Do large governments decrease happiness? New evidence of a negative effect in Europe

Until now little evidence has been found about the relationship between governments and happiness, but when cited, it has suggested a positive influence. Using micro-data from the last three waves of the European Quality of Life Survey and several measures for the weight of the government, such as structural government consumption, structural balance, and public debt, we show that government consumption and the other measures of government imbalances significantly decrease happiness in European countries. Additionally, we present robust evidence of a positive relationship between the quality of government and happiness. This evidence may lead politicians to reject the idea that bigger Governments lead to greater satisfaction. This result is consistent with people valuing (negatively) expectations for future tax increases, austerity, and possible corruption-related events.info:eu-repo/semantics/submittedVersio

Income inequality and technological adoption

We relate technological adoption (of different technologies) with income inequality. We discovered that some technologies such as aviation, cell phones, electric production, internet, telephone, and TV are skill-complementary in raising inequality. We constructed standardized indexes of skill-complementary technological adoption for modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), older ICT, production and transport technologies. We found strong evidence that older ICT and transport technologies (and less frequently modern ICT) tend to increase inequality. Additionally, we discovered that results are much stronger in rich countries than in poor ones. Our results are quite robust to a series of changes in specifications, estimators, samples, and measurement of technology adoption. These results may bring insights to the design of incentive-schemes for technology adoption

Income inequality and technological adoption

We relate technological adoption (of different technologies) with income inequality. In the process, we discover that some technologies, such as aviation, cell phones, electric production, internet, telephone, and TV, are skill-complementary in raising inequality. We construct standardized indexes of skill-complementary technological adoption for modern information and communication technologies (ICT), older ICT, production and transport technologies. We find strong evidence that older ICT and transport technologies (and less frequently modern ICT) tend to increase inequality. Additionally, we discover that results are much stronger in rich countries than in poor ones. Our results are quite robust to a series of changes in specifications, estimators, samples, and measurement of technology adoption. These results may bring insights into the design of incentive schemes for technology adoption.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Human capital and genetic diversity

This paper investigates the relationship between human capital and the ancestral genetic diversity of populations. A simple model highlights a new channel through which genetic diversity can affect development: human capital. Additionally, empirical evidence of an unconditional hump-shaped relationship between genetic diversity and human capital is documented. This relationship decreases statistical significance when other deeply rooted determinants of human capital are taken into account. However, we found some significantly positive (linear) effects of genetic diversity. Thus, if there is a relationship between genetic diversity and human capital, this relationship tends to be positive: more genetic diversity is beneficial to human capital.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Income inequality, TFP, and human capital

WOS:000399319600005 (Nº de Acesso Web of Science)A fruitful recent theoretical literature has related human capital and technological development to income (and wage) inequality. However, empirical assessments on the relationship are relatively scarce. We relate human capital, total factor productivity (TFP) and openness to inequality and discover that, when countries are assumed to be heterogeneous and dependent cross-sections, human capital is the most robust determinant of inequality, contributing to increasing inequality, as predicted by theory. TFP and openness turned out to be non-significantly related to inequality. These results are robust to a number of robustness tests on specifications and data and open up the prospect of theoretical research on the country-specific features conditioning the effect of human capital, technology and trade on inequality.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Shelf-Ocean material exchange influencing the Atlantic chemical composition off NW Iberian margin since the last glaciation

Rivers are the main conduit of sediment to the shelf. The basin geology, the drainage area and the discharge rate are the major factors that determine their sediment load (Milliman and Syvistski, 1992). Besides suspended particles, dissolved components may also give some information on the eroded crust. Sr isotopes in carbonate shells of biological organisms have been used to study, in the geological record, the influence exerted by the chemical weathering of the continental crust on the seawater composition (Macdougall, 1991). In this work, Sr isotope ratios obtained in tests of foraminifera representing the last 40 ka are presented and discussed in the scope of the palaeogeographical evolution of NW Iberia. This work aims to present and discuss the results of Sr isotope analyses (performed, by TIMS, in the Isotope Geology Laboratory of the University of Aveiro) of tests of two species of foraminifera, from nine samples taken along the OMEX core KC 024-19 (181 cm; 42°08’98’’N, 10°29´96’’W, and 2765m), collected in the Galicia Bank area, off Galicia. Taking into account that Sr contained in the carbonate tests is usually considered as preserving the signature of the contemporaneous seawater, one planktonic species (Globigerina bulloides) and one benthic species (Cibicides wuellerstorfi) were selected in order to try to detect Sr isotope variations both through time and between two different levels of the water column. The core age model, which records the last 40 ka, is based on a combination of oxygen isotope stratigraphy, eight AMS 14C datings and the synchronisation of the last four Heinrich Events in the Iberian Margin sedimentary records. As a whole, the obtained 87Sr/86Sr ratios vary between 0.709209 and 0.709108, with a mean 2σ error of 0.000025. These values lie within the range of modern marine Sr isotope ratios (0.70910-0.70922), as previously defined using analyses of both seawater and marine carbonates (see compilation by Faure and Mensing, 2005). Despite their small variation, the 87Sr/86Sr ratios obtained in G. bulloides seem to indicate that Sr dissolved in seawater at the KC 024-19 core site became slightly less radiogenic after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This decrease is concomitant with diminishing amounts of the detrital components in the sediments (Fig. 1). Therefore, both the composition of dissolved Sr, as revealed by results on tests of planktonic foraminifera, and the proportions of suspended terrigenous particulate material arriving at the KC 024-19 site point to a decreasing importance of the contribution of the erosion of the Iberian Variscan crust since the Last Glacial Maximum and in the Holocene. The 87Sr/86Sr ratios measured in tests of benthic foraminifera (C. wuellerstorfi) are more erratic and no correlation can be established with palaeogeographical/palaeoclimatic constraints. The difference between the behaviour of Sr compositions in G. bulloides and C. wuellerstorfi may indicate that whilst the planktonic foraminifera should reproduce very closely the seawater composition, the benthic organisms should, in addition to the major role of seawater, also be affected by some sort of interaction with the sediments. As such, planktonic foraminifera are probably more reliable indicators of seawater composition in studies involving very small periods and corresponding very slight variations of the 87Sr/86Sr ratios. Taking into account that G. bulloides is a common planktonic species (living mostly in the first 50m of the water column), whose tests seem to be in equilibrium with sea water composition, variations in its 87Sr/86Sr ratios can be related with changes in the chemical composition of the water of the Atlantic Ocean off NW Iberian Margin. The highest 87Sr/86Sr values are contemporaneous with a period of low sea level (about -140 m; Dias et al., 2000) during the LGM. According to Dias et al. (2000) at 18 ka BP the shoreline was close to the shelf break. The summital parts of the Gerês and Estrela mountains were covered by local glaciers and close to the coast freezing occurred frequently. The river catchments, which extended far to the shelf, received more rainfall due to a longer, compared to present day conditions, wet season, which promoted both physical and chemical weathering. Higher pluviosity combined with the effect of spring ice melting maintained high river discharge and consequently caused very important sediment supply to the coastal zone. The extremely narrow shelf was a very energetic environment due to sea bottom inclination and very limited long wave refraction. Therefore, at that time, a long wet season and very competent rivers should have caused important erosion of the Variscan basement in NW Iberia. Additionally, then, the shoreline was much closer to the KC 024-19 site. The combination of all these factors favoured an important deposition of terrigenous sediments and the local slight enrichment in radiogenic Sr of the seawater. With sea level rise, after the deglaciation and during the Holocene, the river estuaries became progressively far away from the shelf break. Their competence of transport also became progressively reduced and the offshore transport of detrital sediments became progressively lower. Conversely the biogenic carbonate proportion in the sediments increased, due to lower dilution by the terrigenous particles. Simultaneously, the values of 87Sr/86Sr in the seawater at the KC 024-19 site became lower, as a consequence of a complete homogenization with the ocean global composition, which was now more effective with the increasing distance towards shoreline

Explaining growth in African countries – what matters?

In this work we analyze the role of the traditional determinants of economic growth, pointed by the literature, in African countries in the period between 1950 and 2012, using growth regressions. Due to the specificity and the single nature of each one of these countries, methods that take into account observed and unobserved heterogeneity are used. Results highlight the relevance of the growth rate of the capital stock to economic growth in African countries in the short-run, which is significant in all regressions. The growth rate of the government to GDP ratio is also important in all but one of the regressions in which appears, and its growth is harmful for the growth of GDP per capita in the short-run. On the other hand, variables related to the public debt do not present any relationship with economic growth. Human capital has a positive relationship with economic growth in regressions that do not include public debt. The growth rate of real GDP per capita also depends (negatively) on its past value, i.e., the lower the real GDP per capita the higher will be its growth rate.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio