Corruption and Productivity Growth in OECD Countries

The study of corruption is attracting lot of attention in recent years. Focusing on the economic consequences of corruption, the empirical evidence points to a positive relation between institutional integrity, or absence of corruption, and economic growth. Although most developed countries tend to have lower corruption than less developed ones, there exists significant variation within OECD countries. As an example, it may be observed that the gap in perceived corruption between the Nordic countries and southern Europe is larger than the gap between southern Europe and the average of the emerging economies. In this context, the objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of corruption on economic performance in a sample of OECD countries during the period 1980-2000. Specifically, we study the effect of corruption on productivity and efficiency change, trying to determine whether productivity growth is greater in countries with lower corruption. To this end, different productivity measures are compared by considering both output per worker and Total Factor Productivity (TFP). Furthermore, TFP change is decomposed into efficiency change and technological progress by means of Malmquist productivity indices. On the basis of this of this decomposition we will analyze whether corruption affect TFP growth via efficiency gains or technological change, thus gaining insight into the channels through which corruption influence economic growth.

Competition in the allocation of public spending: a new model to analyse the interaction between expenditure categories

Starting from the median voter model commonly used in the literature to analyse the determinants of the functional distribution of public spending, we propose a new multiproduct dynamic model that also allows one to classify the nature of the interaction –complementarity or substitutability– between the different categories of government expenditure. As empirical application, we examine the pattern of public spending in Spain from 1990 to 1997. The results show that the basic determinants of the different items of expenditure are per capita income, population, the size of the public sector, and the presence of budget deficits, and that there are significant interdependencies between some components of the public expenditure.

Doing Philosophy. An Inquiry into the Academic Lives of Philosophers

This research deals with a question that has not been convincingly answered in sociological studies: what do philosophers do? Sociologists have traditionally been interested in philosophy mainly as a means of justifying their own disciplinary knowledge rather than as a proper object of sociological inquiry. On the one hand, early sociologists claim that their domain is different from that of philosophers as it is a scientific discipline; on the other hand, new approaches amongst sociologists consider philosophy as an intellectual ally or foundation for the discipline. Except for a few authors such as Collins, Fuller and Geisler, only a handful of scholars have studied philosophy as a professional culture and discipline deploying sociological theory and concepts. In this document, I propose to begin to fill this gap through an exploratory sociological study of the practice and effects of mainstream professional philosophy in the UK. Therefore, my study addresses the formation, boundary-work, pedagogical effect, disciplinary tensions and neoliberal negotiations of professional contemporary philosophy in the UK. In this sense, this work tries to understand the complex social interactions amongst tradition, embodied subjectivities, organisations, knowledge pretensions, conflicts, policies and the heterogeneous materials that are mobilised by practitioners of philosophy to shape philosophy in its current institutionalised forms. Combining theoretical insights with an ethnographic approximation to this field, with in-depth interviews, historical research, reading of institutional documents and numerical data, I attempt to develop a realistic social description of philosophy as practised in the UK. As a result, I characterise the socio-educational situation of analytic philosophy as a culture, in consideration of the dreams and terrors of its practitioners and the enaction of social forces and socio-technical apparatuses

Solar neutrino detection

More than 40 years ago, neutrinos where conceived as a way to test the validity of the solar models which tell us that stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions. The first measurement of the neutrino flux, in 1968 in the Homestake mine in South Dakota, detected only one third of the expected value, originating what has been known as the Solar Neutrino Problem. Different experiments were built in order to understand the origin of this discrepancy. Now we know that neutrinos undergo oscillation phenomenon changing their nature traveling from the core of the Sun to our detectors. In the work the 40 year long saga of the neutrino detection is presented; from the first proposals to test the solar models to last real time measurements of the low energy part of the neutrino spectrum.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. III School on Cosmic Rays and Astrophysics August 25 to September 5, 2008 Arequipa (Peru) AIP conference proceedin

Corrupción y actividad económica: una visión panorámica

Junto a los desarrollos teóricos que tratan de comprender las causas de la corrupción, por qué ésta tiende a presentar un alto grado de persistencia, o cuáles son los efectos sociales, políticos o macroeconómicos de la corrupción, en la última década ha aparecido una gran cantidad de trabajos empíricos que estudian la relación entre la corrupción y distintas variables económicas. El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una revisión sintética de esta literatura, discutiendo los principales planteamientos teóricos y los resultados empíricos obtenidos en relación tanto con los factores determinantes de la corrupción como con las consecuencias económicas que se derivan de la misma. Palabras clave: Corrupción, gobierno, actuación pública. Clasificación JEL: D73, E62, H11.

Dual antibacterial effect of immobilized quaternary ammonium and aliphatic groups on PVC

A coating comprising quaternary ammonium salts (QAS) and aliphatic moieties was formed on the poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) surface in order to confer antibacterial activity. This was achieved by grafting mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane onto PVC, followed by aminopropyltriethoxysilane. Betaine and dodecenyl succinic anhydride (DDSA) were bonded to free amine groups. The modified PVC samples were characterized by FT-IR, showing that the PVC surface was successfully coated. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy showed the spatial distributions of the elements Si and S, indicating that the coatings were homogeneous. Betaine and DDSA coated PVC showed a better antibacterial performance than the controls. This antibacterial effect was extremely reinforced in betaine-DDSA modified PVC showing greater antibacterial activity than both treatments separately applied. Antibacterial activity against Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and Bacillus subtilis was studied in the treated samples showing that the coating was effective against Gram positive and Gram negative species.Fil: Villanueva, María Emilia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco; ArgentinaFil: Salinas, Ana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco; ArgentinaFil: González, Joaquín Antonio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco; ArgentinaFil: Teves, Sergio. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica; ArgentinaFil: Copello, Guillermo Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Farmacia y Bioquímica. Instituto de Química y Metabolismo del Fármaco; Argentin

School choice and the influence of immigration on spanish educational achievements in the 2006 Pisa

El objetivo de este artículo es analizar los efectos que la inmigración tiene en los resultados académicos de los estudiantes en España; así, se pretende indagar si la concentración de inmigrantes en determinados centros supone una caída en el rendimiento académico tanto de los alumnos españoles como de los propios inmigrantes. También se estudiará si los inmigrantes disponen de las mismas oportunidades que los alumnos nativos tanto en la selección escolar (centro público o centro concertado), como en los resultados académicos que alcanzan en comparación con los nativos. Para analizar estos aspectos se utiliza el modelo de Heckman (1979). El objetivo de esta metodología es controlar si la elección entre escuela pública o concertada es una decisión endógena que depende de determinadas variables socioeconómicas, lo cual evita los sesgos derivados de las diferentes características de los alumnos de unos y otros centros debida a dicha selección en la estimación de la función de producción educativa. Para realizar este estudio se utilizarán los datos de España del Informe pisa 2006. Los resultados muestran que la probabilidad de asistir a una escuela concertada disminuye significativamente con el nivel de ingresos familiar y con el hecho de ser inmigrante. Además, los inmigrantes escolarizados en centros públicos presentan resultados que son significativamente más bajos en las tres pruebas objetivas. Bajas concentraciones de inmigrantes en la escuela concertada conllevan efectos positivos en los resultados de los alumnos inmigrantes; sin embargo, estos desaparecen y se vuelven negativos cuando su concentración aumenta. La concentración de inmigrantes tiene un efecto significativamente negativo en los alumnos nativos, efecto que es mayor en la escuela pública que en la concertada. Es necesario hacer más investigaciones para lograr una asignación óptima de alumnos por escuela que no dañe ni la libertad de elección escolar ni la igualdad de oportunidades educativasThe aim of this paper is to examine the effects of school choice and the influence of immigration on Spanish educational achievement. Therefore, the authors seek to ascertain whether the concentration of immigrants in certain schools implies a decrease in educational achievement for Spanish students as well as for immigrant students. There is also some question about whether immigrants and native students are treated with equality of educational opportunities in both school choice (i.e., choosing between public schools and publicly financed private schools) and educational scores. The Heckman (1979) model is employed. The object of this methodology is to control whether or not the choice between public and publicly funded private schools is an endogenous decision depending on a number of socioeconomic variables. Heckman’s model makes it possible to avoid a biased estimation of the educational production function stemming from the different characteristics of students of both school types, primarily originated by school choice. Spanish data from the 2006 pisa report are used. The results show that the probability of attending a publicly financed private school decreases with family income and immigrant status. Moreover, immigrant students attending public schools display significantly lower scores on all three tests administered in the 2006 pisa. Low immigrant concentration in publicly financed private schools is found to make for positive effects on immigrant students’ scores; these effects disappear when the immigrant student percentage increases. The concentration of immigrants has a significantly negative effect on native students, and the negative effect is greater in public schools than in publicly funded private schools. More research is needed in order to find an optimal allocation of students in schools, so as to uphold both a freedom to choose one’s school and equality of educational opportunitiesLos autores agradecen los valiosos comentarios de dos evaluadores anónimos y la financiación recibida de la Fundación Alternativas y del Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Proyecto eco 2009-13864-C03-02

Los efectos del desajuste educativo sobre el bienestar subjetivo

This paper analyzes the effects of educational mismatch on subjective wellbeing. We study whether a discrepancy exists between the aspirations associated with the level of education acquired by the individuals and the opportunities found in the labor market and, consequently, whether educational mismatch affects their overall levels of subjective wellbeing. Consistent with education generating certain aspirations, we find that educational mismatch has a sizable significant negative impact on life satisfaction for over-educated individuals while the effect is positive for under-educated individuals. We also study whether individuals showing educational mismatch are less satisfied than other workers being adequately educated, within a similar job, since this dissatisfaction could translate into lower performance and productivity. In this case we only find under-education to negatively affect life satisfaction levels

Modeling and sizing of large PV-diesel hybrid systems without energy storage

This paper describes the modelling of components and control strategies for PV-diesel hybrid systems without energy storage, which have been implemented in an online and free-software simulator of PV systems called SISIFO, which is publicly available at www.sisifo.info. Among other features, this software tool allows the prediction of fuel savings for different sizes and types of PV generators, the comparison of selected control strategies and the evaluation of the spinning reserve requirements in systems with multiple diesel generators operating in parallel