Budget deficits and U.S. economic growth

This paper explores how the U.S. budget deficit affects U.S. economic growth. Time-series data for the 1973-2004 period is applied to a simultaneous equation model to estimate the various direct and indirect effects of budget deficits on growth. The results indicate that, ceteris paribus, an increase in budget deficits slows growth. However, the “twin†current account deficits, which our model shows tend to accompany budget deficits, increase growth. Hence, the overall relationship between budget deficits and economic growth is ambiguous.economic growth, budget deficits, stationary, simultaneity

The effect of bubbles on developed turbulence

The aim of this work was to investigate the effect of bubbles on turbulent flow. We investigated in turbulent Taylor-Couette flow the effect of turbulent boundary layers on the drag. We showed that this drag can be 30 times higher as compared to the smooth wall case, leading to the conclusion that it is energetically efficient to keep the wall roughness for ships to an absolute minimum. When either one of the two walls is smooth, we observed that the overall behavior of the drag was surprisingly governed by this smooth wall

La ortodoxia económica desalienta el estudio del comportamiento colectivo

Economic thought evolved over the past two centuries to focus on individual behavior as the basis for all economic activity. Some heterodox economists have pointed to the importance of group behavior and the influence of organizations on economic activity, but the neoclassical paradigm, with the rational isolated individual as its main actor, prevails in mainstream economics. This paper presents a “sociology of economics” to explain why the prevailing paradigm of economics does not allow seeing and studying group behavior. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the paper details the habitus, the system of beliefs and the symbolic violence against those who question them. Also, it highlights the support of commercial and financial interests to the dominant culture.El pensamiento económico se centró en el comportamiento individual como base de toda actividad económica. Algunos economistas heterodoxos muestran la importancia del comportamiento del grupo y la influencia de las organizaciones en la actividad económica, pero el paradigma neoclásico es la corriente dominante. Este artículo presenta una “sociología de la economía” para explicar por qué la cultura imperante impide ver y estudiar el comportamiento de grupo. Recurriendo a la obra de Pierre Bourdieu, examina el habitus, el sistema de creencias y la violencia simbólica contra quienes los cuestionan. Y resalta el apoyo de los intereses comerciales y financieros a esta cultura dominante

Hispanic Immigration to the United States

This chapter presents some of the exceptional characteristics of recent Hispanic immigration to the United States. In 2005, there were nearly 40 million Hispanic immigrants and descendants of Hispanic immigrants living in the U.S. The assimilation experience of this large cultural group does not seem to be following the path past immigrants to the U.S. followed. Most third generation Hispanics in the U.S. still find themselves with income and education levels below the U.S. averages. Most forecasts predict that about 60 million Hispanics and Hispanic-Americans will be living in the U.S. by 2030

Stochastic User Equilibrium Traffic Assignment with Price-sensitive Demand: Do Methods matter (much)?

We compare three stochastic user equilibrium traffic assignment models multinomial probit, nested logit, and generalized nested logit), using a congestible transport network. We test the models in two situations: one in which they have theoretically equivalent coefficients, and one in which they are calibrated to have similar traffic flows. In each case, we examine the differences in traffic flows between the SUE models, and use them to evaluate policy decisions, such as profit-maximizing tolling or second-best socially optimal tolling. We then investigate how the optimal tolls, and their performance, depend on the model choice, and hence, how important the differences between models are. We show that the differences between models are small, as a result of the congestibility of the network, and that a better calibration does not always lead to better traffic flow predictions. As the outcomes are so similar, it may be better to use computationally more efficient logit models instead of probit models, in at least some applications, even if the latter is preferable from a conceptual viewpoint

Personal recommender system to advice learning tasks in Moodle

Drachsler, H., Van den Berg, B., Nadolski, R., Berlanga, A., & Hummel, H. (2007). Personal recommender system to advise learning tasks in Moodle. [Software source code and documentation] Available under the three clause BSD licence, Copyright TENCompetence Foundation.The Open University of the Netherlands designed a prototypical Personalised Recommendation System (PRS) and evaluated it in a first experimental field study, attended by around 180 students. The PRS recommends most suitable learning activities to learners, by taking into account their personal profile and the (successful) behavior from other (similar) learners. We used a special kind of collaborative filtering technique, called stereotype filtering, and combined this with an ontology.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org