Three essays on children, women and economic development

This thesis investigates three important themes within the development economics literature that link children, women and economic development. In the first essay we present an analysis of child labour among agricultural households in rural Nepal. We first examine the monetary contribution of child labour to family farms. For this purpose, within a non-separable agricultural household model we estimate a farm production function to obtain shadow wages for both children and adults employed on the farm. Our results reveal that the relative contribution of child labour to family income is not negligible. We then analyse child labour supply to explore whether it is driven by poverty or other reasons such as imperfections in the labour market. We estimate both a reduced form model and a structural equation model. This latter includes the estimated shadow wages and income from the previous analysis. Both models allow for an examination of how child labour supply reacts to a change in the opportunity cost of time and wealth. The reduced form results suggest that an increase in household's wealth (measured by land endowments) reduces child labour, specifically of girls. This result is consistent with the hypothesis of poverty-induced child labour in the presence of perfect labour markets. This decline, however, occurs for sufficiently high levels of wealth. Imperfections in the labour market may play a role in explaining child labour of boys and in households that are not at the top-end of the land distribution. Estimates of the structural labour supply model, however, yield results on wage and income elasticities that partly contradicts the theoretical predictions. In the second essay we analyse whether and how an increase in the participation of women in a key decision making body of local collective action institutions - the Executive Committee (EC) of Community Forest User Groups (CFUG) in Nepal - aspects forest protection, specifically household firewood collection. In many developing countries women are responsible for the collection and management of forest products essential to the daily lives of their household. Therefore they have stronger interests than men in ensuring the availability of these products. Despite this, women are often excluded from the decision-making process that sets out the rules to access and collect forest products within community forests. We account for the potential endogeneity of female participation and exploit an amendment made to the guidelines for CFUG formation that sets a higher threshold for women representation in the Executive Committee to evaluate the impact of women on firewood extraction. The results indicate that higher female participation in the ECs of CFUGs leads to a decrease in firewood extraction. This evidence is suggestive that women are prioritising conservation to ensure sustainable firewood extraction for their daily needs. In the third essay we analyse the short and long-term impact of violence on education in Timor Leste. Specifically, we examine the effect of the 1999 violence on school attendance in 2001 and its longer-term impact on primary school completion of the same cohorts of children observed again in 2007. We compare the educational impact of the 1999 violence with the impact of other periods of high-intensity violence during the 25 years of Indonesian occupation. The short-term effects of the conflict are mixed. In the longer term, we find evidence of a substantial loss of human capital among boys in Timor Leste exposed to peaks of violence during the 25-year long conflict. The evidence suggests that this result may be due to household trade-offs between education and economic welfare

Sine-Gordon soliton as a model for Hawking radiation of moving black holes and quantum soliton evaporation

The intriguing connection between black holes' evaporation and physics of solitons is opening novel roads to finding observable phenomena. It is known from the inverse scattering transform that velocity is a fundamental parameter in solitons theory. Taking this into account, the study of Haw\-king radiation by a moving soliton gets a growing relevance. However, a theoretical context for the description of this phenomenon is still lacking. Here, we adopt a soliton geometrization technique to study the quantum emission of a moving soliton in a one-dimensional model. Representing a black hole by the one soliton solution of the sine-Gordon equation, we consider Haw\-king emission spectra of a quantized massless scalar field on the soliton-induced metric. We study the relation between the soliton velocity and the black hole temperature. Our results address a new scenario in the detection of new physics in the quantum gravity panorama.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Fuel on the Invention Funnel: Technology Licensing-in, Antecedents and Invention

In this paper, we examine the impact of technology licensing-in on firm invention performance. Studying a sample of 266 licensees and matched non-licensees using a two-part model specification, we find that licensees are more likely to introduce inventions than their non-licensee counterparts. This holds both if we consider invention in general, and invention in the licensed technological class only. We also show that familiarity with the licensed technology and technological specialization drives licensees to pursue a narrow invention strategy primarily focusing on the technological class specified in the license agreement.Licensing-in, Invention, Dynamic Capabilities, Learning Opportunities, Technological familiarity, Technological specialization

La autoría a campo traviesa: "Los galgos, los galgos" de Sara Gallardo

Este trabajo aborda Los galgos, los galgos (1968) de la escritora argentina Sara Gallardo (1931-1988), la novela que dictamina desde la propia ficción el fin del ciclo de las novelas rurales y anuncia el giro espacial, temático y formal que da su producción a partir de la experimental Eisejuaz (1971). En primer lugar se hace una lectura de las apuestas desmitificadoras del recorrido arquetípico de un joven heredero de la elite criolla y sus fallidas “épicas rurales”, enmarcado en la parábola espacial Buenos Aires, la estancia, París, el campo. A propósito del tratamiento novedoso que Gallardo da a los tópicos consolidados de esa tradición literaria, que rozando los años 70 no puede sino resultar anacrónica o epigonal, es que aquí se postulan, a partir justamente del final de su tercera novela, los comienzos –no estrictamente coincidentes con su biografía profesional- de su proyecto autoral: una poética del comenzar. Un fin, entonces, que dictamina un nuevo comienzo.This article aims at analyzing Los galgos, los galgos (1968), from the argentinian writer Sara Gallardo (1931-1988). This novel claims through its own fiction the end of the rural novel cycle and announces the spatial, thematic and formal turn in her production, represented by Eisejuaz (1971). We will develop an analysis of the reinnovating proposals of the archetypical itinerary of a young heire of the elite "criolla" and his frustrated "rural epics", through the spatial parable: Buenos Aires, the "estancia", Paris, the field. We argue that in Los galgos, los galgos, Gallardo presents an original treatment of the consolidated topics of that literary tradition, which turns out to be anachronistic in the late seventies, resulting in the shaping of her own auctorial project: a poetics of the beginning. An end implying a new start.Tendo como referência Los galgos, los galgos (1968) da escritora argentina Sara Gallardo (1931-1988), investiga-se como o romance sentença desde a própria ficção a finalização do ciclo dos romances regionalistas e informa sobre a virada espacial, temática e formal que se produz a partir do romance experimental Eisejuaz (1971). Em primeiro lugar, apresenta-se uma leitura dos desafios desmistificadores do percurso arquetípico de um jovem herdeiro da elite criolla e suas frustradas “épicas rurales”, moldurado na parábola espacial Buenos Aires, estância, Paris, o campo. De propósito do modo inovador que Gallardo confere aos tópicos consolidados dessa tradição literária, que roçando os anos setenta acaba por se revelando anacrônica ou epigonal, podem-se afirmar, a partir precisamente do final do seu terceiro romance, os começos – não coincidente em sentido estrito com sua biografia profissional- do seu projeto autoral: uma poética do começar. Um fim, assim, que guia um novo começo.Fil: de Leone, Lucia Maria. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Instituto Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Género; Argentin

Start-Ups and Licensing Agreements: An Exploratory Case Study

Licensing agreements can exist between established companies but they increasingly also give rise to start-up companies, built around the licensed technology. Licensing-out technology can represent a risk as well as an opportunity for any licensor as there is a trade-off between additional revenues that can be gained from the licensing agreement and the costs related to the transfer itself, as well as the risks of opportunism by the licensee. When licensing to a start-up, this risk is higher, as start-ups have scarce resources, high failure rates and no past performance on which to gauge the start-up’s success. For the start-up the license could also represent a risk in the form of sunk costs and constraints on their evolution path. This paper discusses under which conditions technology licensing between a licensor and a start-up can be beneficial to both parties. Through a qualitative analysis, interviewing a number of European start-ups, we will examine in particular the role of contractual clauses, the relationship between licensor and licensee, the role of the licensed technology in the final product and the role of a technology push versus demand-pull scenario in a licensing deal. For all these aspects we will reflect on their influence on the licensor and licensee

Towards an Ontology for Product Version Management

During its lifecycle, products are affected by market, technology, and user requirements. Without a process for efficiently handling product changes, product data, which is spread in different areas and systems, might become unusable, incomplete, or inconsistent. A simple change on product information may trigger a domino effect that could be very difficult to control. In order to reduce this effect, knowledge is important to answer what, when, why, and how a change occurred. This article proposes an ontology that allows capturing product changes in order to answer the aforementioned questions. The proposed ontology extends PRoductONTOlogy (PRONTO) (Vegetti et al., 2011) to represent product family changes. OWL implementation of the proposed ontology is presented with a simple case study to validate it.Fil: Sonzini, Maria Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño (i); ArgentinaFil: Vegetti, Maria Marcela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño (i); ArgentinaFil: Leone, Horacio Pascual. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Santa Fe. Instituto de Desarrollo y Diseño (i); Argentin

Russia–Ukraine Conflict, Commodities and Stock Market: A Quantile VAR Analysis

The Russia–Ukrainian war, which began in 2014 and exploded with the invasion of the Russian army on 24 February 2022, has profoundly destabilized the political, economic and financial balance of Europe and beyond. To the humanitarian emergency associated with every war has been added the deep crisis generated by the strong energy and food dependence that many European countries, and not only European, have developed over decades on Ukraine (especially for wheat) and Russia (especially for natural gas). The aim of this article is to verify the existence of a link between the performance of the Eurostoxx index and the price of wheat futures and TTF natural gas, from 25 February 2019 to 28 September 2023. Through a quantile VAR analysis, a link is sought between the Eurostoxx 50 index, and wheat and TTF gas futures prices. Furthermore, the analysis intends to understand whether the presence of such relationship only manifested itself following the war events, or whether it was already present in the market. The analysis carried out also shows that the relationship between the stock market and raw material prices was present even before the conflict