Accounting for the U.S. Earnings and Wealth Inequality

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Earnings and Wealth Inequality and Income Taxation: Quantifying the Trade-Offs of Switching to a Proportional Income Tax in the U.S. Ohio

This papaer quantifies the steady-state aggregate, distributinal and mobility effects of switching the U.S. to a proportional income tax system. As a perriquisite to the analysi, we propose a theory of earnings and wealth inequality capable of accounting quantitatively for the key aggregate and inequality facts of the U. S. economy. This theory is based on saving to smooth uninsured household-specific risk, for dynastic households that also have some life-cycle characteristics. A suitable calibration of our model economy replicates the U.S. growth facts, earnings and wealth distributions, the progressivity of the tax system and the size of the U.S. government. We also solve a similar model economy in which the government livies a proportional income tax to finance the same flow of government expenditures and public transfers. Our finding show that in this class of model worlds a switch from the U.S. tax system to a proporcional tax system implies the following trade-offs, i.) it increases efficiency as measured by aggregate output by 4,4%, ii. ) it increases inequality as measured by the Gini index of the wealth distribution by 10.4%, and iv.) it changes by little the mobility between the different earnings and wealth groups

Unemployment spells and income distribution dynamics

In the U.S., during the 1948-86 period, an approximation to the Gini Index based on the quintiles and on the top 5% of the income distribution yielded a value of 0.351. Further, during this same period, the income share earned by the first quintile was procyclical and 7% more volatile than aggregate yearly output. In this paper we quantify the role played by unemployment spells in determining these and other related issues. To this purpose, we use an extension of the general equilibrium stochastic growth model that includes an endogenous distribution of households indexed by wealth and employment status. Our main findings are the following: i) in a model economy where all households have the same endowments of skills and are subject to the same employment processes, uninsured unemployment spells alone account for a very small share of the concentration of income observed in the U.S., and of the income distribution dynamics -the approximated Gini Index in this model economy is 18% of the one observed in the U.S., and the income share earned by the first quintile is 58% more volatile, ii) this result is robust to including a technology that allows for cyclically moving factor shares, and iii) in a model economy where households are partitioned into different skills groups that are subject to different employment processes in accordance to U.S. data, unemployment spells account for a significantly greater share of the U.S. statistics -the approximated Gini Index in this model economy is 70% of the one observed in the U.S., and the income share earned by the first quintile is 10% more volatile

El derecho disciplinario como regulador de la conducta del servidor público

Lo que se pretende con este articulo es advertir como el Derecho disciplinario ha nacido a la vida jurídica como una instancia de regulación de las conductas de los sujetos que prestan sus servicios al estado, como una ciencia independiente y especialísima, ya que únicamente se remite a observar y vigilar la conductas de este grupo y se aleja de las pautas establecidas para la convivencia y reglamentación de los ciudadanos en general, por cuanto, esto es materia del derecho penal.The intention with this article is to warn the disciplinary law born into legal existence as a body regulating the conduct of individuals who provide services to the state, as a separate and very special science as it only refers to observe and monitor the behavior of this group and away from established guidelines for coexistence and regulation of the general public, because this is a matter of criminal law

Building Personal Learning Environments by using and mixing ICT tools in a professional way

This paper reports on a teaching experience of the introduction of ICT to higher education students in a complementary professional approach and a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) development approach, as well as a naturalistic study based on this experience. The central focus of this methodology was the use of hands-on sessions to introduce students to somespecific ICT tools, and exploring the building process of an awareness abouttheir Personal Learning environments.In terms of learning, we confirmed that students very much appreciate new ways of developing their tasks and their course work. Even when the great majority of students associates learning with acquiring only information and some of them associate learning with memorizing.In terms of Technology, after this experience we can conclude that students,when arriving at university, have no experience –even knowledge- in the useof ICT tools. In addition, students from the first year of the degree don’t thinkthey use Web 2.0 (awareness), and even more, they don’t believe that theycan use ICT tools for learning, even if they actually do. They value, usefultools which help them to plan their tasks, save time, simplify complicatedtasks and, definitively, have fun; but also they specially value the ICT toolsthey discovered, seeing opportunities for Independency, collaboration, self importance in the learning process.The vast majority of students have a basic perception of their PLE. Few ofthem don’t relate tools with themselves but with their tasks, and only some ofthem go one step further by establishing more complex relationships betweentools, contents, tasks and themselves enriching each other.This paper reports on a teaching experience of the introduction of ICT to higher education students in a complementary professional approach and a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) development approach, as well as a naturalistic study based on this experience. The central focus of this methodology was the use of hands-on sessions to introduce students to somespecific ICT tools, and exploring the building process of an awareness abouttheir Personal Learning environments.In terms of learning, we confirmed that students very much appreciate newways of developing their tasks and their course work. Even when the greatmajority of students associates learning with acquiring only information andsome of them associate learning with memorizing.In terms of Technology, after this experience we can conclude that students,when arriving at university, have no experience -even knowledge- in the useof ICT tools. In addition, students from the first year of the degree don't thinkthey use Web 2.0 (awareness), and even more, they don't believe that theycan use ICT tools for learning, even if they actually do. They value, usefultools which help them to plan their tasks, save time, simplify complicatedtasks and, definitively, have fun; but also they specially value the ICT toolsthey discovered, seeing opportunities for Independency, collaboration, self importance in the learning process.The vast majority of students have a basic perception of their PLE. Few ofthem don't relate tools with themselves but with their tasks, and only some ofthem go one step further by establishing more complex relationships betweentools, contents, tasks and themselves enriching each other

Haciendo eficientes las vacunas contra el VPH: análisis de costo-efectividad y el ensamblaje económico de la atención médica en Colombia

Cost-eff ectiveness analysis is a strategy of calculation whose main objective is to compare for making decisions about the best, the most effi cient solution (costs vs benefi ts) to a particular problem. Cost-eff ectiveness analysis not only provides a framework to compare healthcare interventions which in practice seem incommensurable; it also performs a set of assumptions regarding the nature of healthcare and individuals’ behaviour. This article analyses the role of cost-eff ectiveness analysis as a device to produce value in the introduction of human papillomavirus vaccines to Colombia. In diff erent institutional pathways and decision-making scenarios cost-eff ectiveness has been the key issue that justifi ed the inclusions and exclusions that such technology entails. Cost-eff ectiveness justifi ed the defi nition of girls as the population target and the exclusion of boys from the risks and benefi ts of this technology. Cost-eff ectiveness analysis has been a key instrument in the sexualising and desexualising of cervical cancer and human papillomavirus vaccines through the rationalisation of economic benefi ts

Primordial Magnetic Fields and the CMB

The origin of large-scale magnetic fields is one of the most puzzling topics in cosmology and astrophysics. It is assumed that the observed magnetic fields result from the amplification of an initial field produced in the early Universe. If these fields really were present before the recombination era, these could have some effects on big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and electroweak baryogenesis process, and it would leave imprints in the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this chapter, we analyze the effects of a background primordial magnetic field (PMF) on the CMB anisotropies and how we can have sight the mechanisms of generation of these fields through these features. We start explaining briefly why primordial magnetic fields are interesting to cosmology, and we discuss some theoretical models that generate primordial magnetic fields. Finally, we will show the statistics used for describing those fields, and by using CLASS and Monte Python codes, we will observe the main features that these fields leave on the CMB anisotropies

Building Personal Learning Environments by using and mixing ICT tools in a professional way

This paper reports on a teaching experience of the introduction of ICT to higher education students in a complementary professional approach and a Personal Learning Environment (PLE) development approach, as well as a naturalistic study based on this experience. The central focus of this methodology was the use of hands-on sessions to introduce students to some specific ICT tools, and exploring the building process of an awareness about their Personal Learning environments. In terms of learning, we confirmed that students very much appreciate new ways of developing their tasks and their course work. Even when the great majority of students associates learning with acquiring only information and some of them associate learning with memorizing. In terms of Technology, after this experience we can conclude that students, when arriving at university, have no experience –even knowledge- in the use of ICT tools. In addition, students from the first year of the degree don’t think they use Web 2.0 (awareness), and even more, they don’t believe that they can use ICT tools for learning, even if they actually do. They value, useful tools which help them to plan their tasks, save time, simplify complicated tasks and, definitively, have fun; but also they specially value the ICT tools they discovered, seeing opportunities for Independency, collaboration, selfimportance in the learning process. The vast majority of students have a basic perception of their PLE. Few of them don’t relate tools with themselves but with their tasks, and only some of them go one step further by establishing more complex relationships between tools, contents, tasks and themselves enriching each other

What are the consequences of ignoring cross-loadings in bifactor models? A simulation study assessing parameter recovery and sensitivity of goodness-of-fit indices.

Bifactor latent models have gained popularity and are widely used to model construct multidimensionality. When adopting a confirmatory approach, a common practice is to assume that all cross-loadings take zero values. This article presents the results of a simulation study exploring the impact of ignoring non-zero cross-loadings on the performance of confirmatory bifactor analysis. The present work contributes to previous research by including study conditions that had not been examined before. For instance, a wider range of values of the factor loadings both for the group factors and the cross-loadings is considered. Parameter recovery is analyzed, but the focus of the study is on assessing the sensitivity of goodness-of-fit indices to detect the model misspecification that involves ignoring non-zero crossloadings. Several commonly used SEM fit indices are examined: both biased estimators of the fit index (CFI, GFI, and SRMR) and unbiased estimators (RMSEA and SRMR). Results indicated that parameter recovery worsens when ignoring moderate and large cross-loading values and using small sample sizes, and that commonly used SEM fit indices are not useful to detect such model misspecifications. We recommend the use of the unbiased SRMR index with a cutoff value adjusted by the communality level (R2), as it is the only fit index sensitive to the model misspecification due to ignoring non-zero cross-loadings in the bifactor model. The results of the present study provide insights into modeling cross-loadings in confirmatory bifactor models but also practical recommendations to researchers.post-print3309 K