, by which technology is transferred from the leader to the followers. The host economy needs a sufficient level of human capital in order to apply the technology of the leader, i.e., the stock of human capital of the follower country limits its absorptive capability. We also analyse the role of human capital as a facilitator of the diffusion of a particular type of technology, ICT, where there is a role for different educational levels. In both cases we take Lee (2000) as the basic framework for our estimations. Finally, the last part of the paper discusses the importance of technological shocks to the process of technological diffusion. The speed of technological diffusion, and consequently the evolution of cross-country differences in GDP growth rates and levels, depend, to a large extent, on exogenous shocks. We propose to model technological shocks for each of the seven countries in our sample in a simple VAR model with four variables: their TFP growth rate, the logarithm of GDP per capita, the logarithm of investment per capita, and the logarithm of the stock of human capital.Economic growth, Education, Human capital, Panel data, VAR models

Channels of transmission of inequality to growth: A survey of the theory and evidence from a Portuguese perspective

We review the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between inequality and economic growth from the perspective of the Portuguese economy in order to identify the correct (predicted) sign for the relationship in this particular country and the underlying mechanisms that explain it. Different mechanisms relating inequality and economic growth can be at stake explaining why different countries can experience different outcomes in the same period of time or why the same country experiences different outcomes in different periods of time. It is thus fundamental to correctly identify the channels of transmission of inequality to growth in the Portuguese economy. Ideally, all the mechanisms selected should be tested, but prior judgments should also lead us to produce a ranking of the mechanisms according to its relevance for the economy under analysis. This correct identification and ranking leads to more accurate policy recommendations as far as redistributive policies for the Portuguese economy are concerned.Inequality; Growth; Portugal.

Welfare Regimes in the UE 15 and in the Enlarged Europe: An exploratory analysis

The basic aim of this paper is to assess existing welfare regimes in the countries of European Union before and after the enlargement of May 2004 (EU 15 and EU 25) building on a comprehensive approach that considers different dimensions of welfare through an extended set of variables. The paper starts with a brief presentation of current debates on welfare regimes and the new social policy agenda in the European Union. It proceeds with the selection of different dimensions of social welfare and social policy and related key variables that make up the database for the following multivariate statistical analysis, used in order to produce a clustering of welfare regimes. The paper concludes with a tentative interpretation of the underlying characteristics and patterns of current welfare mix and social policies in European Union.Welfare Regimes; Social Policy; European Union; Enlargement; Cluster Analysis

The Fundamentals of the Portuguese Crisis

This paper analyses the fundamentals of the Portuguese crisis. The financial crisis of 2007 worsened and triggered the current Portuguese crisis. We argue that the main problem the economy is facing is its output stagnation due to a kind of Dutch disease that has created high and increasing levels of indebtedness, low and decreasing levels of saving and has reduced Portuguese competitiveness. Moreover, the existence of a dualist labour market and a new wave of emigration produce inefficiency, increasing unemployment of younger workers and the supply of human capital abroad funded by the Portuguese taxpayers. Governance problems such as poor public budget governance and lack of transparency and accountability are also at stake. These governance problems must be solved to allow the economy to return to its long-run growth path.ntion paid to it than hitherto.Growth, Debt, Saving, Dutch disease, Unemployment, Budget policy