Mexican art exhibitions in New York as cultural diplomacy, 1928-1932

In the aftermath of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, the postrevolutionary state launched an innovative campaign that exported the country’s emerging art and culture, which glorified its indigenous roots. The strategy of expanding its nation-building project abroad helped remake its image and radically improved U.S.-Mexican relations. This project investigates the first standalone exhibitions of Mexican modern and popular arts in the U.S.—the Art Center’s 1928 Exhibition of Mexican Art and the American Federation of Arts’ 1930-32 “Mexican Arts”—as cultural diplomatic efforts. Using empirical evidence, this project reveals the confluence of wealthy patrons, corporate sponsors, government officials, local artists, and museums and galleries in Mexico and the U.S. that made these exhibitions, both debuting in New York, possible. It argues that the success of the exhibitions, measured in public and critical reception, relied on the vision of Mexico curators offered and the access organizers had to established museum circulation networks.Histor

The Catalan Premium: Language and Employment in Catalonia

In this paper I measure the contribution of knowing Catalan to finding a job in Catalonia. In the early eighties a drastic language policy change (normalització) promoted the learning and use of Catalan in Catalonia and managed to reverse the falling trend of its relative use versus Castilian (Spanish). Using census data for 1991 and 1996, I estimate a significant positive Catalan premium: the probability of being employed increases between 3 and 5 percentage points if individuals know how to read and speak Catalan; it increases between 2 and 6 percentage points for writing Catalan.Language, Immigration, Skill Premium

Job Creation and Investment in Imperfect Capital and Labor Markets

This paper shows that liquidity constraints restrict job creation even with flexible labor markets. In a dynamic model of firm investment and demand for labor with imperfect capital markets, represented as a constraint on dividends, and imperfect labor markets, contained in legal firing and hiring costs applicable to some workers, firms use flexible labor contracts to alleviate financial constraints. The optimal policy rules of the theoretical model are integrated into a maximum likelihood procedure to recover the model's behavioral parameters. Data for the estimation come from the CBBE (Balance Sheet data from the Bank of Spain). I evaluate the effects of removing one imperfection at a time, and show that the relaxation of financial constraints produces (i) more job creation than the elimination of labor market rigidities, and (ii) a substantial increase in firm investment, which does not happen if only labor market rigidities are removed.Job Creation, Employment, Investment, Adjustment Costs, Liquidity Constraints, Structural Estimation.

DOES WEALTH EXPLAIN BLACK-WHITE DIFFERENCES IN EARLY EMPLOYMENT CAREERS?

This paper inquires on the effect of initial wealth in racial differences in early employment careers. I set up a dynamic model in which people simultaneously search for a job and accumulate wealth, and fit it to data from the National Longitudinal Survey (1979-cohort). With the recovered behavioral parameters, I perform regime changes consisting in giving blacks (i) the initial wealth distribution, and (ii) the arrival rates and wage offer distribution of whites. These counterfactual experiments show that initial wealth has a modest influence in the black-white difference in early employment careers in comparison with labor market variables.

Native Artists: Livelihoods, Resources, Space, Gifts

Examines the experiences of Ojibwe artists in Minnesota, including access to training, funding, space, paying markets, and institutional support; discrimination and isolation; and relationships with communities. Profiles artists and makes recommendations

Wireless Broadband Access: Policy Implications of Heterogeneous Networks

A wireless heterogeneous network can help increase the access transmission speed and contribute thereby to the broadband deployment policies of administrations and telecommunications operators. Given the technical particularities of wireless heterogeneous networks, the deployment of wireless heterogeneous networks raises a number of challenges that need to be addressed by regulatory authorities. This article analyses the following regulatory implications: standardisation and technology neutrality, spectrum management, market analysis, open access and infrastructure sharing, interconnection pricing and charging, broadband deployment policies, and privacy and security issues. --4G,heterogeneous networks,cooperative networks,spectrum management,regulation,wireless networks

Evolving fuzzy rules in a learning classifier system

The fuzzy classifier system (FCS) combines the ideas of fuzzy logic controllers (FLC's) and learning classifier systems (LCS's). It brings together the expressive powers of fuzzy logic as it has been applied in fuzzy controllers to express relations between continuous variables, and the ability of LCS's to evolve co-adapted sets of rules. The goal of the FCS is to develop a rule-based system capable of learning in a reinforcement regime, and that can potentially be used for process control

A Genetic Algorithm Tool (splicer) for Complex Scheduling Problems and the Space Station Freedom Resupply Problem

The Space Station Freedom will require the supply of items in a regular fashion. A schedule for the delivery of these items is not easy to design due to the large span of time involved and the possibility of cancellations and changes in shuttle flights. This paper presents the basic concepts of a genetic algorithm model, and also presents the results of an effort to apply genetic algorithms to the design of propellant resupply schedules. As part of this effort, a simple simulator and an encoding by which a genetic algorithm can find near optimal schedules have been developed. Additionally, this paper proposes ways in which robust schedules, i.e., schedules that can tolerate small changes, can be found using genetic algorithms

Employment and Deadweight Loss Effects of Observed Non-Wage Labor Costs

To assess the employment effects of labor costs it is crucial to have reliable estimates of the labor cost elasticity of labor demand. Using a matched firm-worker dataset, we estimate a long run unconditional labor demand function, exploiting information on workers to correct for endogeneity in the determination of wages. We evaluate the employment and deadweight loss effects of observed employers' contributions imposed by labor laws (health insurance, training, and taxes) as well as of observed workers' deductions (social security, and income tax). We find that non-wage labor costs reduce employment by 17% for white-collars and by 53% for blue-collars, with associated deadweight losses of 10% and 35% of total contributions, respectively. Since most firms undercomply with mandated employers' and workers contributions, we find that full compliance would imply employment losses of 4% for white-collars and 12% for blue-collars, with respective associated deadweight losses of 2% and 6%.Employment, Deadweight Loss, Job Creation, Labor Costs, Labor Law

Occupational Selection in Multilingual Labor Markets

In multilingual labor markets agents with high proficiency in more than one language may be selected into occupations that require high levels of skill in communicating with customers or writing reports in more than one language. In this paper we measure this effect in Catalonia, where two languages, Catalan and Spanish, coexist. Using census data for 1991 and 1996, and controlling for endogeneity of Catalan knowledge, we find that proficiency in speaking, reading and writing Catalan reinforces selection into communication intensive jobs/positions such as entrepreneurial, trade, and service activities; white-collar occupations; and permanent employment. Interestingly, the effect of language on occupational selection is stronger for women than for men.occupational selection, language, labor markets