Vertical specialisation and new regionalism

The increased spread in the location of value added coupled with the growing impetus for new forms of bilateral integration are re-shaping international economic activity. The world is becoming more regional and more fragmented but little empirical work has been dedicated to examining the nature of the links between these processes. This thesis aims to fill this gap in the literature. The primary aim of the first essay of this thesis is to extend current indicators of international production so that the bilateral degree of vertical specialisation can be captured. This has been one of the major hurdles in examining the links between vertical specialisation and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The comparative static analysis of this first essay reveals that there appears to be a high incidence of regional value chain activity and this motivates the aims of the second essay. It attempts to isolate the impact of an FTA on these flows through a theoretically derived gravity model of input trade. The results suggest that an FTA increases the use of intermediate inputs that are part of a bilateral value chain by 65%. Moreover, the results identify the presence of ‘magnification’ which implies that this type of trade is also more responsive to changes in trade costs and income variables. The third essay then looks at how the changing nature of trade affects the formation of new FTAs. It suggests that the propagation of international production alters the political economy dynamics of countries towards favouring further liberalisation. It also identifies regulatory quality and a growing FTA ‘contagion’ as determinants of new FTAs

Training a Convolutional Neural Network for Appearance-Invariant Place Recognition

Place recognition is one of the most challenging problems in computer vision, and has become a key part in mobile robotics and autonomous driving applications for performing loop closure in visual SLAM systems. Moreover, the difficulty of recognizing a revisited location increases with appearance changes caused, for instance, by weather or illumination variations, which hinders the long-term application of such algorithms in real environments. In this paper we present a convolutional neural network (CNN), trained for the first time with the purpose of recognizing revisited locations under severe appearance changes, which maps images to a low dimensional space where Euclidean distances represent place dissimilarity. In order for the network to learn the desired invariances, we train it with triplets of images selected from datasets which present a challenging variability in visual appearance. The triplets are selected in such way that two samples are from the same location and the third one is taken from a different place. We validate our system through extensive experimentation, where we demonstrate better performance than state-of-art algorithms in a number of popular datasets

Shallow versus Deep Integration between Mediterranean Countries and the EU and within the Mediterranean Region

The paper aims at assessing the specific impact of shallow versus deep integration between Mediterranean (MED) countries1 and their partners in the European Union (EU) as well as between the MED countries themselves. It relies on dataset developed for this project concerning tariffs (as a proxy for shallow integration) and Non Tariff Measures (NTMs)2 (as a proxy for deep integration). Additional data are also included in order to take into account other trade costs, especially transport costs and logistics costs. In this regard, an original dataset of maritime freight cost (Maersk, 2007) is introduced as well as the trade logistics performance (TLP) index produced by the World Bank. Such datasets are useful for providing additional insight into deep integration. The paper starts by calculating the magnitude of NTMs in terms of ad valorem tariff equivalent (AVEs). The estimation of NTMs through ad valorem equivalents (AVEs) shows that Algeria and Jordan have the highest value of AVEs, whereas Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt have the lowest value. A gravity model is then estimated with special emphasis on trade costs which are the crucial point in our research study. Given the limitation of data on NTMs, the gravity model is estimated for only one year (2001), and for each MED country. Trade costs are represented by tariffs, AVEs of NTMs, and transport and logistics costs. The idea is to test which of the three elements of trade costs are the most impeding to bilateral trade between MED countries and EU countries as well as amongst MED countries. The model shows that tariffs, NTMs, and trade and logistics costs have a significant impact on trade, but is highly vivid in countries suffering from high tariff rates, prevalence of NTMs, and trade costs. A number of simulations are carried out trying to differentiate between the impact of partial liberalization and full liberalization on trade creation. The results obtained show that full liberalization has a significant effect whether it is only related to shallow integration (tariff removal) or deep integration (NTMs and trade and logistics). The effect is higher if trade costs and logistics are improved. The results are far less if only partial liberalization takes place and in several countries is insignificant implying that marginal reductions in NTMs or tariffs cannot always help to create trade. Finally the study shows that there is a huge potential for enhancing trade amongst MED countries if trade costs are lowered, logistics is improved, and NTMs are abolished.Regional Trade Agreements, Regional Integration, Non-Tariff-Measures, Deep versus shallow integration, South Mediterranean countries, European Union Trade Agreements

“Influencia del Compromiso Organizacional en el Clima Laboral de la Empresa de Desarrollo Industrial de Matagalpa (EDISMAT), durante el periodo 2013

La temática abordada en esta investigación es El Clima Laboral en las Empresas Productivas y de Servicios del municipio de Matagalpa con el propósito de Analizar la Influencia del Compromiso Organizacional en el Clima Laboral de la Empresa de Desarrollo Industrial de Matagalpa (EDISMAT), durante el periodo 2013. Con esta investigación se logro conocer el nivel de Compromiso de los trabajadores y que influye en el Clima Laboral. El estudio del Compromiso Organizacional resulta de gran importancia para que la gerencia de la Empresa EDISMAT fomente el compromiso en cada uno de los empleados, ya que esto contribuirá a que la empresa alcance las metas y obtengan el éxito deseado en el ambiente competitivo al cual se enfrenta, así como también mejorar las relaciones que se establecen entre los individuos y la organización en la que desarrollan su trabajo, lo que dará como resultado un buen clima laboral. Se logro identificar que en EDISMAT tienen los tres tipos de Compromiso: Afectivo, Normativo y Continuidad, lo que significa que se sienten comprometidos con la empresa por satisfacción, obligación y necesidad, siendo este ultimo el mas relevante, también se encontró que no invierten mucho en recurso humano, además se detectaron ciertos elementos que han contribuido al compromiso que estos tiene con la empresa como la estabilidad laboral y un clima laboral agradable, en el que se les brinda ciertas decisiones respecto a las funciones que realizan algunos trabajadores en el área de producción, un estilo de liderazgo carismático y un tipo de comunicación formal, lo que resulta un mejor ambiente en el que el trabajador pueda desarrollar sus labores diaria

Reflections on Colombia's plan for economic growth 2019

[Abstract in English is missing]crecimiento económico; regimen cambiario; déficit fiscal; remesas; ahorro

Measurement and characteristics of labor market Rionegro, Antioquia

The paper presents an approach to labor market structure in the municipality of Rionegro, Antioquia from the construction of indicators. The analysis was conducted from the supply side, taking information from the municipality's population that was part or not in the labor force and accounts for the measurement of variables such as unemployment, the overall rate of participation, the employment rate, the underemployment rate, among others. The knowledge and use of this information is translated into multiple benefits for local government and the community at large, including the accuracy of policies to provide better working conditions for the municipality and the criteria to better focus and efficiency of municipal spending. The book is divided into three chapters: the first. briefly discusses the major national labor market indicators, between 2001 and 2008. In the second section shows the results of research conducted for the municipality of Rionegro, Antioquia, detailing the methodology, the general characteristics of the population, and profiles of the employed and unemployed. Finally, draws some labor market characteristics muncipio, starting with their living conditions, according to the state of informal employment and ending with the phenomenon of migrationMercado laboral - Rionegro (Antioquia); Rionegro (Antioquia) - Empleo; Indicadores de empleo; Tasa de desempleo - Rionegro (Antioquia); Sector informal - Rionegro (Antioquia); Migracion e inmigracion; Empleo y desempleo - Oriente antioqueno; Indicadores sociodemograficos

Leakage Subspace Precoding and Scheduling for Physical Layer Security in Multi-User XL-MIMO Systems

We investigate the achievable secrecy sum-rate in a multi-user XL-MIMO system, on which user distances to the base station become comparable to the antenna array dimensions. We show that the consideration of spherical-wavefront propagation inherent to these set-ups is beneficial for physical-layer security, as it provides immunity against eavesdroppers located in similar angular directions that would otherwise prevent secure communication under classical planar-wavefront propagation. A leakage subspace precoding strategy is also proposed for joint secure precoding and user scheduling, which allows to improve the secrecy sum-rate compared to conventional zero-forcing based strategies, under different eavesdropper collusion strategies.Comment: 5 pages and 4 figures. This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl