PERCEIVED WELFARE EFFECTS OF CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT – EVIDENCE FROM AMERICAN ECONOMY 1967 - 2005

The paper addresses the question, whether the increasing current account deficit has negative impact on American economy and society. Using data for American economy in years 1967 – 2005, it will be shown that perceived welfare effects, as measured by changes in Consumer Confidence, asymmetrically reflect changes in exports and imports. The provided VAR analysis allowed to filter out potential output and cyclical movements in endogenous factors and to describe the remaining error in terms of external trade volatility. Keeping information on exports and imports as external factors allowed to estimate a structure of the model, where the responsiveness of perceived welfare in respect to simulated changes in current account was studied. The provided analysis shows that opening the economy enhanced observed volatility of the Consumer Confidence, while presence of the current account deficit allowed to obtain superior welfare.Current Account, Trade Liberalization

Perceived Welfare Effects of Current Account Deficit - Evidence from American Economy 1967-2005

The paper addresses the question, whether the increasing current account deficit has negative impact on American economy and society. Using data for American economy in years 1967 – 2005, it will be shown that perceived welfare effects, as measured by changes in Consumer Confidence, asymmetrically reflect changes in exports and imports. The provided VAR analysis allowed to filter out potential output and cyclical movements in endogenous factors and to describe the remaining error in terms of external trade volatility. Keeping information on exports and imports as external factors allowed to estimate a structure of the model, where the responsiveness of perceived welfare in respect to simulated changes in current account was studied. The provided analysis shows that opening the economy enhanced observed volatility of the Consumer Confidence, while presence of the current account deficit allowed to obtain superior welfare.Current Account, Trade Liberalization, Welfare

On simple modules over twisted finite category algebras

The purpose of this note is to show that the recent proof, by Ganyushkin, Mazorchuk and Steinberg, of the parametrisation of simple modules over finite semigroup algebras due to Clifford, Munn and Ponizovski˘i carries over to twisted finite category algebras. We observe that the parametrisations of simple modules over Brauer algebras, Temperley-Lieb algebras, and Jones algebras due to Graham and Lehrer, can be obtained as special cases of our main result. We further note that the notion of weights in the context of Alperin’s weight conjecture extends to twisted finite category algebras

Statistical physics, mixtures of distributions, and the EM algorithm

We show that there are strong relationships between approaches to optmization and learning based on statistical physics or mixtures of experts. In particular, the EM algorithm can be interpreted as converging either to a local maximum of the mixtures model or to a saddle point solution to the statistical physics system. An advantage of the statistical physics approach is that it naturally gives rise to a heuristic continuation method, deterministic annealing, for finding good solutions

Gender as Determinant of Employment Opportunities and Risks of Resigning from Services of Labour Office

Celem artykułu jest porównanie szans podjęcia pracy przez kobiety w stosunku do mężczyzn w zależności od wykształcenia i wieku. Ze względu na dużą liczbę osób rezygnujących z pośrednictwa urzędu w poszukiwaniu pracy, analizie poddano również ilorazy ryzyka tej rezygnacji przez kobiety w odniesieniu do mężczyzn w poszczególnych grupach wykształcenia i wieku. Przeprowadzone badanie miało na celu zweryfikowanie hipotezy, że bezrobotne kobiety były bardziej zdeterminowane do podjęcia pracy i częściej niż mężczyźni korzystały z ofert proponowanych przez urząd pracy. Do analizy wykorzystano dane ponad 20 tys. osób bezrobotnych, wyrejestrowanych w 2010 roku z Powiatowego Urzędu Pracy w Szczecinie.The purpose of this paper is to compare women’s odds of employment to those of men’s, depending on their education and age. Since a large number of people have rejected the services of Labour Offices, we also compare the odds ratios of the risk of this decision among women and men, according to education and age. The aim of the study was to verify the hypothesis that unemployed women were more determined to find a job and that they took into consideration their Labour Office offers more often than men. In the analysis we used the data on over 20,000 unemployed people who had deregistered from the Local Labour Office in Szczecin in 2010.Beata Bieszk-Stolorz – [email protected] Markowicz – [email protected] Beata Bieszk-Stolorz – Wydział Nauk Ekonomicznych i Zarządzania, Uniwersytet Szczecińskidr Iwona Markowicz – Wydział Nauk Ekonomicznych i Zarządzania, Uniwersytet Szczeciński6(66)203

A Test of the Signalling Hypothesis - Evidence from Natural Experiment

The paper proposes an alternative methodology for testing signalling hypothesis based on chances to get a job in a particular class of the job market. The individuals are ranked and matched by an external mechanism, based on preferences of employers in respect to actual observable and perceived unobservable attributes of individual. This paper tests existence of a relation between the set of observable and revealed attributes and the outcome of the game, specifically: whether signals associated with attained education plays a significant role in determining chances of the individual to get a job. The proposed model is empirically tested by applying a unique dataset from a natural experiment, conducted in Poland in years 2002-2005, where a relatively large set of job market candidates are offered a chance to get a paid internship at an attractive employer, with considerably great chances of getting a permanent job thereafter. Results support the hypothesis, that in the absence of revealed attributes, employers decisions depend upon signals on education. Whenever information is available, the significance of the signals diminishes.Human Capital, Signal

The Impact Of Previous Job Experience on Employment Odds in Szczecin

The aim of this article is to examine the impact of job experience on the  odds. The studies which have been conducted by the authors so far focus on such determinants of finding a job by the unemployed as: gender, age and education. It has been confirmed that they are the features determining both the employment odds and the time devoted to seeking a job. The authors have presented a thesis that an unemployed person’s professional experience conditions affect the likelihood of their finding employment. Moreover, the odds are not the same in individual subgroups of a given community. The research tool used in the presented analysis is a model of logistic regression which, following the logit transformation, enables the researchers to determine the odds ratio. The odds ratio makes it possible to compare the employment odds of a person who declares previous employment experience with that of a person who has not been employed before. The authors examined the influence of previous job experience on employment odds in a given community as a whole and in individual subgroups divided by gender, age and education. Statistical data were obtained thanks to a long-term cooperation with the Poviat Labour Office in Szczecin. The analysed data covered 19 398 people who unregistered from the Poviat Labour Office in 2009

Kolejowe obiekty infrastruktury usługowej i usługi świadczone na rzecz przewoźników kolejowych w działalności przedsiębiorstw energetycznych

Artykuł ma na celu przybliżenie sytuacji podmiotów funkcjonujących na rynku energetycznym będących właścicielami, zarządzającymi bądź operatorami obiektów infrastruktury usługowej, pojęcia, które pojawiło się wskutek zmian w ustawie o transporcie kolejowym, w związku z implementacją dyrektyw unijnych. Wiele z takich obiektów związanych jest z energetyką, wskutek czego również i te podmioty zostały dotknięte koniecznością dostosowania się do obowiązujących przepisów. Nakładają one pewne obowiązki, z których najistotniejszym jest konieczność udostępniania takiego obiektu. Artykuł przybliża tę problematykę i wskazuje różnice pomiędzy polskim porządkiem prawnym a prawem unijnym oraz wnioski z nich pochodzące. Poruszona zostaje także tematyka uprawnień podatkowych związanych z udostępnianiem obiektów infrastruktury kolejowej, które wchodzą w skład infrastruktury kolejowej

Exploration of Parameter Spaces in a Virtual Observatory

Like every other field of intellectual endeavor, astronomy is being revolutionised by the advances in information technology. There is an ongoing exponential growth in the volume, quality, and complexity of astronomical data sets, mainly through large digital sky surveys and archives. The Virtual Observatory (VO) concept represents a scientific and technological framework needed to cope with this data flood. Systematic exploration of the observable parameter spaces, covered by large digital sky surveys spanning a range of wavelengths, will be one of the primary modes of research with a VO. This is where the truly new discoveries will be made, and new insights be gained about the already known astronomical objects and phenomena. We review some of the methodological challenges posed by the analysis of large and complex data sets expected in the VO-based research. The challenges are driven both by the size and the complexity of the data sets (billions of data vectors in parameter spaces of tens or hundreds of dimensions), by the heterogeneity of the data and measurement errors, including differences in basic survey parameters for the federated data sets (e.g., in the positional accuracy and resolution, wavelength coverage, time baseline, etc.), various selection effects, as well as the intrinsic clustering properties (functional form, topology) of the data distributions in the parameter spaces of observed attributes. Answering these challenges will require substantial collaborative efforts and partnerships between astronomers, computer scientists, and statisticians.Comment: Invited review, 10 pages, Latex file with 4 eps figures, style files included. To appear in Proc. SPIE, v. 4477 (2001

Data-Mining a Large Digital Sky Survey: From the Challenges to the Scientific Results

The analysis and an efficient scientific exploration of the Digital Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (DPOSS) represents a major technical challenge. The input data set consists of 3 Terabytes of pixel information, and contains a few billion sources. We describe some of the specific scientific problems posed by the data, including searches for distant quasars and clusters of galaxies, and the data-mining techniques we are exploring in addressing them. Machine-assisted discovery methods may become essential for the analysis of such multi-Terabyte data sets. New and future approaches involve unsupervised classification and clustering analysis in the Giga-object data space, including various Bayesian techniques. In addition to the searches for known types of objects in this data base, these techniques may also offer the possibility of discovering previously unknown, rare types of astronomical objects.Comment: Invited paper, to appear in Applications of Digital Image Processing XX, ed. A. Tescher, Proc. S.P.I.E. vol. 3164, in press; 10 pages, a self-contained TeX file, and 3 separate postscript figure