An "almost" full embedding of the category of graphs into the category of groups

We construct a functor from the category of graphs to the category of groups which is faithful and "almost" full, in the sense that it induces bijections of the Hom sets up to trivial homomorphisms and conjugation in the category of groups. We provide several applications of this construction to localizations (i.e. idempotent functors) in the category of groups and the homotopy category.Comment: 24 pages; to appear in Adv. Math

A Neural, Interactive-predictive System for Multimodal Sequence to Sequence Tasks

We present a demonstration of a neural interactive-predictive system for tackling multimodal sequence to sequence tasks. The system generates text predictions to different sequence to sequence tasks: machine translation, image and video captioning. These predictions are revised by a human agent, who introduces corrections in the form of characters. The system reacts to each correction, providing alternative hypotheses, compelling with the feedback provided by the user. The final objective is to reduce the human effort required during this correction process. This system is implemented following a client-server architecture. For accessing the system, we developed a website, which communicates with the neural model, hosted in a local server. From this website, the different tasks can be tackled following the interactive-predictive framework. We open-source all the code developed for building this system. The demonstration in hosted in http://casmacat.prhlt.upv.es/interactive-seq2seq.Comment: ACL 2019 - System demonstration

Trade and wages in Uruguay in the 1990’s

The main facts of the Uruguayan labour market along the nineties may be summarized in three main phenomena: increase in wage inequality with an increase of the skill wage premium and changes in the inter-industrial wage structure; destruction of unskilled jobs, associated to trade openness and changes in the productive specialization that implied technical change biased to the employment of workers with higher skill; decrease of the role of unions in wage negotiation. This paper attempts an empirical strategy to evaluate the impact of increased trade openness in the industry wage premiums and in the skill wage premiums, combining micro and macro data. We find a link between trade openness and both industry and wage premiums in the 1990’s in Uruguay: in a given industry, reduced protection implied an increase in the skill premium and a lower industry relative wage

Protection, Openness and Factor Adjustment: Evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

Using a panel of Uruguayan manufacturing firms we analyze the adjustment process in capital, blue collar and white collar employment. Our results confirm the lumpy nature of factor adjustment, the relevance of nonlinearities and the interdependence between factor shortages. The average annual estimated output gap due to adjustment cost for1982-1995 was 2%. Trade openness affected the adjustment functions of all three factors. Highly protected sectors adjust less when creating jobs (reducing labor shortages) than sectors with low protection. This may be due to fears of policy reversal in highly protected sectors. Also, highly protected sectors adjust more easily (than low protection sectors) when destroying jobs (reducing labor surpluses), especially in the case of blue collar labor. This suggests that trade protection may in fact destroy rather than create jobs within industries, as firms in highly protected sectors are more reluctant to hire and more ready to fire than firms in sectors with low protection. The results for capital are qualitatively similar but quantitatively smaller. Overall the impact of higher international exposure is larger for blue collar workers than white collar workers.Adjustment costs, Adjustment functions, Openness

Protection, openness, and factor adjustment : evidence from the manufacturing sector in Uruguay

The authors use a panel of manufacturing firms to analyze the adjustment process in capital blue collar and white collar employment in Uruguay during a period of trade liberalization when average tariff protection fell from 43 to 14 percent. They calculate the desired factor levels arising from a counterfactual profit maximization in the absence of adjustment costs, generating a measure of factor shortages or surpluses. The average estimated output gap for 1982-95 is 2 percent. The authors'policy analysis shows that trade openness affected the adjustment functions of all three factors of production.Highly protected sectors adjust less when creating jobs (reducing labor shortages) than sectors with low protection. This may be due to fears of policy reversal in highly protected sectors. Also, highly protected sectors adjust more easily (than low protection sectors) when destroying jobs (reducing labor surpluses), especially in the case of blue collar labor. This suggests that trade protection may in fact destroy rather than create jobs within industries, as firms in highly protected sectors are more reluctant to hire and more ready to fire than firms in sectors with low protection. The results for capital are qualitatively similar but quantitatively smaller, suggesting that trade protection plays less of a role in explaining adjustment costs for capital. Interestingly, export-oriented sectors have lower adjustment costs for blue collar labor but not for white collar employment or capital, suggesting that export-led growth may be particularly successful in reducing blue collar unemployment.Economic Theory&Research,Labor Markets,Free Trade,Economic Growth,Educational Sciences

Multiple job holding: the artist’s labor supply approach

This paper analyzes a labor supply model in which individuals maximize a utility function that depends on leisure time, consumption and time devoted to an activity that is termed “artistic”. This activity may generate income that depends non linearly on hours dedicated to it. The individual can also work in the labor market (an activity that does not increase utility by itself) in exchange for an hourly wage, and obtain income not related to hours. Conditions are obtained that sort individuals in two groups, part time and full time artists, deriving their labor supply functions in both activities. The predictions of the model are tested empirically using a sample of musicians from a Uruguayan performing rights society.Labor supply, time allocation, artist’s labor supply, cultural economics