Productivity, wages, and the returns to firm-provided training: fair shared capitalism?

In this study, we develop an alternative modelling that examines a) the determinants of firm productivity and wages and b) the internal rate of return (IRR) to firm training for both firms and workers. Using a six-year linked employer-employee dataset, our estimates indicate that an additional hour of training per worker results in an increase of 0.12% in productivity and 0.04% in wages, or an increase of 0.16% and 0.08%, respectively, if one uses firm training as a stock variable. We then find that 82% of the gains in productivity are captured by firms and 18% by workers. Given the training costs, we finally obtain an IRR of 13% for firms and 33% for workers at sample means. Firms are heterogeneous, and we do find that dispersion in the rates of return across firms is high.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

O papel mediador da satisfação no trabalho na relação entre a liderança autêntica e a intenção de saída de colaboradores da indústria farmacêutica

O presente estudo propõe analisar o efeito mediador da satisfação laboral, na relação entre a liderança autêntica e a intenção de saída de colaboradores da indústria farmacêutica, em Portugal. Para testar o modelo de Investigação, aplicou-se um questionário a 310 participantes, a desempenharem funções na Indústria Farmacêutica. Os resultados sugerem que a liderança autêntica está fortemente e positivamente correlacionada com a satisfação laboral, e negativamente correlacionada com a intenção de saída. A satisfação laboral revelou um efeito de mediação total na relação entre a perceção de liderança autêntica do supervisor e a intenção de saída dos colaboradore

Regional Heterogeneity in the Individual Unemployment Vulnerability After COVID-19 Outset

Acknowledgments: The authors gratefully acknowledge the Institute of Employment and Professional Training and Professor Pedro Martins for the authorization to use their databases, which were essential for the investigation. This paper is financed by National Funds of the FCT– Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology within the project «UIDB/04928/2020». Funding: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the UIDB/04928/2020 - FCT– Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.The COVID-19 crisis increased unemployment all over the World, with significant regional heterogeneity. This paper intends to analyze this territorial heterogeneity for the Portuguese case and investigate which regional factors complement personal and job characteristics in explaining individual vulnerability to COVID-19 unemployment. By considering personal, job and regional dimensions, we extended the literature and provided a more comprehensive understanding of this new phenomenon in the immediate and medium-term. Furthermore, this knowledge is essential to support policy suggestions for quick and effective action in preventing job losses in the current and future crises. Detailed information on all individuals that lost their jobs in Portugal 1 year after (and before) the COVID-19 outset was used to estimate three logit models that compare the odds of losing a job after and during the pandemic. Significant territorial heterogeneity of the COVID-19 impact on unemployment is obtained. Along with personal and job characteristics, we conclude that regional characteristics are essential for explaining individual vulnerabilities. In particular, workers are more prompted to lose their jobs if they live in regions with higher population densities, lower pre-crisis unemployment, and more dependable international flow. Conversely, individual and regional human capital investment contributes to protecting employment, revealing the existence of external effects.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Inativação combinada de Escherichia coli por fagos e antibióticos

Escherichia coli, a non-pathogenic commensal bacterium, can, however, developed more virulent variants that colonize outside the gastrointestinal system. This bacterium is one of the main responsible for moderate and serious infections in the hospital and community environments, being involved in the rapid evolution of fluoroquinolones and third generation cephalosporin resistance. It is estimated that in the coming years the number of deaths caused by resistant bacteria, including even commensal strains, will be very high, leading to an increased need to find alternatives to fight against pathogenic bacteria. An alternative or supplementary approach to antibiotics is phage therapy, which uses lytic bacteriophages (phages) that are able to infect only prokaryotes cells. Several studies have already shown encouraging effects when using phage therapy, however, phage-resistant mutants have been considered a major concern when this method is employed to inactivate pathogenic bacteria. Resistance can be overcome with the combination of phages and antibiotics, which prevents the re-growth of resistant bacteria and reduce more efficiently bacterial density than when used separately. In this study, the effect of combined treatments of phages and antibiotics in the inactivation of E. coli was evaluated. For that, it was used the phage Ec-Bio and the bioluminescent-transformed strain of E. coli. It was tested the antibiotic ciprofloxacin at lethal and sublethal concentrations added at different times (0, 6, 12 and 18 h) in combination with the phage to inactivate E. coli at two multiplicity of infection (MOI), 1 and 100. In general, bacterial inactivation did not increase with the increase of MOI. When the ciprofloxacin was added at different times (6, 12 and 18 h), phage production was similar to the obtained with phage alone, but higher than that observed when ciprofloxacin was added at the same time of the phage. The phage alone caused a reduction of ~2.8 log of E. coli after 12 h of treatment. The mixtures of phage with ciprofloxacin, at sublethal concentrations (1/5 and 1/10 of MIC), did not cause significant differences when compared with the results obtained just with the phage alone, however, after the same time period, at MIC and 2xMIC, the inactivation of E. coli was lower than that obtained with phage alone. Otherwise, the combination of phage and ciprofloxacin at MIC and 2xMIC, reached the maximum rate of inactivation, after 18 and 36 h, respectively, but at these times, re-growth of E. coli was observed when the phage was used alone. A higher difference was observed between the treatment with the mixture phage and antibiotic at MIC and the antibiotic alone than when the antibiotic was used 2xMIC. E. coli was most effectively inactivated when the antibiotic was added after the phage. The efficacy of the combined treatment varied with the antibiotic concentration and the time of antibiotic addition, avoiding bacterial regrowth when the antibiotic was used at MIC and added after 6 h of phage addition. In this case, bacterial resistance was lower than when phages and antibiotics were applied alone (4.0 x 10-7 for the combined treatment, 3.9 x 10-6 for the antibiotics alone and 3.4 x 10-5 for the phages alone). The combined treatment with phages and antibiotics can be effective in reducing the bacterial density, but also to prevent the emergence of resistant variants. However, the antibiotic concentration and the time of antibiotic application are essential factors to be considered in the combined treatmentEscherichia coli, é uma bactéria comensal não patogénica, mas que pode desenvolver variantes mais virulentas que podem colonizar outros locais que não o sistema gastrointestinal. Esta bactéria é uma das principais responsáveis por infeções moderadas e graves no ambiente hospitalar e na comunidade, estando envolvida na emergência e disseminação de resistência às fluoroquinolonas e cefalosporinas de terceira geração. Estimase que nos próximos anos o número de mortes causadas pela resistência, mesmo em bactérias comensais, será muito alto, fazendo com que seja muito urgente encontrar alternativas para combater as bactérias patogénicas. Uma abordagem alternativa ou suplementar aos antibióticos é a terapia fágica, que utiliza bacteriófagos (fagos) líticos capazes de infetar apenas células procariotas. Vários estudos já mostraram efeitos encorajadores ao usar a terapia fágica, no entanto, mutantes resistentes a fagos têm sido considerados uma grande preocupação, quando se pretende usar este método para inativar bactérias patogénicas. A resistência pode, no entanto, ser superada com a combinação de fagos e antibióticos, o que impede o crescimento de bactérias resistentes e pode ter melhores resultados do que quando estas terapias são usadas separadamente. Neste estudo, avaliou-se o efeito do tratamento combinado de fagos e antibióticos na inativação de E. coli. Para tal utilizou-se o fago Ec-Bio e uma estirpe bioluminescente de E. coli testada. Foi testado o antibiótico ciprofloxacina em concentrações letais e subletais adicionadas em diferentes tempos (0, 6, 12 e 18 h) em combinação com o fago que foi testado a duas multiplicidades de infeção (MOI), 1 e 100. Em geral, a eficiência do tratamento não aumentou com o aumento da MOI. Quando a ciprofloxacina foi adicionada em diferentes tempos (6, 12 e 18 h), a produção de fagos foi semelhante à obtida com o fago sozinho, mas superior à observada quando a ciprofloxacina foi adicionada ao mesmo tempo do fago (tempo 0). A adição do fago na ausência de antibiótico causou uma redução de ~ 2,8 log de E. coli, após 12 h de tratamento. Os resultados obtidos com as misturas de fagos com ciprofloxacina, nas concentrações subinibitórias (1/5 e 1/10 da MIC), não causaram diferenças significativas quando comparados com os resultados obtidos apenas com o fago, entretanto, após o mesmo período de tempo, à MIC e 2xMIC, a inativação bacteriana foi inferior do que a obtida somente com o fago. A combinação de fago e ciprofloxacina à MIC e 2xMIC, atingiu a taxa máxima de inativação após 18 e 36 h, respetivamente, altura em que já se observava recrescimento de E. coli quando o tratamento foi feito apenas com o fago. A E. coli foi mais eficazmente inativada quando o antibiótico foi adicionado após o fago. A eficácia do tratamento combinado variou com a concentração do antibiótico e o tempo de adição do antibiótico, evitando mais eficazmente o recrescimento bacteriano quando o antibiótico foi utilizado à MIC e adicionado após 6 h da adição do fago. Neste caso, a resistência bacteriana foi menor que a observada quando o fago e antibiótico foram usados separadamente (4.0 x 10-7 para o tratamento combinado, 3.9 x 10-6 para o antibiótico sozinho e 3.4 x 10-5 para os fagos sozinhos). O tratamento combinado com fagos e antibióticos pode ser eficaz na redução da densidade bacteriana, mas também para prevenir o surgimento de variantes resistentes. No entanto, a concentração do antibiótico e o seu tempo de aplicação são fatores essenciais a serem considerados no tratamento combinadoMestrado em Microbiologi

Productivity, wages, and the returns to firm-provided training: who is grabbing the biggest share?

In spite of the importance of workplace training in human capital accumulation, relatively little is known on its returns for workers and firms. Our investigation tries to fill this gap by developing an alternative modelling that examines the determinants of firm productivity and wages, on the one hand, and the internal rate of return to firm training investments, on the other. Our estimates, obtained using a firm-level dataset in which we have detailed information on firm-provided training, indicate that an additional hour of training per worker implies some 0.1 percent increase in productivity. We also found that 2/3 of the gains in productivity are captured by firms and 1/3 by workers. In turn, the internal rate of return for an average firm in our sample is equal to 11 percent while for workers it is considerably higher at 24 percent. As expected, the dispersion across firms is very high, with 66 percent of firms having a positive internal rate of return for an annual depreciation rate of 35 percent

Worker productivity and wages: Evidence from linked employer-employee data

This study compares the determinants of productivity and wages at both firm and worker level. In the firm-level analysis, we follow Hellerstein, Neumark and Troske (1999) and provide improved estimates based on an extended set of covariates including the intensity of firm-provided training. In the worker-level analysis we take a new turn and generate a proxy for unobserved worker productivity. Our results point to the presence of sizeable spillover effects from schooling and training as their impact is bigger on firm-level productivity equations than on the corresponding worker-level equations. In turn, our fully disaggregated model at worker level shows that, by using all possible combinations of worker attributes, we obtain that the wage differences across different worker groups are mostly productivity based and that the gap can be as high as 33%

The academic performance of student-workers in higher education – increasing rapidly regions’ intellectual capital

Although in recent years access to higher education in Portugal has expanded, there are still some people who interrupt their academic progression and enter the labour market not because of lack of skills but because of monetary constraints. Thus, returning to school is considered of great importance to mitigate this discrimination and, at the same time, to reinforce regions’ intellectual capital and workers’ qualification, promoting labour productivity and firms’ competitiveness in the short run – being therefore important for both dimensions of equity and efficiency. Even though the determinants of academic performance, as a proxy for the effective acquisition of skills and growth of intellectual capital, have been deeply studied for the traditional students, the different characteristics, the lack of time and the multiple motivations of adult student-workers justify them to receive an independent treatment. In particular, it is expected for adult student-workers that job characteristics play an important role determining their academic success. Therefore, based on an extended set of observed attributes, which allow us to control for individual and degree characteristics, we develop two regression models to find out how job characteristics affect the academic performance (measured by the final grade point average – GPA, and by the completion time) of adult student-workers in higher education. We use a longitudinal dataset constituted by 332 student-workers that have enrolled in an undergraduate program at Leiria Polytechnic Institute (IPLeiria) in 2008 or 2009 and have completed it until 2015. The data was obtained by matching an internal dataset of IPLeiria with data from the Ministry of Education and Science, Portugal. The results show that student-workers who finish their degrees behave similarly to the non-worker students in their academic performance, but with different determinants explaining it, especially in the case of final GPA, where job characteristics play a more important role than individual and degree characteristics. In detail, we found that self-employment and enrolling in a degree from a scientific field unrelated with the professional activity have a positive effect in the final GPA of male student-workers, and that exercising a qualified job or being employed in the private sector may limit academic performance as these workers tend to choose more demanding degrees. In addition, flexible professional schedules, peer effects, higher average grades within-degree and improved academic integration all seem to contribute positively to the academic performance of student-workers. We expect that our work contributes to develop policies that improve the academic success of student-workers and increase the participation of adult workers in higher education, thus enhancing regions’ intellectual capital, labour productivity and firms’ competitiveness in the short run.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Mature vs Young Working Students: Similarities, Differences, and Drivers of Graduation and Dropout

The high dropout rate among working students in higher education in Portugal, including both those who are older and at a mature stage in their professional careers and those who are young and recent workers, is one of the main concerns of educational policy. Identifying the drivers of the academic pathway for these students is essential to promote successful education and increase labour productivity and business competitiveness. Using an extensive longitudinal database of personal, course, and employment variables of 1,561 working students from a Portuguese higher education institution, we perform a duration analysis to determine and compare the factors that drive the dropout and graduation risks of mature and young working students in higher education. The results show that, in general, young working students are more positively influenced by financial aid, their motivation for the course, and the desire to find a new qualified professional career, while mature working students depend more on social and academic integration. The accumulation of knowledge/skills in the 'out of class' experience seems to contribute positively to academic performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Determinants of academic performance of student-workers in higher education

Although in recent years access to higher education in Portugal has expanded, there are still some people who interrupt their academic progression and enter the labour market not because of lack of skills but because of monetary constraints. Thus, returning to school is considered of great importance to mitigate this discrimination and reinforce workers’ qualification. Even though the determinants of academic performance have been deeply studied, the different characteristics, the lack of time and the multiple motivations of student-workers justify them to receive an independent treatment. Therefore, based on an extended set of observed attributes, which account for individual, degree and, for the first time to our knowledge, job characteristics, we develop two regression models to find the main determinants of the academic performance (measured by the final grade point average and by the completion time) of student-workers in higher education. We use a longitudinal dataset constituted by 332 student-workers that have enrolled in an undergraduate program at Leiria Polytechnic Institute (IPLeiria) in 2008 or 2009 and have completed it until 2015. The data was obtained by matching an internal dataset of IPLeiria with data from the Ministry of Education and Science, Portugal. The results show that student-workers who finish their degrees behave similarly to the non-worker students in their academic performance, but with different determinants explaining it. Parents’ education has a negative effect on final grade whereas higher previous qualifications, peer effects, better integration and higher average grades withindegree increase academic performance. The access regime and the field of study are also relevant, as well as self-employment, job-degree relation, private/public nature of the employer, and whether or not the job is qualified. We expect that our work contributes to develop policies that improve the success of student-workers and therefore increase the participation of workers in higher education.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pathways of adult student-workers in higher education: explaining the risks of early dropout, late dropout and graduation

In Portugal, student-workers represent 8.5% of higher education students. They are mainly adults with a less favourable socioeconomic and professional background that return to school while working and after experiencing some years in the labour market so as to find a new profession or a job promotion. However, due to their particular characteristics and time restrictions, adult student-workers observe high dropout rates, justifying the need of identifying their determinants of dropout and graduation risks in a separate way. With this purpose, we match five sources to obtain a unique five-year longitudinal dataset with extensive information on individual, degree and employment variables of 976 student-workers from Leiria Polytechnic Institute, Portugal. We then use event history analysis, with competing risks, to investigate if and when the event of dropping out or graduation occurs and how a set of covariates affects the risk of each event. In addition, we distinguish between those that drop out with few accumulated credits (labelled as early dropouts) and those that drop out despite having a significant number of credits completed (late dropouts). We found that early dropouts depend more on academic failure, school-residence distance, personal motivation and employment variables, while late dropouts are more influenced by other factors such as marital status and degree characteristics. Among policy recommendations, beyond the frequently referred actions to reduce academic failure, we highlight the adoption of measures to avoid stopout behaviour, the adequate definition of the schedule and composition of classes (daytime classes and higher proportions of student-workers in the classroom, and with distinct academic performance, seem to reduce dropout risk), and the curriculum appreciation at the admission moment (some employment variables seem to contribute to increase the probability of graduation while others seem to contribute to enhance the risk of dropout), including criteria for regional preference and personal motivation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio