Finance and growth in the EU: new evidence from the liberalisation and harmonisation of the banking industry

JEL Classification: G21, G28, O5Banking Deregulation, Economic Growth, European Union, Financial Development

The economic consequences of the spanish Reconquest: The long-term effects of medieval conquest and colonization

This paper shows that a historical process that ended more than five centuries ago, the Reconquest, is very important to explain Spanish regional economic development down to the present day. An indicator measuring the rate of Reconquest reveals a heavily negative effect on current income differences across the Spanish provinces. A main intervening factor in the impact the Reconquest has had is the concentration of economic and political power in a few hands, excluding large segments of the population from access to economic opportunities when Spain entered the industrialization phase. The timing of the effect is consistent with this argument. A general implication of our analysis is that large frontier expansions may favor a political equilibrium among the colonizing agents that is biased toward the elite, creating the conditions for an inegalitarian society, with negative consequences for long-term economic developmenTUniversidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

A derivation of the optimal answer-copying index and some applications

Multiple-choice exams are frequently used as an efficient and objective method to assess learning but they are more vulnerable to answer-copying than tests based on open questions. Several statistical tests (known as indices in the literature) have been proposed to detect cheating; however, to the best of our knowledge they all lack mathematical support that guarantees optimality in any sense. We partially fill this void by deriving the uniform most powerful (UMP) under the assumption that the response distribution is known. In practice, however, we must estimate a behavioral model that yields a response distribution for each question. We calculate the empirical type-I and type-II error rates for several indices that assume different behavioral models using simulations based on real data from twelve nationwide multiple-choice exams taken by 5th and 9th graders in Colombia. We find that the index with the highest power among those studied, subject to the restriction of preserving the type-I error, is one based on the work of Wollack (1997) and Linden and Sotaridona (2006) and is superior to the indices studied and developed by Wesolowsky (2000) and Frary, Tideman, and Watts (1977). We compare the results of applying this index to all 12 exams and find that examination rooms with stricter proctoring have a lower level of copying. Finally, a Bonferroni correction to control for the false positive rate is proposed to detect massive cheating

Self-existing objects and auto-generated information in chronology-violating space-times : a philosophical discussion

Consistency demands an harmony between local and global affairs that excludes grandfather-like paradoxes. However, self-existing objects trapped in CTCs are not seemingly avoided by the standard interpretation of this principle, usually constrained to a dynamical framework. In this paper we discuss whether we are committed to accept an ontology with self-existing objects if CTCs actually occur in the universe. In addition, the epistemological status of the Principle of SelfConsistency is analyzed and a discussion on the information flux through CTCs is presented.Fil: Romero, Gustavo Esteban. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía; ArgentinaFil: Torres, Diego F.. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto Argentino de Radioastronomía; Argentin

Persistence in inequalities across the Spanish regions

In this paper we investigate several issues concerning persistence in inequalities of relative income per capita among the Spanish regions over 1980-2002. For that purpose we take a Bayesian approach which extends the work by Canova and Marcet (1995). Firstly, we study to what extent there exists a fixed effect bias in the standard cross-section estimates, and we find that the speed of convergence is indeed underestimated. Secondly, we provide a battery of results in which steady states and convergence rates have been obtained for a continuum of prior distributions. Finally, we also deal with persistence in inequalites by determining whether initial conditions matter in the distribution of regional steady states, and our conclusion is that regional disparities tend to persist over time in Spain.Convergence, Inequalities, Bayesian Econometrics, Gibbs sampling

Public finances and long-term growth in Europe - evidence from a panel data analysis

In Lisbon the European Council proclaimed a European growth strategy. It considers an average economic growth rate of around 3 percent as a realistic prospect for the coming years and assigns public finances an important role in the process of achieving this goal. This paper addresses the question whether we can find empirical evidence for European countries that public finance reform affects trend growth. Focusing on time series patterns, we investigate whether there have been persistent shifts or trends in economic growth and fiscal variables over the last 40 years. In addition, we estimate a distributed lag model, which 1) indicates that government consumption and transfers negatively affect growth rates of GDP per capita over the business cycle, while public investment has a positive impact, and 2) provides robust evidence that distortionary taxation affects growth in the medium-term through its impact on the accumulation of private physical capital. JEL Classification: C22, C23, H11, O11Europe, long-term growth, public finance

Unicellular but not asocial. Life in community of a bacterium

All living organisms have acquired the outstanding ability to overcome the limitations imposed by changeable environments through the gain of genetic traits over years of evolution and the tendency of individuals to associate in communities. The complementation of a singular weakness, the deployment of reinforcement for the good of the community, the better use of resources, or effective defense against external aggression are advantages gained by this communal behavior. Communication has been the cohesive element prompting the global responses that promote efficiency in two features of any community: specialization in differentiated labor and the spatio-temporal organization of the environment. These principles illustrate that what we call human ecology also applies to the cellular world and is exemplified in eukaryotic organisms, where sophisticated cell-to-cell communication networks coordinate cell differentiation and the specialization of multiple tissues consisting of numerous cells embedded in a multifunctional extracellular matrix. This sophisticated molecular machinery appears, however, to be invented by the “simple” but still fascinating bacteria. What I will try to expand in the following sections are notions of how “single prokaryotic cells” organize a multicellular community. [Int Microbiol 19(2):81-90 (2016)]Keywords: evolution · molecular machinery · multicellular community · prokaryotic cells · global response

Una mirada "positiva" a los biofilms bacterianos

Las bacterias son organismos unicelulares, pero que también tienden a agruparse en comunidades multicelulares conocidas como biofilms. Para que este agrupamiento ocurra, la población bacteriana tiene que sincronizarse, y de ello se encarga un sofisticado sistema de comunicación química, donde ciertas moléculas producidas en la población son detectadas por receptores localizados en la superficie celular bacteriana. Como resultado tiene lugar un recambio en la expresión de genes, siendo especialmente relevantes aquellos implicados en la síntesis de componentes de la matriz extracelular. Esta matriz está constituida por proteínas, polisacáridos o ácidos nucleicos entre otros, y se ensambla fuera de las células, de forma que protege, estructura y da robustez a toda la comunidad. Los biofilms se pueden formar potencialmente en cualquier superficie, y son especialmente recalcitrantes a la eliminación con desinfectantes y otros agentes antimicrobianos. Por este motivo, los biofilms bacterianos son especialmente temidos en medicina, o la industria alimentaria, dado que representan una continua fuente de infección o contaminación. Esta visión patológica sin embargo enmascara otra realidad más benévola, los biofilms de otras especies bacterianas pueden contribuir a protegernos de infecciones, o favorecer la nutrición y el crecimiento de las plantas. Especies bacterianas representantes de estas dos visiones son, Bacillus subtilis y Bacillus cereus, las dos Gram-positivas y esporulantes. Cepas de B. subtilis y otras especies relacionadas han demostrado un gran potencial como agentes de control de enfermedades de plantas, situándose como una sólida estrategia fitosanitaria que ayude a reducir el empleo de pesticidas. Esta acción protectora suele resultar de la combinación de diferentes mecanismos de acción: antibiosis, inmunización y protección del crecimiento de planta. Por el contrario B. cereus es responsable de intoxicaciones alimentarias y un serio problema de contaminación en la industria agroalimentaria. En nuestro laboratorio estamos interesados en conocer si la formación de los biofilms es una parte del ciclo de vida de estas especies bacterianas cuando interaccionan con las plantas. Para iniciar este estudio nos hemos centrado en el estudio del papel que ciertas proteínas extracelulares desempeñan en el ensamblaje de la matriz extracelular de los biofilms, y su impacto en la protección de cultivos o colonización y persistencia. La posibilidad de definir diferencias entre ambas especies nos permitiría en un caso idílico modular estos biofilms, favoreciendo a bacterias beneficias, pero no aquellos que puedan resultar perjudiciales o no deseables.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Persistence in inequalities across the Spanish regions.

This paper investigates several issues concerning persistence in inequalities of relative income per capita among the Spanish regions over 1980-2002. For that purpose we take a Bayesian approach which extends the work by Canova and Marcet (1995). Firstly, we study to what extent there exists a fixed effect bias in the standard cross-section estimates, and we find that the speed of convergence is indeed underestimated. Secondly, we provide a battery of results in which steady states and convergence rates have been obtained for a continuum of prior distributions. Finally, we also deal with persistence in inequalites by determining whether initial conditions matter in the distribution of regional steady states, and our conclusion is that regional disparities tend to persist over time in Spain.Convergence, Inequalities, Bayesian Econometrics, Gibbs sampling.