Staff, Functions, and Staff Costs at Central Banks: An International Comparison with a Labor-demand Model

During the period 2000-2004 central banks sustained a generalized reduction in their staff, which was accompanied, in most cases, with significant increases in staff costs. This could obey to an enhanced interest of central banks in focusing on their core functions. In fact, central banks have changed the ways they perform their operative functions (e.g. currency operations, payment systems operation, printing notes, etc.) through different strategies aimed at gathering the participation of third parties. These strategies differ according to the relationship that central banks have with the financial sector and the government, as well as to their historical tradition and modernization trend. To explain the effect of these changes on the staff, we estimated a short-term labor demand function for 66 central banks using a panel data model with random effects. Results indicate that central banks’ labor demand is strongly determined by the country’s population, economic development level and changes in operative functions, as well as by staff costs. In addition, we found a low employment-wage elasticity suggesting the presence of a flexible budgetary constrain in central banks.Central Banking, Labor Demand, Modernization, Functions, Staff Costs, Panel Data, Random Effects. Classification JEL: E50; J23; J30; C33

BANKNOTE PRINTING AT MODERN CENTRAL BANKING: TRENDS, COSTS, AND EFFICIENCY

This paper examines trends in banknote printing during the period 2000-2005 for a crosssection of 56 central banks. Because of the high increase in the demand for currency in recent years, central banks have implemented new strategies to increase efficiency in the production of banknotes. Some of them, involve the private sector by means of different modalities (e.g. joint ventures, subsidiaries or purchase of banknotes from specialized companies), and the integration of banknote printing and cash processing in a single complex (e.g. Portugal and Colombia). A cost function using a panel data model with random effects was estimated. It was identified that the denomination structure, the size of banknotes, and the production method used by central banks have a significant impact on production costs. Government printing was found to be the most costly method, while private-sector involvement in the process substantially reduces production costs. Using a non-parametric efficient frontier model, it was found that most central banks have increased its technical efficiency during the period, especially in central banks where the privatesector has involved. Computing a Malmquist index through distance functions it was identified that central banks have showed a moderate increase in its productivity, primarily due to increases in efficiency and, in a lower proportion to technical change. In most of the cases, a positive change in efficiency is mainly the result of higher scale efficiency. This could obey to high increase in demand for currency.Central Banks, Banknote Printing, Efficiency Frontier, Cost Function, Panel Data, Malmquist Index. Classification JEL: E50; C33; C23; C43.

Datos de Renovación

Datos de Renovación da nombre a mi propuesta artística para el Trabajo de Fin de Grado, una investigación acerca de los conceptos de multitud y desempleo, así como de la propia percepción que tiene de ellos el individuo postmoderno, no sólo como reflejo de una problemática sociocultural actual, sino como una herramienta de activación de situaciones convergentes, que ponen en confrontación a cada sujeto con la propia percepción abstracta del grupo de personas con las que convive

Transforming fertility services into remote health care

[EN] With the rising of technology, remote services providing Health Care at home is becoming a must for organizations, as it enables additional patient-centric initiatives. The transition to remote health care has attracted both new competitors and new partners to the health care industry. In the fertility care industry, the entry of new firms indicates there is an opportunity for remote processes also for incumbent firms. This TFM aims to analyze in depth the convenience of transforming on a remote service every medical interaction with patients that are required for fertility care. Previous analyses will include trends in the sector, competitors positioning and the remote services they offer, including technologies and systems required as support for these services. Then, a redefinition of the service design based on the patient journey will be carried out, evaluating how many of the compulsory visits to the clinics can be replaced by a patient-at-home service. This will contain a look at the current or upcoming state of art of technology. The TFM can be useful as a reference for firms in the Health Care market which are considering some transition to remote care services.Almudéver Galán, MÁ. (2022). Transforming fertility services into remote health care. Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/187073TFG

Heterogeneous effects of risk-taking on bank efficiency : a stochastic frontier model with random coefficients

We estimate a stochastic frontier model with random inefficiency parameters, which allows us not only to identify the role of bank risk-taking on driving cost and profit inefficiency, but also to recognize heterogeneous effects of risk exposure on banks with different characteristics. We account for an integral group of risk exposure covariates including credit, liquidity, capital and market risk, as well as bank-specific characteristics of size and affiliation. The model is estimated for the Colombian banking sector during the period 2002-2012. Results suggest that risk-taking drives inefficiency and its omission leads to over (under) estimate cost (profit) efficiency. Risk-taking is also found to have different effects on efficiency of banks with different size and affiliation, and those involved in mergers and acquisitions. In particular, greater exposures to credit and market risk are found to be key profit efficiency drivers.Likewise, lower liquidity risk and capital risk lead to higher efficiency in both costs and profits. Large, foreign and merged banks benefit more when assuming credit risk, while small, domestic and non-merged banks institutions take advantage of assuming higher market riskJorge E. Galán acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, research project ECO2012-340

Collection of metallic exvotos of Nuestra Señora del Rocío

En este artículo se cataloga una serie de treinta y cuatro exvotos metálicos pertenecientes a la Hermandad Matriz de Ntra. Sra. del Rocío de Almonte, conservados en el Santuario mariano de la aldea, en la sede social de dicha corporación en la referida villa onubense y en la iglesia parroquial de la misma. Tales piezas, fruto de la devoción popular, fueron donadas a la Blanca Paloma a lo largo de los siglos XIX y XX. Los fieles, al obtener alguna gracia especial, ofrecían dichos objetos como testimonio de su personal gratitud.In this article we catalogue a series of thirty-four metallic exvotos belonging to the matrix brotherhood of Ntra. Sra. del Rocío of Almonte, which are kept at the head office of the corporation in the said town of Huelva. Such pieces, the result of popular devotion, were donated to the Blanca Paloma over the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries. The believers, to get some special grace, they offered such items as a testimony of their personal gratitude

The intentional relationship of representation between the constructs of a language and reality

Specifications of conceptualisations (ontologies) are often employed for represent- ing reality, both in knowledge representation and software engineering. While lan- guages o®er sophisticated constructs and rigorous semantics for building concep- tual entities, no attention is paid to the relationship between such entities and the world they intend to represent. This paper studies such a relationship and provides empirical evidences in favour of two main hypotheses: (1) conceptualisations are insuficient to fully represent the specifics of reality; (2) languages (both represen- tation and design-oriented) are general representations of (classes of) systems in the world, and they can be characterised as scientific theories. The first hypoth- esis establishes a problem for which we propose a solution based on the explicit elaboration of statements claiming the similarity (in some respects and to certain degrees of accuracy) between conceptual entities and real-world systems of interest. The second hypothesis constitutes a new perspective for understanding languages, whose advantages to representation and design are discussed in detail.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia HUM2007-66607-C04-0

Development of a Semi-automatic Cost-Effective Façade Cleaning System

Nowadays the number of buildings with large glass or flat façades is increasing all over the World. These façades must be periodically cleaned with manual procedures that supposed high cost and risk for the workers that have to develop their work under heavy conditions. Although the cleaning cost depends a lot on several factors as the façade characteristics, the cleaning periodicity or the total surface to be cleaned, the average cost is € 8-9 per square meter. A typical building of 12.000 m2 supposes a total façade cleaning cost of € 100.000 and this task is usually done every year. The use of an automatic or semi-automatic cleaning system can lead to around 60% savings over existing practice (Gambao & Hernando, 2006).Automation and robotics technologies allow environmentally friendly façade cleaning, helping to reduce the cost of these tasks. Additionally, these systems overcome the current worker safety problems associated with difficult and dangerous access, contributing to a zero injury and fatality working practices (Elkman et al., 2002).Because of the increasing number of high-rise buildings and large glass façades and the resulting problem of safe and effective cleaning, a lot of effort has taken place in the last few years to develop automated cleaning systems. The majority of systems conceived and developed thus far are in Japan and Europe (Schraft et al., 2000) (Gambao & Balaguer, 2002).The first automated cleaning systems for high-rise building were used in Japan in the middle of the 80’s. These systems were mainly designed for use on specific buildings. For safety purposes or in order to guide the robot’s movement on the façade, they often required additional construction such as guidance rails to the facade. The practical application of the existing systems mostly failed because of either a weak safety concept, poor cleaning quality, required additional construction to the façade, or simply due to expensive initial or operating costs. At this time, there is only one known system that is in continuous practical operation. That is the automatic system for the cleaning of the vaulted glass hall of the Leipzig Trade Fair, Germany (Figure 1), which was developed by the Fraunhofer Institute IFF, Germany (Elkman et al., 1999). It must also beaded that this system is only applicable to this particular building. Many of previous developed robotic façade cleaning has been designed to operate in a complete automatic way (one example is in figure 2). Although some of these systems have successfully solved the numerous technical problems related to façade climbing operations, in most of the cases they cannot be practically used due to the extremely expensive operating cost of such a complex machines. Many remain as prototypes that are very good demonstrators of high technology but cannot be introduced in the market

Some Problems of Current Modelling Languages that Obstruct to Obtain Models as Instruments

In this paper we reflect on the usefulness of current modelling languages. We defend that objects elaborated with such languages are instruments that pursue one or several typi ed purposes, which include: (1) to represent knowledge about some subject, whether real or imaginary; (2) to help in understanding and in answering questions about the properties of some subject; and (3) to stimulate the engineer's creativity in solving some problem. We reason that achieving this instrumental role in modelling languages is a necessary condition for a Model-Driven Software Engineering. However, studying several languages of common use in practice, we claim that there are at least four problem categories that obstruct that useful models as instruments can be elaborated with current modelling languages