Reproductive selection and human evolution: An empirical analysis for Spain, 2010

[Abstract] In this paper I investigate whether there is an economic bias in the reproduction of humans in Spain using data from the Encuesta de Presupuestos Familiares (Household Budget Survey) of 2010. The main result is that parents that are income earners tend to earn 16% more than non-parents income earners of equal age and gender. Parents also have greater probability of being income earners than the rest of the population of equal age and gender. I argue that the contribution of such reproductive selection to economic development can be as high as half a percentage point per year

Fish Barrel Politics? Self-selection into and inside the European Parliament's fisheries committee

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 31st UACES annual conference in Bristol, September 2001. I thank the participants in the panel for their comments.This paper investigates the division of labour inside the European Parliament in the light of contending theories, using evidence from its fisheries committee. The aim of the paper is to find out the causes of specialisation and whether the committee is representative of the full chamber, using socio-economic variables such as the fisheries sector share of employment or production as proxies for MEPs’ preferences. The paper starts by analysing nominal committee membership. Then, it goes deeper to investigate participation inside committee, by analysing the allocation of rapporteurships, which are used by the EP to organise its work inside committees. Finally, the conclusions summarise the main findings on the causes of specialisation and the representativeness of committees, and introduce some normative considerations about the efficiency of self-selection

De Little Rock a la frontera francesa: ¿a qué especie animal pertenece la Unión Europea?

Diego Varela Pedreira recibió una beca conjunta de la Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza y The British Council para iniciar estudios doctorales en la London School of Economics durante el curso 1998-1999, dentro de la convocatoria de becas de posgrado en Gran Bretaña de 1997.[Resument] El artículo compara la reacción de los Estados Unidos ante la reticencia del estado de Arkansas a integrar sus escuelas públicas con la reacción de la Unión Europea ante la reticencia del gobierno francés de garantizar la libre circulación de mercancías en su frontera con España. La conclusión es que la UE no es un estado y por lo tanto carece de la efectividad de éste en la defensa de ciertos derechos fundamentales. A pesar de esto, la Unión sí puede caracterizarse como un sistema político emergente, y ser objeto de estudio de la política comparada

Reconocimiento y homologación

Diego Varela Pedreira recibió una beca conjunta de la Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza y The British Council para iniciar estudios doctorales en la London School of Economics durante el curso 1998-1999, dentro de la convocatoria de becas de posgrado en Gran Bretaña de 1997.El Gobierno de España ha aprobado recientemente una importante reforma relativa a la homologación de títulos extranjeros de postgrado. Dicha reforma es interesante desde el punto de vista práctico, y más para nosotros que, como becarios de postgrado de la Fundación, estamos dentro del grupo de posibles beneficiarios de estos cambios. Pero también es posible interpretar dicha reforma como un modesto aunque significativo paso de cara a una reforma más profunda del sistema universitario español. El artículo se divide en tres partes, seguidas de una conclusión. En la primera, explico unas distinciones básicas entre títulos oficiales y no oficiales, y entre reconocimiento y homologación, que serán útiles para seguir el texto. En la segunda parte, presento dos modelos paradigmáticos de reconocimiento de diplomas extranjeros: el modelo americano y el modelo francés. En la tercera parte, analizo el sistema español y la reciente reforma para el reconocimiento de los títulos de postgrado a la luz de esos dos modelos alternativos. Por último, en la conclusión hago una evaluación general de la situación actual y propongo algunas posibilidades de futuro

The Kraft-Terrabusi struggle: Workers organization, clasist left and union representation “vacancy”

En este artículo, intentaremos un primer análisis del caso Kraft Foods desarrollando, en primer lugar, una reconstrucción de la historia reciente de la organización obrera en la empresa y, en segundo término, un análisis de un elemento que el conflicto puso sobre la mesa del debate político y conceptual: la relación entre la revitalización de la organización sindical en el lugar de trabajo, la izquierda clasista y los denominados problemas de representatividad de las cúpulas sindicales en Argentina. El abordaje de este elemento pretende, también, abrir nuevos interrogantes sobre las contradicciones y potencialidades inscriptas en la irrupción de la clase obrera en la escena política nacional, en el marco del fin de ciclo kirchnerista.In this article, we will attempt a first analysis of the Kraft Foods case developing, in first place, a reconstruction of the recent history of labor organization in the company and, secondly, an essential element to understand what the conflict brought to the actual conceptual and political debate: the relationship between the revitalization of the union organization in the workplace, the clasist left and the so-called problems of representativeness of the union leaderships in Argentina. The approach to this element also intends to open new questions about the contradictions and potentialities inscribed in the emergence of the working class in the national political scene, as part of the end of the Kirchner political cycle.Fil: Varela, Paula. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales; ArgentinaFil: Lotito, Diego. Universidad de Buenos Aires; Argentin

National vs. European mandate: a rational choice model of interest rate decisions by the European Central Bank

Paper prepared for the 33rd annual conference and 8th research conference of UACES, Newcastle, 2-4 September 2003.The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent the members of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) act as if they had a national mandate, instead of acting in the interests of price stability in the euro area as a whole. The paper develops a simple rational choice model of interest rate decisions inside the Governing Council of the ECB based on national mandates, and tests it against a model based on a European mandate, using monthly data from January 1999 to July 2003. The paper concludes that the model assuming national mandates explains the data better, and derives some implications for the reform of the ECB and other pseudo-independent institutions such as the European Commission, especially in the eve of the next enlargement

Negotiating the Lisbon Treaty : Redistribution, Efficiency and Power Indices

[Abstract] In this paper, we try to explain the intergovernmental negotiation of the Lisbon treaty from a rational choice perspective with the aid of power index analysis. There are two aspects of the reform of qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council that we find puzzling. The first one is that, according to Shapley-Shubik index based on the notion of power as the distribution of a fixed prize, small and medium-sized member states have lost power as compared to the Nice treaty, which conflicts with the unanimity requirement for treaty reform. The second one is that, according to the Banzhaf measure based on the notion of power as influence, the Lisbon treaty leaves all member states worse off in absolute terms as compared to the Convention’s draft. We propose the measure developed by Steunenberg et al. (1999) as a possible solution to these paradoxes, and draw some conclusions about the nature of EU policy making and power index analysis

The Prestige Disaster And The Proposal For A European Fund For The Compensation Of Oil Pollution Damage: A Missed Opportunity For The European Union?

[Abstract] In this paper we analyze the proposal for the creation of a European fund for the compensation of oil pollution damage. We argue that experience from the accident of the Prestige tanker off the Spanish coast in 2002 made it clear that existing international liability and compensation mechanisms were insufficient. The disaster added momentum to the proposal for the creation of an intermediate tier between the national and the international regimes. However, the proposal was dropped in 2004. In this paper we analyze the causes of the proposal demise and whether a similar opportunity is likely to arise in the future