How Is Convergent Mobility Consistent with Rising Inequality? A Reconciliation in the Case of Argentina

[Excerpt] This is a paper on earnings mobility in Argentina during the macroeconomic growth and contractions that have characterized that nation’s economy from 1996 to the present. Since 1996, real GDP growth has fluctuated widely. For most of the 1990s, Argentina was seen as a model of successful policymaking. Having pegged its exchange rate to the dollar under a currency board type arrangement in 1991, Argentina had succeeded in ending hyperinflation, reducing inflation rates to single-digit levels. Greater economic stability attracted foreign investment inflows, contributing to an acceleration in economic growth; indeed, even as lenders withdrew their financing in East Asia in 1997, capital inflows continued to Argentina. Then, Argentina entered into a prolonged recession. The combination of the hard peg of the local currency to the U.S. dollar and excessive borrowing led to an unsustainable fiscal situation and, ultimately, to the collapse of the economy at the end of 2001 (See Figure 1). Gross Domestic Product fell by 13.5 percent from the second quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2002, and the share of the population in poverty reached 58 percent in October 2002, versus 38 percent in October 2001, according to the official moderate poverty line. This paper addresses the distributional consequences of these macroeconomic events. (Note: Here and throughout the paper, “distribution of income” means the entire density or cumulative distribution function; it does not mean “inequality.”) Who benefited the most from Argentine economic growth? Who lost the most in economic decline? Are those who started rich getting richer in growth periods and losing more in recessionary periods, or is it the other way around? Are the answers to these questions the same for all measures of initial advantage

Earnings Mobility in Times of Growth and Decline: Argentina from 1996 to 2003

In recent years, the economy of Argentina has experienced both rapid economic growth and severe economic decline. In this paper, we use a series of one-year long panels to study who gained the most in pesos when the economy grew and who lost the most in pesos when the economy contracted. To answer these questions, we test two hypotheses both unconditionally and conditionally. The ?divergence of earnings? hypothesis holds that in any given year, the highest earning individuals are those who experienced the largest earnings gains or the smallest earnings losses in pesos. The ?symmetry of gains and losses? hypothesis holds that those groups that gained the most in pesos when the economy grew are those that lost the most in pesos when the economy contracted. Both hypotheses are decisively rejected in the data. Rather, we find that it is the lowest income individuals and groups who gain the most in pesos, whether in good times or in bad. Thus, the panel data analysis performed in this paper presents a picture of economic growth that is much more pro-poor than one gets from cross sectional inequality comparisons.finance, growth, inequality, Argentina, survey, gains, losses

How Demanding Should Equality of Opportunity Be, and How Much Have We Achieved?

[Excerpt] This chapter proposes tests of various notions of equality of opportunity and applies them to intergenerational income data for the United States and Britain. Agreement is widespread that equality of opportunity holds in a society if the chances that individuals have to succeed depend only on their own efforts and not on extraneous circumstances that may inhibit or expand those chances. What is contentious, however, is what constitutes effort and circumstances. Most people, we think, would say that the social connections of an individual\u27s parents would be included among circumstances: equality of opportunity is incomplete if some individuals get ahead because they have well-connected parents. This and other channels through which circumstances affect income opportunities in an intergenerational context are discussed in Section 2. Section 3 then formulates four, increasingly stringent criteria for equality of opportunity. In Section 4, we turn to an empirical implementation of these criteria to test for equality of opportunity in the United States and Britain. The results, presented in Section 5, provide only the weakest of support for equality of opportunity in the United States and no support at all in Britain. Concluding remarks are presented in Section 6

The preparation and characterisation of intercalation compounds

Abstract unavailable please refer to PDF

Weaning of Senegalese sole (Solea senegalensis) postlarvae to an inert diet with a co-feeding regime | Destete de postlarvas del lenguado senegalés (Solea senegalensis) a una dieta inerte utilizando un régimen de coalimentación

The objective of this study was to evaluate the weaning success of Senegalese sole, Solea senegalensis, postlarvae when cofed a compound diet, by means of the analysis of growth parameters (relative growth rate [RGR] and condition factor [K]), survival, protein and lipid content. Total ammonia in the rearing water was also measured. The experiment lasted for 46 days (36 to 82 days posthatching). One group was fed only with enriched Artemia sp. metanauplii (Artemia treatment), whereas in another group, the Artemia sp. metanauplii were gradually replaced by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) diet over a period of 39 days (ICES treatment). Postlarvae were sampled on rearing days 0, 9, 23, 30, 39 and 46 for growth and biochemical analysis. Water was sampled on rearing day 30 during a 24-h cycle in both treatments. Postlarvae from the ICES treatment were weaned, though by the end of the experiment the Artemia treatment exhibited significantly higher values for growth, RGR, K and survival rates (P <0.05). No significant differences were observed concerning total lipid content. Protein content was significantly higher for the Artemia treatment after 46 days of rearing (P < 0.05). The total ammonia nitrogen concentration in the water increased after each meal and remained below a harmless level for postlarvae.El objetivo de este estudio consistió en evaluar el éxito del destete de postlarvas del lenguado senegalés, Solea senegalensis, utilizando un régimen de coalimentación. El estudio se realizó mediante el análisis de parámetros de crecimiento (tasa de crecimiento relativa [RGR] y factor de condición [K]), supervivencia y contenido de proteínas y lípidos. La concentración del amonio total en el agua de cultivo también fue analizada. El experimento se realizó durante 46 días (de 36 a 82 días posteclosión). Un grupo de postlarvas se alimentó únicamente con metanauplios de Artemia sp. enriquecidos (tratamiento con Artemia), mientras que en otro grupo los metanauplius de Artemia sp. fueron gradualmente substituidos por la dieta del International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (tratamiento ICES) durante un periodo de 39 días. Las postlarvas se muestrearon durante los días 0, 9, 23, 30, 39 y 46 de cultivo para el estudio de crecimiento y el análisis bioquímico Las muestras de agua se tomaron el día 30 de cultivo durante un ciclo de 24 h en ambos tratamientos. Las postlarvas del tratamiento ICES fueron destetadas, aunque al final del experimento se registraron valores significativamente mayores en relación al crecimiento, RGR, K y tasas de supervivencia (P < 0.05) en el tratamiento con Artemia. No se observaron diferencias significativas en el contenido total de lípidos. El contenido de proteínas fue significativamente mayor en el tratamiento con Artemia a los 46 días de cultivo (P < 0.05). La concentracion de amonio total en el agua se incrementó después de cada toma de alimento pero se mantuvo por debajo del nivel tóxico para las postlarvas de peces marinos

Where does brain neural activation in aesthetic responses to visual art occur? Meta-analytic evidence from neuroimaging studies

Here we aimed at finding the neural correlates of the general aspect of visual aesthetic experience (VAE) and those more strictly correlated with the content of the artworks. We applied a general activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis to 47 fMRI experiments described in 14 published studies. We also performed four separate ALE analyses in order to identify the neural substrates of reactions to specific categories of artworks, namely portraits, representation of real-world-visual-scenes, abstract paintings, and body sculptures. The general ALE revealed that VAE relies on a bilateral network of areas, and the individual ALE analyses revealed different maximal activation for the artworks' categories as function of their content. Specifically, different content-dependent areas of the ventral visual stream are involved in VAE, but a few additional brain areas are involved as well. Thus, aesthetic-related neural responses to art recruit widely distributed networks in both hemispheres including content-dependent brain areas of the ventral visual stream. Together, the results suggest that aesthetic responses are not independent of sensory, perceptual, and cognitive processe

Estimating projects duration in uncertain environments: Monte Carlo simulations strike back

PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique), developed in the 1950’s, represented the first attempt to incorporate uncertainty in project scheduling. Despite some weaknesses, it is still widely used in project management mostly thanks to the simplicity of its algorithm in operating on activity network diagrams. Today the increasing complexity of projects requires new techniques and the increasing availability of computer power have not brought project simulation into common usage as expected. Although several reviews assert that simulative approach has already superseded PERT when coping with uncertain environment; the reason why it is not diffused is that simulations require a too long computing time. In this paper we show through an algorithm and experimental results that the computational time, historically the major drawback of Monte Carlo simulations, is definitely minimum thanks also to the computational power available nowadays. We present results of an efficient program made of few lines of code and able to compute the completion time of a network activity diagram with 100.000 activities and about 50.000.000 precedence constraints between them

Zika, chikungunya and dengue: the causes and threats of new and re-emerging arboviral diseases.

The recent emergence and re-emergence of viral infections transmitted by vectors-Zika, chikungunya, dengue, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile, yellow fever and others-is a cause for international concern. Using as examples Zika, chikungunya and dengue, we summarise current knowledge on characteristics of the viruses and their transmission, clinical features, laboratory diagnosis, burden, history, possible causes of the spread and the expectation for future epidemics. Arboviruses are transmitted by mosquitoes, are of difficult diagnosis, can have surprising clinical complications and cause severe burden. The current situation is complex, because there is no vaccine for Zika and chikungunya and no specific treatment for the three arboviruses. Vector control is the only comprehensive solution available now and this remains a challenge because up to now this has not been very effective. Until we develop new technologies of control mosquito populations, the globalised and urbanised world we live in will remain vulnerable to the threat of successive arbovirus epidemics