Social corporatism and capital accumulation: The fate of the nordic model

Recent research into weak productivity performance since the financial crisis has highlighted the importance of the gap between the most productive firms and the rest. While wage compression may only be one possible mechanism to promote the relative growth of productive firms, it does appear to be effective in promoting productivity growth in Nordic economies

Corporatism and capital accumulation : the fate of the social corporatist model

An extensive literature has examined whether corporatist national wage bargaining systems can deliver superior economic performance, but this has mostly focused on short run indicators. Such systems of industrial relations could provide incentives for investment if organized labour can credibly pre-commit to wage moderation. This paper examines this, building on monopoly union models that indicate the response of corporatist wage bargaining arrangements to investment. The paper estimates the response of wage bargaining to capital investment, conditional on outside options, in six key economies widely characterized as having sustained corporatist bargaining arrangements over 1970-2017. The econometric approach allows changes in regimes to be determined endogenously; these shifts appear consistent with wider evidence on changes in bargaining arrangements and financial integration of these economies

The use of information and communication technologies by portuguese teachers

We present a study made in Portugal, in 2001/2002, on the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by teachers of all teaching levels (except high education), in both public and private schools. It was an initiative of the Ministry of Education (“Nonio – 21st Century” program), which was carried out by the Competence Centre “Softsciences” and the Centre for Computational Physics of the University of Coimbra. Some of the conclusions of this study, that has collected data from 19337 teachers, are the following: the majority of Portuguese teachers own a PC and approximately half of them use it in several activities, though their use of computers with students is limited. Primary school teachers use often the PC in their schools, though, probably, in an incipient way. The self-training of teachers in ICT is quite common. The Internet is more used by 3rd cycle (last part of middle school) and high school teachers, being most of its users male and young. These and other conclusions should be taken into account in a strategy towards incrementing a better use of new technologies in schools. The whole study is available in: http://nautilus.fid.uc.pt/cec/estud

Fiscal and monetary policies: the cutting edge of advocacy and research on population health and climate change

This article outlines the likely mechanisms through which fiscal and monetary policies affect health and the environment, summarising innovative policies that may hold promise for planetary and population health

Recommendation of RILEM TC237-SIB on cohesion test of recycled asphalt

This recommendation describes how to evaluate the presence of potentially active bitumen in recycled asphalt (RA) materials through the cohesion test. The experimental protocol is designed according to the research performed by the RILEM Technical Committee 237-SIB ‘‘Testing and characterization of sustainable innovative bituminous materials and systems’’ with the purpose, to develop a new, simple and fast method for the characterization of RA while limiting the need for conventional rheological tests. The guidelines in this recommendation focus on the testing procedure including specimen preparation, data analysis and provide information on the preparation of a tests report

A framework for evaluating qualitative changes in learners’ experience and engagement: Developing communicative English teaching and learning in Bangladesh

This article presents the context and framework for evaluation studies of educational transformations associated with the English in Action Project, Bangladesh (EIA) as it progresses over a 9-year period. EIA was launched in May 2008 with the intention of developing communicative English language learning and teaching in Bangladesh. Through a range of interventions involving school students, teachers and young adults, EIA aims to achieve measurable changes in the way that English in taught and learned in Bangladesh, such that useful communicative competence results. Before the interventions were launched, baseline research was undertaken to examine the environment and contexts within which the project would operate. The baseline studies not only provide information and data that will enable subsequent comparisons to be made to assess the impact and effects of the project, they also make evidence available to inform the development of project activities. Innovative approaches to language and teacher development are being employed in order to address the challenges and legacy issues identified. Evaluation of the anticipated qualitative changes over the life of EIA requires a broad programme of studies focusing on the various target beneficiaries

New insights from a structural economic dynamic approach to balance of payments constrained growth

In this paper it is shown that once-for-all variations in the level of the exchange rate may play an important role in the sectoral composition of the economy and this fact has important implications in terms of a disaggregated version of the Thirlwall’s law even if the argument of the quantitative unimportance of relative price movements holds. The growth rate of a country is then shown to be affected by once-for-all movements in the level of nominal exchange rates and the concept of a natural exchange rate is introduced