The Role of Frictions on Academic Recruitment System

In a matching model of the academic labour market, with high-skilled (brain) and low-skilled (local) workers, this paper shows that brain workers are harmed by the local. This depends on two types of search frictions: information and cooptation frictions. Search frictions reduce the probability to get an academic job for brain workers compared to the local. A high level of cooptation discards the brain workers but, under certain conditions, the absence of cooptation does not decreases the possibility to get an academic job for the local workers. Whithin this framework, some explanations about the low probability to catch the brains and the obstacles for a e ective equal opportunity between local and outside candidates are discussed.academic labour market; search frictions; cooptation; recruitment system.

Simulating the enforcement policies for irregular sector in the Italian labour reform

In this paper an agent-based model (abm) will be used to study the effects of enforcement policy in Italy: d.lgs. 124/2004. Three kinds of policy will be tested in the model: control, sanction and legitimacy-regulation. The first policy is based on the number of inspectors present in the economy; the second is defined by the magnitude of punishment; the third is measured by the social legitimacy of regulation. This simulation has produced a number of results, the most important of which are: the negligible influence of control increasing to enforce irregularity; the strong influence of the level of punishment on the irregularity ratio in all Italian areas; the good political choice to increase the social legitimacy to regulation in promoting regularity.enforcement policies; irregular sector; agent-based model

The Underground Labor Market between Social Norms and Economic Inventives

– This paper examines the phenomenon of the underground economy. We analyze the choice by firms and workers to carry out their economic activities within the formal economy context (regular economy) or the underground economy context (irregular economy). We assume that there are two types of labor markets, a regular one, and a irregular one; and starting from a coordinated interaction between the firm and the worker we show the existence of multiple symmetric equilibria in each market. The proposed game of coordination (2x2), can be interpreted as a pre-contract interaction between the agents through which they determine in which labor market they will “meet”. In the model, we insert an exogenous policy parameter (t) that measures the impact of legislative policy interventions on the regular labor market. The parameter takes on a positive value with respect to those interventions that increase the incentives to operate in the regular market. Through the utilization of evolutionary dynamics we can explicate the mechanism that leads the system towards one of the two equilibria, and explain the fact that these equilibria are sustained among the different populations (firms and workers) by taking on the role of a social norm. In this framework, we show that policy interventions (t) do not alter the choice dynamics of each actor, nor do they eliminate the probability of having certain dynamics that push the system towards the underground market, even where there are strong incentives for acting in the regular economy.Underground Labor Market, Social Norms, Evolutionary Games, Policy Incentives

Semi-Lagrangian methods for parabolic problems in divergence form

Semi-Lagrangian methods have traditionally been developed in the framework of hyperbolic equations, but several extensions of the Semi-Lagrangian approach to diffusion and advection--diffusion problems have been proposed recently. These extensions are mostly based on probabilistic arguments and share the common feature of treating second-order operators in trace form, which makes them unsuitable for mass conservative models like the classical formulations of turbulent diffusion employed in computational fluid dynamics. We propose here some basic ideas for treating second-order operators in divergence form. A general framework for constructing consistent schemes in one space dimension is presented, and a specific case of nonconservative discretization is discussed in detail and analysed. Finally, an extension to (possibly nonlinear) problems in an arbitrary number of dimensions is proposed. Although the resulting discretization approach is only of first order in time, numerical results in a number of test cases highlight the advantages of these methods for applications to computational fluid dynamics and their superiority over to more standard low order time discretization approaches

Flux form Semi-Lagrangian methods for parabolic problems

A semi-Lagrangian method for parabolic problems is proposed, that extends previous work by the authors to achieve a fully conservative, flux-form discretization of linear and nonlinear diffusion equations. A basic consistency and convergence analysis are proposed. Numerical examples validate the proposed method and display its potential for consistent semi-Lagrangian discretization of advection--diffusion and nonlinear parabolic problems

Testing the anxiety reduction function of grooming interactions in wild Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus)

Together with its hygienic and social function, grooming is thought to reduce anxiety. However, empirical evidence on the anxiety-reduction function of grooming is scarce. We collected 10-minute focal data on the donor and recipient of grooming using the post-grooming / matchedcontrol (PG-MC) method. In these PGs and MCs sessions, we recorded the occurrence of selfdirected behaviours (i.e. scratching and self-grooming), which are behavioural indicators of anxiety. We found mixed evidence of the relationship between anxiety and grooming interactions. The link between grooming and anxiety may be more complex than originally thought

An adaptive evolutionary behaviour for the demand-led growth adjustment

Investment activity produces effects on two different economic variables. On the one hand, it adds to the existing productive capacity, on the other, it represents a component of demand. What is required for demand may not be required for accumulation, and viceversa. As a consequence different adjustment mechanisms have been put forward in the economic literature to make the two aspects of investment compatible to each other. In all cases, a distinction has been made between the fundamentally macroeconomic nature of the demand aspect, and the fundamentally microeconomic nature of the capacity-augmenting aspect. This paper tries to discuss the foundations of a non-perverse adjustment mechanism based on the internalisation of the demand aspect of investment. The adjustment mechanism discussed earlier is based on investment reacting to positive or negative excess aggregate demand. Once it is shown that a collectively efficient equilibrium can be reached even on an entirely arbitrary basis, one may set out to show that a behaviour which gets selected in a small population can be easily extended to a large one.Investment; demand; capacity-aumenting; coordination rule; evolutionary analysis