The Impact of Infrastructure on Mexican Manufacturing Growth

This paper analyses the impact of infrastructure on the growth rate of the Mexican manufacturing sector. For such purpose, two measures of infrastructure are used: highways and electricity. Further, we also estimate the degree of returns to scale and the markup. We pooled two digit industries to obtain the estimates of the whole manufacturing sector. For the entire manufacturing sector, our results do not show evidence of increasing returns but the existence of market power cannot be rejected. We find that both types of public infrastructure have a significant effect on manufacturing growth and its inclusion reduces the estimated values of returns to scale and market power. Once we use sectoral data, we obtain mixed results: public infrastructure affects significantly only some sectors.

Students’ birth date and academic progression

Education laws which impose starting cut-off dates for students to begin compulsory education may be negative for those students who are born just before these cut-offs; this is because these students will be among the youngest in their classroom, while those born just after (the oldest students) will see their academic achievement increased. The current research works on this subject employing census and longitudinal data for the most populated region of Spain (Andalusia), making use of a regression discontinuity methodology. We find that the youngest students in the classroom (due to this school entry cut-off) present lower academic achievement compared to the oldest students, being this effect reduced while students progress in their education. This motivates policy interventions aimed at giving the option to parents to choose whether or not to delay their children’s access to school when the latter are too young.Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. The data used in this research has been provided by Agencia Andaluza de Evaluación Educativa, Consejería de Educación, Junta de Andalucía. This work has been partly supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad under Research Project ECO2017-88883-R; by the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprises (PAI group SEJ-532) and the postdoctoral contract from the Plan Propio signed by the Universidad de Málaga

More class time, better achievement?

Spanish press has widely criticized the fact that students spend almost their whole day at school, a practice rooted in the common belief that higher instruction time enhances students’ learning. However, in spite of this high amount of instruction time that Spanish students are receiving, their results do not seem to outstand in comparison with other countries with similar or lower instruction time. In this context, this research intends to accomplish two main objectives: the first one is to check if the amount of instruction time received by 15 year-old Spanish students actually affects their academic achievement. The second one intends to analyse if this potential influence of instruction time may be affecting Spanish Autonomous Communities in different ways, as each one is responsible for setting instruction time in its own region. In order to accomplish these objectives, the methodology employed let us isolate the effect of instruction time from other covariates by using students’ fixed effects by subject, using PISA 2009 and 2012 data. Results have shown that there is not any effect of instruction time on academic achievement, being this conclusion extended to every Autonomous Community in Spain. Further checks have corroborated the robustness of these results and have also highlighted that the effect of instruction time is a question of quality more than quantity, as students’ engagement and the classroom climate during lessons may be causing differences in academic achievement, rather than the amount of instruction time per se.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

The teaching crisis in less developed countries

There is a huge concern on the influence of teachers on students’ cognitive learning. However, little is known about the causal impact of teachers’ knowledge on students’ performance. In addition, this effect is likely to change depending on the group of countries and regions under analysis. In the current research, we propose to study this subject for sixth grade teachers and, concretely, for less developed regions. To achieve this aim, we have employed the heterogeneity within-student between-subjects of teachers’ subject knowledge on students’ academic achievement. We have found that, for the countries under analysis, teachers’ subject knowledge does not have a significant influence on students’ academic achievement; many robustness checks have supported this result. This could be indicating that, in these countries, teachers do not have enough knowledge to teach students, what brings some policy implications.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Are early writers and readers more successful than their counterparts?

There exists an increasing number of scientific contributions focused on the influence of the attendance to early childhood and/or preprimary education on the future academic track of the students, which employ the quarter of birth of the student as a proxy for infants’ maturity. The present work goes a step further by employing information on the precise time when children begin to exhibit the basic competences (reading and writing), controlling by the effect of the quarter of birth, for andalusian students aged 10-11 and 14-15. This study uses descriptive analysis as starting point to specify multivariate estimates for the age at which the student began to read and write, together with students’ quarter of birth. Moreover, the effect of these variables on the likelihood of repeating a course has also been analyzed. Results show that the quarter of birth and the age when the student began to read and write affect students’ early academic achievement –primary education– and the likelihood of repeating, but this effect is weakened once non-repeaters reach age 14-15. In addition, students from households where parents have a low level of education present a late start in beginning to read and write and, thus, lower achievement than their older counterparts. This highlights the need to increase the investments in public early education for students living in this kind of families –by increasing the supply of public early education places and scholarships–, so they can develop these competences as soon as possible. This kind of interventions could have a relevant role in fostering higher social mobility.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech; Andalusian Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Employment [PAI group SEJ-532 and Excellence Project SEJ-2727]; the Research Plan of the University of Malaga (Capacity Building Programme I+D+i of Universities 2014-2015) and by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain [Research Project ECO2014-56397-P]

Testing the impact on educational achievement of expectations

Parental and students’ expectations on the educational achievement of the latter have been highlighted in the literature as proper proxies for students’ forthcoming performance and high school track elections. In this research we intend to measure the effect of these expectations on students’ performance accounting for the existence of endogeneity, due to the reciprocal relationship between the expectations of parents and students and their correlation with unobservable variables conditioning students’ achievement. A rich dataset containing information on Andalusian parental and students’ socio-economic characteristics, expectations, parental involvement interactions and academic performance variables is used to conduct the empirical analyses. Our results show that the agreement of parental and students’ expectations presents a positive influence on students’ achievement and the likelihood of selecting a high school track. In addition, parental expectations have been found to be dependent on family socio-economic background, what supports the argument of the persistence in Andalusia of strong barriers to socioeconomic mobility. In the view of these results, we suggest policy interventions as, e.g., fostering the participation of both parents and students on university and professional orientation in early moments of secondary education, so they could have complete and symmetric information to set their expectations on realistic basis.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Is a bad will a weak will? Cognitive dispositions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will

In line with recent efforts to empirically study the folk concept of weakness of will, we examine two issues in this paper: (1) How is weakness of will attribution [WWA] influenced by an agent’s violations of best judgment and/or resolution, and by the moral valence of the agent’s action? (2) Do any of these influences depend on the cognitive dispositions of the judging individual? We implemented a factorial 2x2x2 between–subjects design with judgment violation, resolution violation, and action valence as independent variables, and measured participants’ cognitive dispositions using Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test [CRT]. We conclude that intuitive and reflective individuals have two different concepts of weakness of will. The study supports this claim by showing that: a) the WWA of intuitive subjects is influenced by the action’s (and probably also the commitment’s) moral valence, while the WWA of reflective subjects is not; b) judgment violation plays a small role in the WWA of intuitive subjects, while reflective subjects treat resolution violation as the only relevant trait. Data were collected among students at two different universities. All subjects (N=710) answered the CRT. A three-way ANOVA was first conducted on the whole sample and then on the intuitive and reflective groups separately. This study suggests that differences in cognitive dispositions can significantly impact the folk understanding of philosophical concepts, and thus suggests that analysis of folk concepts should take cognitive dispositions into account

La influencia de la educación viva en el desarrollo sostenible: aplicación en la educación básica mexicana

Hacer propuestas de mejora en la educación básica mexicana para orientarla hacia el desarrollo sostenible

Wind gust forecast, in support of wind energy

Recently, a number of countries have taken new initiatives with regard to energy technology applications related to the installation of wind turbines, which convert the kinetic energy of the wind into electric power to supply electricity systems. Uruguay, in particular, is one of the countries at the forefront of new energy technology applications; currently, the country's relative wind power participation rate is one of the highest in the world. This reality implies the need for a better understanding of the physical phenomena related to wind in the atmospheric planetary boundary layer (PBL). Given the need to quantify wind resources for the development wind farms, the number of towers collecting new observational data in Uruguay has increased. These towers are typically located 100 meters above ground level (AGL). The present work was possible due the assistance provided by the National Electric Company of Uruguay (UTE), which provided access to wind data. The aim of this work was to develop a wind gust parametrization model at wind turbine height, based on numerical simulation of a mesoscale model. This thesis contains results of numerical simulations run on the Cluster FING-UdelaR, Unipampa, and SENAI CIMATEC cluster Yemoja. Wind gusts are relevant to di erent wind engineering applications. Therefore, development of an operational wind forecast model could help manage electrical systems with relatively high levels of wind power participation, such as those in Uruguay, which has a wind power participation of 35 %. It was observed that both gust magnitude and factors (the ratio of gusts to mean wind speed) increased as the atmosphere became less stable, and the results indicated an asymptotic gust factor value of 1.33. A characteristic observed bulk Richardson number Ri was identi ed for gusty cases -0.2 < Ri < 0 in the rst 100 meters AGL. All PBL schemes run in the mesoscale Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model under-predict the shear in the rst 100 m for gusty cases when observed gust g > 15m=s. The forecast Ri is over-predict for all PBL schemes. For all PBL schemes, the established, theory-based gust parameterizations based on mean velocity and friction velocity data from the ECMWF model provided reasonable forecasts of the gusts at hub wind turbine height (100 m) with increasing skill as the grid resolution was increased. We propose a gust parameterization (GP) that includes a discrimination of stability computing OT/Oz, and discrimination of gusty cases based on Ri, computing the velocity at the top of the PBL VMAX as an input in the parameterization. The GP shows better performance in the gross domain (12 km). Increased mean and gust values were forecast with increasing horizontal grid resolution, and it was observed that skill at forecasting gusty cases increased with increasing grid resolution. Analysis of time intervals for forecast alarms for gusty cases showed an increase in true alarms and a decrease in false alarms when the time interval increased. The proposed GP can be useful in an operational model because of better skill in gross domain, wich means, could be implemented with lower computational cost. This work did not evaluate the forecast horizon, and can be considered as providing better con guration relative to other models. If an operational model is to be implemented, further analysis of the time horizon and impact on skill while working with ensembles need to be computed.Recientemente un número significativo de países han tomado la iniciativa de avanzar en el uso de la energía eólica, dicha tecnología convierte la energía cinética contenida en el viento en energía eléctrica suministrada a los sistemas eléctricos. Uruguay es uno de los países destacados estando en los primeros lugares en el mundo en lo que se refiere a la participación relativa de la energía eólica en el sistema. Esta realidad implica la necesidad de avanzar en el entendimiento de los fenómenos físicos relacionados con el viento en la Capa Limite Atmosférica (CLA). Dada la necesidad de cuantificar el recurso eólico y el desarrollo de parques eólicos, se han incrementado el numero de torres de medición instaladas en Uruguay. Estas torres registran mediadas típicamente a los 100 metros de altura sobre el nivel del suelo. Este trabajo fue posible dado el apoyo y la disponibilidad de datos brindados por parte de UTE. La motivación del presente trabajo es desarrollar un modelo de ráfagas a alturas del eje de los aerogeneradores, para su aplicación en la simulación numérica en modelos de circulación atmosférica de mesoescala. Este trabajo contiene simulaciones numéricas realizadas en Cluster FING-UdelaR, Unipampa, and SENAI CIMATEC cluster Yemoja. Las ráfagas son relevantes para diferentes aplicaciones de la ingeniería. El desarrollo de un modelo operacional de pronóstico de variables asociadas al viento, resulta de ayuda para la gestión del sistemas eléctricos con altos niveles de participación de energía eólica como lo es el sistema uruguayo con una participación relativa de 35%. Del análisis realizado se observa que tanto las ráfagas como el factor de ráfagas (definido como el cociente entre la ráfaga y la velocidad media) se incrementan en la medida que la atmosférica se vuelve menos estable, los resultados muestran un valor asintótico del factor de ráfaga igual a 1.33. Se identificó un número característico de Richardson Ri en los primeros 100 m sobre el nivel del suelo, para los casos de eventos de ráfagas significativas -0.2 < Ri < 0. Todos los esquemas numéricos de CLA simulados en el modelo de mesoescala Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) subestiman el cortante en los primeros 100 metros de altura para condiciones de eventos de ráfaga g > 15m=s. Es sobrestimado el Ri para todos los esquemas numéricos simulados. Para todos los esquemas de CLA simulados, el modelo clásico basado en la velocidad media y la velocidad de fricción ECMWF, muestra capacidad de pronosticar ráfagas a las alturas típicas de los ejes de los aerogeneradores (100 m) con mejores resultados a medida que se aumenta la resolución de la grilla. Proponemos una parametrización de ráfagas (Gust Parametrization GP) discriminando la estabilidad a partir del gradiente vertical de temperatura OT/Oz, una discriminación de eventos de ráfagas significativas por el numero de Ri, calculando la velocidad en el tope de la CLA (VMAX) como variable de entrada en la parametrización. El GP muestra mejor desempeño en el dominio de menor resolución (12 km). Se observa un incremento de la velocidad media y las ráfagas pronosticadas, a medida que se incrementa la resolución horizontal del modelo, se observan mejores resultados en el pronostico de las rafagas a medida que aumenta la resolución del modelo. Analizando los intervalos de tiempo para el desarrollo de un sistema de alarmas, se observa un incremento de aciertos y un decenso en las falsas alarmas a medida que aumenta el intervalo de tiempo considerado. El modelo GP propuesto puede ser de utilidad en modelos operacionales dado su mejor desempeño en el dominio de menor resolución de grilla horizontal, lo que implica que puede ser implementado con menores costos computacionales. En este trabajo no se evaluó el horizonte de pronostico, el mismo puede ser considerado como una evaluación de modelos en términos de identificar las configuraciones más adecuadas. En el caso de la implementación de un modelo operacional, se debe analizar el impacto del horizonte de pronostico en el desempeño, así como el impacto del uso de corridas de conjuntos