International Transmission of Medium-Term Technology Cycles: Evidence from Spain as a Recipient Country

This paper documents stylized facts of international medium-term business cycles by exploring the pattern of comovement between a catching-up economy, Spain, and each of the obvious candidate countries to technological leadership of the 1950-2007 period, the U.S., France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. A remarkable feature of the international medium-term business cycle is the strong, positive lead displayed by the U.S. technology and terms of trade cycles over Spain's macroeconomic aggregates. The corresponding evidence when the counterpart to Spain is a large European economy is weaker, particularly in the case of Europe's medium-term technology cycles. Non-parametric tests results suggest that, over the medium-term cycle, a shift towards more economic integration may not necessarily be associated with increased international comovement.Medium-term business cycles; Stylized facts; International comovement; Technology diffusion.

THE COURNOT-BERTRAND PROFIT DIFFERENTIAL : A REVERSAL RESULT IN A DIFFERENTIATED DUOPOLY WITH WAGE BARGAINING

This paper compares Cournot and Bertrand equilibria in a downstream differentiated duopoly in which the input price (wage) paid by each downstream firm is the outcome of a strategic bargain with its upstream supplier (labour union). We show that the standard result that Cournot equilibrium profits exceed those under Bertrand competition - when the differentiated duopoly game is played in imperfect substitutes - is reversible. Whether equilibrium profits are higher under Cournot or Bertrand competition is shown to depend upon the nature of the upstream agents’ preferences, on the distribution of bargaining power over the input price and on the degree of product market differentiation. We find that the standard result holds unless unions are both powerful and place considerable weight on the wage argument in their utility function. One implication of this is that if the upstream agents are profit-maximising firms, then the standard result will obtain.differentiated duopoly ; wage bargaining ; Cournot ; Bertrand.

El esperado regreso de Perséfone, una nueva primavera ante el cambio climático

En i-3 se dedica un reportaje a la primavera. Se explica el mito de Perséfone, para introducir la entrevista realizada a la Directora del Departamento de Meteorología de TVE Mónica López. Formulándose una pregunta: ¿puede el cambio climático poner en peligro las estaciones y la vida tal como la conocemos

De las TICs a las TACs : la importancia de crear contenidos educativos digitales

El progreso tecnológico y el desarrollo de sistemas informáticos de las últimas décadas, unido a su impacto en nuestra vida cotidiana, ha provocado un replanteamiento de las metodologías de enseñanza-aprendizaje en las aulas, permitiendo la incorporación en las aulas de las TICs y las TACs y así, favoreciendo el modelo TPACK, que implica el uso de contenidos educativos digitales en las aulas, por lo que se hace indispensable el desarrollo de la competencia digital de los docentes, que a su vez fomentará el desarrollo de la competencia digital de los alumnos, garantizando una educación y un proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje adaptado a la sociedad del siglo XXI.Technological progress and the development of computer systems in recent decades, along with its impact on our daily lives has led to the emergence of the teaching-learning methodologies in the classroom, allowing the incorporation of ICT management and LTK in the classrooms, and thus favoring the TPACK model, which involves the use of digital educational content in the classrooms, so it is essential to the development of digital competence of teachers, which in turn promote the development of digital competence of students, thereby ensuring an education and teaching-learning process adapted to the XXI century

Extended linear-homothetic preferences and the Cournot-Bertrand profit differential

This paper introduces the ‘extended linear-homothetic’ preferences to model consumer choice. Specifically, we extend Datta and Dixon’s (2000) ‘standard linear-homothetic’ preferences by adding an additional term to the unit cost function. This term captures the relative importance of price interactions within sectors on the unit cost of utility. In an economy composed of a large number of sectors (K) with a sufficiently large number of firms (n) in each, the ‘extended linear-homothetic’ preferences yield (perceived) linear demands in own strategy and competitors’ strategies - where goods are characterized as substitutes. Thus, the linearity and homotheticity properties of the preferences open the possibility to develop a tractable model of oligopoly in general equilibrium. An additional novelty introduced by the ‘extended linear-homothetic’ preferences is the presence of a sectoral-specific price index in product demand. For n small, this implies that firms internalize the sectoral price effects of their individual pricing strategies. The latter, we argue, may provide us with a link between nonatomistic price and wage setters and the monetary authority

Macroeconomic Effects of Oligopolistic Competition with Wage Bargaining

Modelling oligopoly in general equilibrium is about understanding the aggregate effects of the strategic behavior that nonatomistic agents may exhibit in their markets. Real-world economies appear to be characterized by (monopoly) power-endowed agents behaving strategically - namely, firms and unions. By abstracting from this behavior, we risk missing some important features of the macroeconomy. We develop a general equilibrium model of unionized oligopoly aimed at addressing this point. We evaluate the macroeconomic effects of supply-side shocks under alternative product and labor market structures. In addition, the micro foundations of the model capture an alternative channel for the development of strategic interactions among firms, unions and the monetary authority. This channel creates a transmission mechanism for real effects of monetary policy-related shocks, which we investigate. Finally, in the light of the predictions of the model, we discuss macroecomic performance in Continental Europe over the 1990s

Relevamiento de la contaminación con mercurio en el canal cacique Guaymallén y evaluación del riesgo potencial en alimentos

En el año 2010 en la provincia de Mendoza, una industria que elaboraba cloro-álcali utilizando el método de la celda de cátodo de mercurio, ocasionó un importante incidente produciendo la liberación de mercurio metálico y la consecuente contaminación del suelo y el agua de un cauce. En este proceso electrolítico se generaban “lodos" ricos en mercurio metálico que se depositaban en diferentes recintos de la planta, estos lodos se acumulaban de forma deliberada cuya disposición final se realizaba a través del sistema cloacal. Luego de un tiempo el sistema cloacal colapsó y se desbordó volcando todo el residuo acumulado hacia el Canal Cacique Guaymallén. Por este hecho se vieron afectadas las industrias que hacían uso de este recurso y las plantas potabilizadoras de agua Benegas y Alto Godoy que tuvieron que cesar su funcionamiento hasta que se culminaran las tareas de saneamiento y los análisis dieran como resultado que no existía riesgo alguno de contaminación. Para conocer la situación actual de contaminación que reviste el Canal Cacique Guaymallén y el riesgo potencial que esto significa para la población y el medio ambiente se extrajeron muestras de agua y suelo de siete puntos de muestreo a lo largo del predio de la fábrica en tres años diferentes. Las muestras se procesaron siguiendo las especificaciones de normas adecuadas para este tipo de muestras, luego se determinó mercurio a través de la técnica de absorción atómica de vapor frío o generador de hidruros. Para lo cual se utilizó un espectrofotómetro de absorción atómica marca SHIMADZU modelo AA 7000 con acoplamiento de generador de hidruros marca SHIMADZU modelo HVG-1. Se obtuvieron en algunas muestras de agua y suelo valores de mercurio que superaron los límites permitidos de varias legislaciones. A pesar del paso del tiempo sigue existiendo contaminación con mercurio en la zona debido a que este metal es capaz de movilizarse, de formar compuestos orgánicos, de bioacumularse y biomagnificarse en el ambiente.Fil: López, Marcela Mónica. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias

Dietética: a essência da nutrição clínica

La nutrición, como una disciplina del campo clínico, depende altamente del desarrollo tecnológico y de los avances científicos para que pueda ejercerse de acuerdo con la evidencia, considerando la evolución de la terapia y manteniéndose en vanguardia

Services regulation, input prices and exports

Artículo de revistaThis article analyses the economic implications of a change in the regulatory framework designed to promote competition among firms, assessing the impact that barriers to competition in the services industry have on the cost of inputs and the exports of manufacturing firms in Spain. The estimates presented reveal that the reductions in barriers to competition over recent decades have had a significant impact on the real exports of manufacturing firms, especially larger ones, as a result of greater competition in the supply of their inputs. The results underline the fact that further improvements in the degree of competition may influence the competitiveness of the Spanish economy as a whol

Optimal cutoff points for classification in diagnostic studies: new contributions and software development

Continuous diagnostic tests (biomarkers or risk markers) are often used to discriminate between healthy and diseased populations. For the clinical application of such tests, the key aspect is how to select an appropriate cutpoint or discrimination value c that defines positive and negative test results. In general, individuals with a diagnostic test value smaller than c are classified as healthy and otherwise as diseased. In the literature, several methods have been proposed to select the threshold value c in terms of different specific criteria of optimality. Among others, one of the methods most used in clinical practice is the Symmetry point that maximizes simultaneously both types of correct classifications. From a graphical viewpoint, the Symmetry point is associated to the operating point on the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve that intersects the diagonal line passing through the points (0,1) and (1,0). However, this cutpoint is actually valid only when the error of misclassifying a diseased patient has the same severity than the error of misclassifying a healthy patient. Since this may not be the case in practice, an important issue in order to assess the clinical effectiveness of a biomarker is to take into account the costs associated with the decisions taken when selecting the threshold value. Moreover, to facilitate the task of selecting the optimal cut-off point in clinical practice, it is essential to have software that implements the existing optimal criteria in an user-friendly environment. Another interesting issue appears when the marker shows an irregular distribution, with a dominance of diseased subjects in noncontiguous regions. Using a single cutpoint, as common practice in traditional ROC analysis, would not be appropriate for these scenarios because it would lead to erroneous conclusions, not taking full advantage of the intrinsic classificatory capacity of the marke