Income Distribution, Institutions and Conflicts: An Exploratory Analysis for Latin America and the Caribbean

income distribution, polarisation, cohesion, inequality, poverty, institutions, instability, conflict, corruption, Latin America, Caribbean

Does participation in productive associations signal trust and creditworthiness ? evidence for Nicaragua

This article studies the extent to which participation in productive associations in Nicaragua contributes to increase individuals'access to social programs and credit services. By participating in productive associations, individuals give a good signal to firms and are rewarded with better transactions and more access to the services they provide, ceteris paribus. Estimates using 2005 data indicate that households that participate in productive associations display higher access to credit and to social programs that promote investment. Additionally, participation in productive associations is weakly associated to more favorable credit outcomes among those households that receive loans, such as lower interest rates and a lower probability of wanting more credit than what was accessible to them.Access to Finance,,Corporate Law,Labor Policies,Debt Markets

Income distribution, institutions and conflicts: an exploratory analysis for Latin America and the Caribbean

Este documento explora la relación entre la distribución del ingreso, las instituciones y los conflictos en América Latina y el Caribe mediante el uso de una nueva base de datos de estadísticas de la distribución del ingreso calculado a partir de microdatos de 54 encuestas de hogares de 21 países de ALC en el período 1989-2004.Una derivación de este trabajo fue publicada en Oxford Development Studies, 36 (4), pp. 461-484, December, 2008.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Desigualdad e Instituciones en una Dimensión Intertemporal

En el presente trabajo se analiza la importancia de las instituciones en la distribución del ingreso. Se plantea un contexto donde sólo pueden existir cambios en la varianza de la distribución y no en la media (se supone en el modelo planteado que no hay inversión), y se obtiene que la evolución en la distribución depende de condiciones iniciales institucionales. Se analiza tal cuestión de manera formal, y se presenta evidencia empírica al respecto que apoya los resultados obtenidos.Desigualdad, instituciones, distribución del ingreso, corrupción.

A new self-organizing neural gas model based on Bregman divergences

In this paper, a new self-organizing neural gas model that we call Growing Hierarchical Bregman Neural Gas (GHBNG) has been proposed. Our proposal is based on the Growing Hierarchical Neural Gas (GHNG) in which Bregman divergences are incorporated in order to compute the winning neuron. This model has been applied to anomaly detection in video sequences together with a Faster R-CNN as an object detector module. Experimental results not only confirm the effectiveness of the GHBNG for the detection of anomalous object in video sequences but also its selforganization capabilities.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Vehicle Type Detection by Convolutional Neural Networks

In this work a new vehicle type detection procedure for traffic surveillance videos is proposed. A Convolutional Neural Network is integrated into a vehicle tracking system in order to accomplish this task. Solutions for vehicle overlapping, differing vehicle sizes and poor spatial resolution are presented. The system is tested on well known benchmarks, and multiclass recognition performance results are reported. Our proposal is shown to attain good results over a wide range of difficult situations.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Una democracia imperfecta. Redistribución política de ingreso en América Latina

Although several papers in the political economy literature suggest a positive relationship between income inequality and redistribution, the data for Latin America does not support this claim. Countries with more income inequality also have less redistribution. This paper explores how the degree of imperfection in the political institutions influences equilibrium redistributive tax rates and income distributions. A citizen-candidate model is developed (Osborne and Slivinski, 1996 and Besley and Coate, 1997) in which candidates face a cost for representing other citizens in politics. Political-economic equilibria for diferent degrees of imperfection of the political system are derived and compared. In particular, two distinct cases are found. Countries where the cost of entry to politics is low can have higher redis tribution and lower inequality if the median run as a candidate or ,when there is a two candidate equilibria, redistribution and inequality could go either way. On the other hand, countries where the cost of entry is high will not be able to translate the will of the people into political action and will end up with little redistribution and high levels of inequality.Facultad de Ciencias Económica

Super-resolution of 3D Magnetic Resonance Images by Random Shifting and Convolutional Neural Networks

Enhancing resolution is a permanent goal in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, in order to keep improving diagnostic capability and registration methods. Super-resolution (SR) techniques are applied at the postprocessing stage, and their use and development have progressively increased during the last years. In particular, example-based methods have been mostly proposed in recent state-of-the-art works. In this paper, a combination of a deep-learning SR system and a random shifting technique to improve the quality of MR images is proposed, implemented and tested. The model was compared to four competitors: cubic spline interpolation, non-local means upsampling, low-rank total variation and a three-dimensional convolutional neural network trained with patches of HR brain images (SRCNN3D). The newly proposed method showed better results in Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio, Structural Similarity index, and Bhattacharyya coefficient. Computation times were at the same level as those of these up-to-date methods. When applied to downsampled MR structural T1 images, the new method also yielded better qualitative results, both in the restored images and in the images of residuals.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Pixel Features for Self-organizing Map Based Detection of Foreground Objects in Dynamic Environments

Among current foreground detection algorithms for video sequences, methods based on self-organizing maps are obtaining a greater relevance. In this work we propose a probabilistic self-organising map based model, which uses a uniform distribution to represent the foreground. A suitable set of characteristic pixel features is chosen to train the probabilistic model. Our approach has been compared to some competing methods on a test set of benchmark videos, with favorable results.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Road pollution estimation using static cameras and neural networks

Este artículo presenta una metodología para estimar la contaminación en carreteras mediante el análisis de secuencias de video de tráfico. El objetivo es aprovechar la gran red de cámaras IP existente en el sistema de carreteras de cualquier estado o país para estimar la contaminación en cada área. Esta propuesta utiliza redes neuronales de aprendizaje profundo para la detección de objetos, y un modelo de estimación de contaminación basado en la frecuencia de vehículos y su velocidad. Los experimentos muestran prometedores resultados que sugieren que el sistema se puede usar en solitario o combinado con los sistemas existentes para medir la contaminación en carreteras.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech