Do Labour Market Programmes Necessarily Crowd out Regular Employment? A Matching Model Analysis

It is often claimed that the usage of labour market programmes will necessarily crowd out regular employment (see, for example, Holmlund & Lindén (1993)). As a result, it could be argued that, despite their probable negative impact on unemployment, the overall benefits of using labour market programmes may in fact be dubious. In this paper, we show that the usage of labour market programmes need not necessarily crowd out regular employment. On the contrary; we find that there is the possibility of crowding in regular employment, thereby reducing total unemployment. This can be strengthened by using labour market programmes in conjunction with a strict unemployment benefit policy.matching;labour market;labour policy;employment

Do Labour Market Programmes Necessarily Crowd out Regular Employment? A Matching Model Analysis

It is often claimed that the usage of labour market programmes will necessarily crowd out regular employment (see, for example, Holmlund & Lindén (1993)). As a result, it could be argued that, despite their probable negative impact on unemployment, the overall benefits of using labour market programmes may in fact be dubious. In this paper, we show that the usage of labour market programmes need not necessarily crowd out regular employment. On the contrary; we find that there is the possibility of crowding in regular employment, thereby reducing total unemployment. This can be strengthened by using labour market programmes in conjunction with a strict unemployment benefit policy.

A treatise on labour:A matching-model analysis of labour-market programmes

Abstract: Labour-market programmes are often put forward as a means of reducing unemployment; but they are not without problems. Programmes may lead to crowding out of regular employment and may even have the adverse effect of increasing unemployment. This thesis looks theoretically at how labour-market programmes can be used within a matching-model context. Various model set ups are used and the overall result of this thesis is that programmes can crowd in or crowd out regular employment, depending on the structure of the labour market. Crowding in is only guaranteed when programmes are used as a means of reducing the level of unemployment benefits in the economy.

The performance of Mini Wright peak flow meters after prolonged use

AbstractThe accuracy of 84 new and 35 old Mini Wright peak flow meters were tested using a servo-controlled pump system. The 95% confidence limits for flow measurement across the range of the new meters was between ± 151 min−1 at the lower end of the range and ± 281 min−1 at the top of the range. The readings for 22 (63%) of the old meters (age range 1–13 yr) were within these 95% confidence limits. For the remaining 13 old meters (age range 1–13 yr) whose readings were not within these limits, there were 11 meters with readings falling below and two meters with readings above these limits. Twelve of these old meters were washed and retested and there was no significant change in their readings. Twenty of the new meters were retested after 1 yr of continuous use and their readings were significantly higher with a median value of 51 min−1 across the range, although only two of these 20 meters had readings outside the 95% confidence limits set from the 84 new meters. It is concluded that whilst Mini Wright meters aged up to 14 yr can give readings which are as good as new meters, some meters demonstrate significant changes in readings after only 1 yr and washing did not correct this change. It is recommended that clinicians prescribing peak expiratory flow (PEF) meters should be responsible for checking the patient's meter as well as their PEF readings at clinic visits

Targeted free energy perturbation

A generalization of the free energy perturbation identity is derived, and a computational strategy based on this result is presented. A simple example illustrates the efficiency gains that can be achieved with this method.Comment: 8 pages + 1 color figur

Comment on ``Phase ordering in chaotic map lattices with conserved dynamics''

Angelini, Pellicoro, and Stramaglia [Phys. Rev. E {\bf 60}, R5021 (1999), cond-mat/9907149] (APS) claim that the phase ordering of two-dimensional systems of sequentially-updated chaotic maps with conserved ``order parameter'' does not belong, for large regions of parameter space, to the expected universality class. We show here that these results are due to a slow crossover and that a careful treatment of the data yields normal dynamical scaling. Moreover, we construct better models, i.e. synchronously-updated coupled map lattices, which are exempt from these crossover effects, and allow for the first precise estimates of persistence exponents in this case.Comment: 3 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Benchmarking best manufacturing practices: a study into four sectors of Turkish industry

Reports on a benchmarking study conducted to quantify how well companies operating in various sectors of Turkish industry match up to best practice, both in the practices they adopt and in the operational outcomes that result, and to test the hypothesis that the closer a company is to best practice, the more likely it is for that company to achieve higher business performance. The survey conducted in 1997 and 1998 included 82 companies from the Turkish electronics, cement, automotive sectors and part and component suppliers to the appliance industry. For data gathering. employs the Competitive Strategies and Best Practices Benchmarking Questionnaire, supported ly, some follow-up interviews and one-day site visits. Classifies two small groups of companies as leaders and laggers, depending on how close they were to best practice. Shows that the leaders have performed better than the laggers in adopting best manufacturing practices and in the achievement of high performance La,els. The leaders also have achieved substantially higher business performance than the laggers. Furthermore, observes that large-sized companies outperform the rest both in terms of their success in implementing best manufacturing practices and in achieving high operational outcomes and that there is no appreciable difference between industrial sectors in implementing best manufacturing practices and in achieving high operational outcomes

Frequency of occurrence of numbers in the World Wide Web

The distribution of numbers in human documents is determined by a variety of diverse natural and human factors, whose relative significance can be evaluated by studying the numbers' frequency of occurrence. Although it has been studied since the 1880's, this subject remains poorly understood. Here, we obtain the detailed statistics of numbers in the World Wide Web, finding that their distribution is a heavy-tailed dependence which splits in a set of power-law ones. In particular, we find that the frequency of numbers associated to western calendar years shows an uneven behavior: 2004 represents a `singular critical' point, appearing with a strikingly high frequency; as we move away from it, the decreasing frequency allows us to compare the amounts of existing information on the past and on the future. Moreover, while powers of ten occur extremely often, allowing us to obtain statistics up to the huge 10^127, `non-round' numbers occur in a much more limited range, the variations of their frequencies being dramatically different from standard statistical fluctuations. These findings provide a view of the array of numbers used by humans as a highly non-equilibrium and inhomogeneous system, and shed a new light on an issue that, once fully investigated, could lead to a better understanding of many sociological and psychological phenomena.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Superconductivity and non-metallicity induced by doping the topological insulators Bi2Se3 and Bi2Te3

We show that by Ca-doping the Bi2Se3 topological insulator, the Fermi level can be fine tuned to fall inside the band gap and therefore suppress the bulk conductivity. Non-metallic Bi2Se3 crystals are obtained. On the other hand, the Bi2Se3 topological insulator can also be induced to become a bulk superconductor, with Tc ~ 3.8 K, by copper intercalation in the van der Waals gaps between the Bi2Se3 layers. Likewise, an as-grown crystal of metallic Bi2Te3 can be turned into a non-metallic crystal by slight variation of the Te content. The Bi2Te3 topological insulator shows small amounts of superconductivity with Tc ~ 5.5 K when reacted with Pd to form materials of the type PdxBi2Te3