Quality bias in the measurement of prices : empirical evidence and macroeconomic implications for Spain

Artículo de revist

The Spanish survey of household finances (EFF) : description and methods of the 2014 wave

La Encuesta Financiera de las Familias 2014 (EFF2014) proporciona información detallada sobre la renta, los activos, las deudas y los gastos de los hogares españoles referida a finales de 2014. Junto con las olas anteriores de 2002, 2005, 2008 y 2011, la EFF2014 permite analizar dos fases completas del ciclo económico, las cuales han tenido un fuerte impacto en la situación financiera de los hogares españoles. Este artículo proporciona una descripción detallada de los aspectos metodológicos más relevantes del diseño y la implementación de esta quinta edición: el diseño muestral, el cuestionario, el proceso de recogida de los datos, la validación de estos, el cálculo de los pesos y la imputación. Características importantes también presentes en esta ola son el sobremuestreo de los hogares ricos y el componente panel de la muestraThe Spanish Survey of Household Finances 2014 (EFF2014) provides detailed information on the income, assets, debt and spending of Spanish households referring to end-2014. Together with the previous waves of 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2011, the EFF2014 enables the analysis of two complete phases of the economic cycle, which have had a strong impact on the financial position of Spanish households. This paper provides a detailed description of the most relevant methodological aspects in the design and implementation of this fifth edition: the sample design, the questionnaire, the data collection process, the validation of the data, the computation of weights and the imputation procedures. Important characteristics also present in this wave are the oversampling of wealthy households and the panel component of the sampl

Sesgos de calidad en la medición de los precios : evidencia empírica e implicaciones macroeconómicas para España

Artículo de revistaSe presenta evidencia empirica relevante entre los indices de precios tradicionales y los estimados mediante el uso de la metodologia hedonica, para tres sectores de la economia española: ordenadores, automoviles y vivienda. Despues de un resumen del estudio realizado sobre los precios, se utilizan los resultados obtenidos sobre los sesgos por cambios de calidad en esos sectores para valorar su impacto sobre la medicion de las variables macroeconomicas españoles en el periodo 1995-1999. (ad

Images of twins and the notion of the genetic program in the school textbooks of biology: a comparative study held among 15 countries

Genetic concepts have been strongly evolved during these last ten years, and have been found less connected to reductionist or hereditarist values. The aim of the specific research was to analyze and identify if the current school textbooks of biology ensue this progress, in the way the topic “human genetics” is taught in the textbooks of 15 different countries. Results show that the notion of the genetic program remained central in some countries, while it fades behind the notion of genetic information in some others. In addition, almost all the twins’ pictures demonstrate the following pattern: they are identically dressed and they have the same hairstyle, which gives evidence of a strong obstinacy of a determinist reductionist ideology.European project FP6 Biohead-Citizen CIT2-CT-2004-506015.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - LIBEC/CIFPEC - Unidade de investigação (16/644)

Humans and nature relationship : images and text of ecology and environmental education

The present study investigated whether and how ecology and environmental education (EEE) affects the understanding of the Human-Nature relationship by images and historical, ethical and socio-economical textual information existing in textbooks targeting 14-15-year old children. Four subtopics - Uses of Resources; Pollution; Biodiversity; Ecosystems and Cycles – from textbooks of 15 different European and African countries were specifically selected, analyzed and comparisons were made. Results indicated that ecocentrism is the starting position. Historical, ethical and socio-economical dimensions relating to EEE is usually poor. There were also limited references to juridical norms and international agreements concerning environmental protection, biodiversity and sustainability issues.European Project FP6 Biohead-Citizen CIT2-CT-2004-506015.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - LIBEC/CIFPEC - Unidade de investigação (16/644)

ERS/EAACI statement on adherence to international adult asthma guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines based on the best available evidence, aim to standardize and optimize asthma diagnosis and management. Nevertheless, there are concerns that particularly between different groups of healthcare professionals (HCPs), adherence to guidelines is suboptimal. Further to these concerns, the aims of this ERS/EAACI Statement were (1) via an international online survey, to evaluate and compare the understanding of and adherence to international asthma guidelines by HCPs of different specialties, (2) via systematic reviews of the literature, to assess effectiveness of strategies focused at improving implementation of guideline-recommended interventions, and compare process and clinical outcomes in patients managed by Specialists (respiratory physicians or allergists) or Generalists (internists or general practitioners). The online survey identified discrepancies between HCPs of different specialties which may be due to poor dissemination or lack of knowledge of the guidelines but also a reflection of the adaptations HCPs working in different clinical settings make, based on their resources. The systematic reviews demonstrated that multifaceted quality improvement initiatives addressing multiple challenges to guidelines adherence, or the input from additional specialized HCPs are most effective in improving guidelines adherence. More data are needed to evaluate differences in process and clinical outcomes among patients managed by Generalists or Specialists. Our results reveal a need for guidelines to consider the heterogeneity of real-life settings for asthma management and tailor their recommendations accordingly. Continuous, multifaceted quality improvement processes are required to optimize and maintain guidelines adherence. Validated referral pathways for uncontrolled asthma or for uncertain diagnosis are needed

Modelo de aula multicultural internacional para alumnos de posgrados en línea

Ethics is a dimension and of interest to contribute to developing competences in students. This dimension linked to interculturality allows students an adequate background to face the information age (Merryfield, 2003, Nieto & Bode, 2008, Wasell & Crouch, 2008). This project consisted on the creation of a virtual classroom that allowed to bring together a multidisciplinary group of students from different universities in the world, with varied cultural contexts, to work as a team.Through a transversal element such as ethics, the participants had the opportunity to reflect on different cultural aspects. The shared activity allowed observing the impact that international experiences and virtual intercultural interaction have on the perception of cultural intelligence that students have of themselves.El presente proyecto consistió en la creación de un aula virtual que permitió reunir a un grupo multidisciplinario de estudiantes de diferentes universidades del mundo, con variados contextos culturales, para trabajar en equipo.A través de un elemento transversal como la ética, los participantes tuvieron oportunidad de hacer una reflexión sobre diferentes aspectos culturales. La actividad compartida permitió observar el impacto que tienen las experiencias internacionales y la interacción multicultural virtual en la percepción de inteligencia cultural que tienen los alumnos de sí mismos

Employment generation by small firms in Spain

Despite the relevance in terms of policy, we still know little in Spain about where and by whom jobs are created, and how that is affecting the size distribution of firms. The main innovation of this paper is to use a rich database that overcomes the problems encountered by other firm-level studies to shed some light on the employment generation of small firms in Spain. We find that small firms contribute to employment disproportionately across all sectors of the economy although the difference between their employment and job creation share is largest in the manufacturing sector. The job creators in that sector are both new and established firms whereas only new small firms outperform their larger counterparts in the service sector. The large annual job creation of the small firm size class is shifting the firm size distribution towards the very small production units, although not uniformly across industries of different technology intensit