On the Latin American Growth Paradox: A Hindsight into the Golden Age

In 1950, Latin American countries capabilities were promising, and the subcontinent was thought to have a big potential for convergence. In order to understand why this prediction was not fullled, we apply in this paper the framework set by Fagerberg and Srholec (2008). Our study of the economic evolution of Latin America during the Golden Age (1950-1975) is based on historical data on economic, political and social variables from 18 countries. We use a factor analysis to classify our 20 indicators into ve dimensions: the level of "industrialization", "human capital", the "macroeconomic fundamentals", "politics" and "religion". We nd that only the quality of human capital and the presence of Roman Catholics signicantly and positively aected Latin American economic growth in this period, while the determinants traditionally put forward in the empirical growth literature, such as technical change and openness, did not. Finally, the positive correlation between the religion and education variables reveals that this result is partly related to the role of the Catholic Church as an educational institution.Growth; Development; Convergence; Factor Analysis; Latin America;Economic History; Golden Age.

SIGNALLING THROUGH JOINT-LIABILITY: AN ADVERSE SELECTION MODEL

Joint-liability is maybe the most distinctive feature of microfinance contracts in developing countries. Yet, very little evidence exists on the impact of joint-liability contracts as compared to indi- vidual lending contracts. On the one hand, theory claims that joint-liability plays a key role in mitigating agency problems and thus enhancing repayment rates, especially when borrowers lack collateral. On the other, experimental evidence has shown mixed, sometimes contradictory results, highlighting major pitfalls like harsh social sanctions and peer pressure. We contribute to the debate on the relative merits (and weaknesses) of joint-liability by showing that, under certain conditions, joint-liability may not be able to solve adverse selection problems. We build a model in which a risk-neutral lender offers both individually and jointly-liable contracts, but has limited funds and limited knowledge about borrowers’ quality. In this case, joint-repayments can be used as a signalling device of borrowers’ type. Our model shows that if the lender allows for competition among borrowers, risky borrowers may have an incentive to reveal a higher joint-repayment level than safe borrowers. In other words, joint-liability may increase adverse selection. We test our predictions in a small experimental environment

Foreign banks as shock absorbers in the financial crisis? National Bank of Belgium Working Paper No. 322

This paper finds that foreign banks can act as a buffer against negative credit supply shocks, in contexts where the domestic credit market is heavily hit by a country-specific adverse shock. A new dataset is constructed, which combines Belgian Credit Register data with firms and banks’ balance sheets. After 2008, Belgian firms borrowing from domestic banks experienced a stronger credit contraction (minus 1.8 percentage points) than firms borrowing from foreign banks. Also, foreign banks “cherry-picked” new relationships with more profitable firms to a higher extent during the crisis, and turned down existing relationships more frequently than domestic banks. Results from this paper suggest that foreign banks can mitigate negative financial shocks in countries where domestic financial intermediaries unexpectedly experienced the consequences of the financial crisis to a higher extent

Medical management of hereditary optic neuropathies.

Hereditary optic neuropathies are diseases affecting the optic nerve. The most common are mitochondrial hereditary optic neuropathies, i.e., the maternally inherited Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) and dominant optic atrophy (DOA). They both share a mitochondrial pathogenesis that leads to the selective loss of retinal ganglion cells and axons, in particular of the papillo-macular bundle. Typically, LHON is characterized by an acute/subacute loss of central vision associated with impairment of color vision and swelling of retinal nerve fibers followed by optic atrophy. DOA, instead, is characterized by a childhood-onset and slowly progressive loss of central vision, worsening over the years, leading to optic atrophy. The diagnostic workup includes neuro-ophthalmologic evaluation and genetic testing of the three most common mitochondrial DNA mutations affecting complex I (11778/ND4, 3460/ND1, and 14484/ND6) for LHON and sequencing of the nuclear gene OPA1 for DOA. Therapeutic strategies are still limited including agents that bypass the complex I defect and exert an antioxidant effect (idebenone). Further strategies are aimed at stimulating compensatory mitochondrial biogenesis. Gene therapy is also a promising avenue that still needs to be validated

Ce que la professionnalisation de la politique fait aux militants: Les permanents socialistes : militants professionnels ou salariés encartés ?

International audienceLes permanents du PS ont subi au cours de la dernière décennie une normalisation de leur situation professionnelle imposée par les lois sur le financement de la vie politique. La réorganisation de leur travail s'est traduite par la dépolitisation progressive de leur activité et finalement par la bureaucratisation de leur « métier ». A partir d'une enquête à la fois ethnographique et archivistique sur le siège du PS, les auteurs montrent comment l'identité professionnelle des permanents socialistes est peu à peu devenue inconciliable à leur identité militante, faisant passer ceux-ci d'un rôle de militants professionnels à une position inconfortable de salariés encartés

Towards Distributed Accommodation of Covert Attacks in Interconnected Systems

The problem of mitigating maliciously injected signals in interconnected systems is dealt with in this paper. We consider the class of covert attacks, as they are stealthy and cannot be detected by conventional means in centralized settings. Distributed architectures can be leveraged for revealing such stealthy attacks by exploiting communication and local model knowledge. We show how such detection schemes can be improved to estimate the action of an attacker and we propose an accommodation scheme in order to mitigate or neutralize abnormal behavior of a system under attack

Distance learning courses in engineering in the EU-27

The European Union is facing a scarcity of skilled professionals in the field of nuclear energy, especially at the higher educational levels. This is mainly due to the worldwide reduction in public acceptance of everything nuclear in the aftermath of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, occurred in 1979 and 1986 respectively. These accidents have led to a decreased interest in nuclear education and thus to a “generational gap”, where the skilled nuclear workforce is on the verge of retirement or has already retired, and the new generation of nuclear workers does not have the numbers to cover the needs of the industry. The present report, commissioned by the CAPTURE Action of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, has the aim of complementing other European initiatives in the field of nuclear Education & Training by analyzing the availability of eLearning courses in nuclear and nuclear-related fields across the EU-27. This report gives an overview of the eLearning tools and frameworks available on the market and analyzes the main types of eLearning. A list of the eLearning courses offered by Universities in Europe is presented, along with contact details and websites (situation as of the15th of April 2013). An electronic version of the list of courses will be published on the CAPTURE website (http://capture.jrc.ec.europa.eu/), and it will be updated every six months.JRC.F.4-Nuclear Reactor Integrity Assessment and Knowledge Managemen

Gonadotropin Cell Transduction Mechanisms

The intention of this Special Edition was to collect review and original research articles that illustrate and stimulate the growing efforts to highlight the mechanisms of action of gonadotropins, as well as deepen our understanding of their biological roles in health and disease, aiming at revealing novel therapeutic opportunities in reproductive and regenerative medicine [...]