6,499 research outputs found
Subjective well-being and basic needs: Evidence from rural Guatemala
This paper deals with basic needs fulfillment interpreted in a subjective way. We develop a framework in which the basic needs of households in developing areas are valued from a subjective point of view. We estimate how certain indicators and assets influence basic needs perception. We compare income and perceived basic needs poverty measures, finding that they mismatch. We conclude that income-based approaches should be complemented with other indicators such as subjective satisfaction measures to understand development and measure poverty.Subjective well-being, basic needs, poverty, Guatemala, Highlands.
Moduli spaces of parabolic -Higgs bundles
Using the -norm of the Higgs field as a Morse function, we count the
number of connected components of the moduli space of parabolic -Higgs
bundles over a Riemann surface with a finite number of marked points, under
certain genericity conditions on the parabolic structure. This space is
homeomorphic to the moduli space of representations of the fundamental group of
the punctured surface in , with fixed compact holonomy classes around
the marked points. We apply our results to the study of representations of the
fundamental group of elliptic surfaces of general type.Comment: 46 pages, no figures. Corrected typos, added remarks. To appear in
"Quarterly Journal of Mathematics
Transitions into permanent employment in Spain : an empirical analysis for young workers
We analyze the Spanish temporary workersâ transitions into permanent employment and to what extent those who become unemployed are able to achieve a permanent job. Our focus is placed on the role of the individualâs sequence of temporary contracts on the probability of moving from temporary into permanent employment. We apply multiplespell duration techniques to a longitudinal dataset of temporary workers obtained from Social Security records for the period 1996-2003. We basically find that even though transitions into permanent employment increase with tenure, temporary jobs do not constitute stepping stones towards permanent employment, since the probability of obtaining a permanent job decreases with repeated temporary jobs. Results also show that individuals with high duration of unemployment flow into permanent work less frequently.
The link between water access and subjective well-being: some methods and proposals.
The study of happiness or subjective well-being has traditionally been studied within the disciplines of psychology or sociology. Although economics has contemplated happiness in research terms, it has only recently been studied in any depth. In this paper we offer several proposals in order to investigate the relationship between water access and happiness, suggesting some situations that would merit further research. Moreover, we have included some methodological notes in order to achieve this objective. This relationship can be useful in two ways. Firstly, it can favour the contemplation of water access as a human right. Secondly, it can serve as a framework for the decision-making process carried out by Governments and NGOs in developing countries.
Coexistence in neutral theories: interplay of criticality and mild local preferences
Neutral theories have played a crucial and revolutionary role in fields such
as population genetics and biogeography. These theories are critical by
definition, in the sense that the overall growth rate of each single
allele/species/type vanishes. Thus each species in a neutral model sits at the
edge between invasion and extinction, allowing for the coexistence of
symmetric/neutral types. However, in finite systems, mono-dominated states are
ineludibly reached in relatively short times owing to demographic fluctuations,
thus leaving us with an unsatisfactory framework to rationalize
empirically-observed long-term coexistence. Here, we scrutinize the effect of
heterogeneity in quasi-neutral theories, in which there can be a local mild
preference for some of the competing species at some sites, even if the overall
species symmetry is maintained. As we show here, mild biases at a small
fraction of locations suffice to induce overall robust and durable species
coexistence, even in regions arbitrarily far apart from the biased locations.
This result stems from the long-range nature of the underlying critical bulk
dynamics and has a number of implications, for example, in conservation ecology
as it suggests that constructing local specific "sanctuaries" for different
competing species can result in global enhancement of biodiversity, even in
regions arbitrarily distant from the protected refuges.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory
and Experimen
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