South-South Trade Agreements, Location of Production and Inequality in Latin America

This study aims at evaluating the relation between South-South trade agreements, location of production and inequality in Latin Amer- ican RTAs. Following Sanguinetti et al.(2004) and Midelfart-Knarvik et al.(2000), an empirical model will be estimated to check whether industry localization was affected by the agreement. An ending sec- tion will then evaluate the overall impact of trade agreements on ¾ -convergence, i.e. the standard deviation of income levels of countries belonging to the same agreement.

Empirical investigation on labour market interactions in an enlarged Europe

This paper proposes an empirical assessment of economic interactions between the labour markets of the integrating EU over the period of time 1995–2005. Drawing on recently made available industry statistics, we provide a sector level study (13 tradable sectors, including manufacturing and services), analysing the contemporary evolution of domestic and trade partners’ employment levels. Given the intensification of trade relations as a result of ongoing integration process, we build a sector-specific measure of economic interdependency, based on information on labour markets’ performance and weighted by the magnitude of intra-EU trade flows (imports). The estimates of a dynamic empirical model confirm the interactions between employment levels in different Member States. Domestic employment in NMS-5 is rather positively affected by the expansion of labour markets in other EU’s trade partners (domestic employment levels in NMS-5 countries improve in parallel to the increase in foreign tradable sectors’ employment). The opposite holds true for EU-15 domestic labour markets that are rather challenged by the expansion of tradable sectors in their EU trade partners.EU integration, labour markets, trade

Specialize rightly or decline

Is exporting potato chips really the same than exporting microchips for a country economic growth? Is the rate of economic growth independent on the production/export structure? Is moving toward dynamic sectors a key for economic growth? This paper exploits a panel dataset for 188 countries and almost 700 sectors over the 1960-2004 period. Our purpose is to determine if and how sectoral structure influences the rate of economic growth, both from a static and a dynamic perspective. Different theoretical lines of research give suggestion in this direction: both past keynesian contributions and the endogenous growth literature suggest that economic structure can play an effective role in influencing economic growth. Our empirical analysis, shows that there is some evidence of this kind. We test the robustness of our result, checking the sensitivity of our main result to several alternative

Individual Earnings, International Outsourcing and Technological Change.

The aim of this paper is to empirically evaluate the relative effects of international outsourcing of materials and services and of ICT capital deepening on wage inequality between blue and white collars in the Italian manufacturing industry during the period 1985-1999. We merge an administrative data set on workers\' wages and individual characteristics with data on imported inputs from Italian input-output tables and other sector-level variables. Our results confirm that both material and service outsourcing widen the skilled/unskilled wage gap while ICT capital deepening positively affects real wages regardless of the worker\'s status. However, important differences emerge when the overall sample is split between traditional and innovative sectors.International Outsourcing, ICT, Wage Inequality

Vertical Seawater Lift Pump Reversible Performance Deterioration

Case Stud

Robust entanglement preparation against noise by controlling spatial indistinguishability

Initialization of composite quantum systems into highly entangled states is usually a must to enable their use for quantum technologies. However, unavoidable noise in the preparation stage makes the system state mixed, hindering this goal. Here, we address this problem in the context of identical particle systems within the operational framework of spatially localized operations and classical communication (sLOCC). We define the entanglement of formation for an arbitrary state of two identical qubits. We then introduce an entropic measure of spatial indistinguishability as an information resource. Thanks to these tools we find that spatial indistinguishability, even partial, can be a property shielding nonlocal entanglement from preparation noise, independently of the exact shape of spatial wave functions. These results prove quantum indistinguishability is an inherent control for noise-free entanglement generation

An Approach to Rank Noise Pollution in Workplaces

In this paper, we describe a method for classifying the workplaces as regards the noise risk. This method provides an univocal classification of work area and allows to correctly implement the control measures in accordance with a suitable priority scale. Finally, this method can be easily adjusted to respect various national standards

Chikungunya virus, epidemiology, clinics and phylogenesis: A review.

Abstract Chikungunya virus is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes chikungunya fever, a febrile illness associated with severe arthralgia and rash. Chikungunya virus is transmitted by culicine mosquitoes; Chikungunya virus replicates in the skin, disseminates to liver, muscle, joints, lymphoid tissue and brain, presumably through the blood. Phylogenetic studies showed that the Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent epidemics were caused by two different introductions of distinct strains of East/Central/South African genotype of CHIKV. The paraphyletic grouping of African CHIK viruses supports the historical evidence that the virus was introduced into Asia from Africa. Phylogenetic analysis divided Chikungunya virus isolates into three distinct genotypes based on geographical origins: the first, the West Africa genotype, consisted of isolates from Senegal and Nigeria; the second contained strains from East/Central/South African genotype, while the third contained solely Asian. The most recent common ancestor for the recent epidemic, which ravaged Indian Ocean islands and Indian subcontinent in 2004 – 2007, was found to date in 2002. Asian lineage dated about 1952 and exhibits similar spread patterns of the recent Indian Ocean outbreak lineage, with successive epidemics detected along an eastward path. Asian group splitted into two clades: an Indian lineage and a south east lineage. Outbreaks of Chikungunya virus fever in Asia have not been associated necessarily with outbreaks in Africa. Phylogenetic tools can reconstruct geographic spread of Chikungunya virus during the epidemics wave. The good management of patients with acute Chikungunya virus infection is essential for public health in susceptible areas with current Aedes spp activity