The effect of social programs and exposure to professionals on the educational aspirations of the poor

Investment in human capital is an important tool for reducing poverty. However, the poor may lack the capacity to aspire, which often results in underinvestment in their children’s education. This paper studies the effect of a social program on the educational aspirations of the poor, and explores the role of exposure to educated professionals as a possible channel for increasing aspirations. First, using differences-in-differences, we show that beneficiary parents of the Mexican antipoverty program PROGRESA have higher educational aspirations for their children of a third of a school year than do non-beneficiary parents. This effect corresponds to a 15% increase in the proportion of parents who aspire for their children to finish college. Then, we exploit the design of the program whose requirements cause its target population to have different levels of mandated exposure to doctors and nurses. Our triple difference estimate shows that, educational aspirations for children from high-exposure households (relative to low- exposure households) in treatment villages (relative to control villages) were a third of a school year higher six months after the start of the program (relative to before its introduction). These results suggest that the change in aspirations is driven by exposure to highly educated professionals.social programs, educational aspirations, poverty, educational aspirations

Futuro de la universidad o universidad del futuro

Pretende este artículo otear cual podría ser el futuro de la universidad tomando como base las principales líneas de evolución que ha ido viviendo sobre todo en las últimas décadas. Aunque se mueve en un plano global, hace especial referencia a los países culturalmente más desarrollados y a la concreta situación de la universidad española. El análisis parte de la evolución operada por los modelos tradicionales, de naturaleza elitista, hasta la actual expansión generalizada de la educación superior, caracterizada sobre todo por la proliferación de modelos institucionales de distinta naturaleza y de objetivos a menudo contrapuestos. Tras referirse de modo particular al Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior y a la situación que en él tiene la universidad española, el artículo aborda la necesidad cada vez mayor de crear un espacio institucional diversificado que, consciente de su papel determinante en la nueva sociedad, incluya también, en cualquier caso, instituciones dirigidas a la formación de élites científicas y culturales, sin las cuales sería imposible edificar la verdadera “sociedad del conocimiento” que se pretende.This paper is oriented to foresee a possible future for the university, taking into account the main lines of development followed by the institutions during the last centuries and more precisely in the last decades. Even if it has been written in a global and international perspective, the paper refers specially to the developed world, with some deeper reference to the Spanish situation. The traditional university models generated in the former industrial revolution are firstly analyzed as elitist models, but opening afterwards the pace to the development of an impressive area of generalized higher education and to the creation of many different institutional styles and models. After a brief reference to the present development of the European Higher Education Area and, within it, to the Spanish concrete situation, the paper points to its main purpose: to show the necessity of implementing a global space of diversified higher education institutions which makes really possible the emergence of a new society. Given the fact that this implementation should open the way to a very “Knowledge society”, the existence of some specific institutions devoted to the promotion of the best cultural and scientific talents is called to be a must

La reciente política universitaria británica en el contexto de la Unión Europea

The reforms on higher education promoted in the UK by the current coalition government, even if they are under intense criticism, seem aimed at progressively been installed in the country, thanks to the tacit agreement between the various political forces and much of the economic and social world. The pages that follow are wondering how these lines could be seconded by reforms in other European countries and to what extent they could be considered compatible with the guidelines set by the Bologna process and, more generally, with a possible unified, or at least harmonic, university policy within the European UnionLas reformas relativas a la enseñanza superior promovidas en el Reino Unido por el actual gobierno de coalición, aunque están siendo objeto de profundas críticas, parecen encaminadas a instalarse progresivamente en el país, gracias al acuerdo tácito existente entre las diversas fuerzas políticas y una buena parte del mundo económico y social. Las páginas que siguen se preguntan hasta qué punto estas líneas de reforma podrían ser secundadas en otros países de Europa y hasta qué punto podrían considerarse compatibles con las líneas marcadas por el Proceso de Bolonia y, más en general, con una posible política universitaria unificada o al menos armónica dentro de la Unión Europe

La escultura románica en el claustro de la catedral de Salamanca

Es evidente que un mejor conocimiento de la escultura románica en la catedral vieja salmantina permitiría comprender mejor la decoración en otros importantes edificios españoles de la segunda mitad del siglo XII. Al respecto existen sólidos estudios realizados por Henri Pradelier y Margarita Ruiz Maldonado. En estas páginas se analizan los abundantes vestigios románicos del claustro salmantino, donde se advierten recuerdos de claro origen occidental: varios capiteles vegetales evocan prototipos vistos en el compostelano Palacio de Gelmírez, en Portomarín y en la portada meridional de San Juan del Mercado de Benavente. Las arpías coronadas y una similar tesitura vegetal refuerzan además la fértil vía zamorana, directamente enlazada con el viejo solar del reino leonés. El canon de determinadas figuras tampoco desentona respecto a las de la portada occidental de San Juan del Mercado de Benavente, coincidiendo además por la presencia de una evocativa despedida del caballero (como en la colegiata de Toro, el claustro de Santillana, San Esteban de Sograndio y San Pedro de Villanueva). Pero para la sala capitular se aprecian otros paralelos en San Salvador de Oña (Burgos), cuya conexión nos resulta verdaderamente enigmática.A better knowledge of romanesque sculpture in Old Cathedral of Salamanca could help understanding, in a proper way, the decoration of other important Spanish buildings of the second half of XIX th Century. In relation to that, there are solid works by Henri Pradelier and Margarita Ruiz Maldonado. Through next pages, the plentiful romanesque rest of the cloister in reference are studied. They show some rememberings to occidental origins: the vegetable capitals remind the prototypes seen in Gelmírez Palace (Santiago de Compostela), Portomarín and in the southern façade of San Juan del Mercado (Benavente). The crowned harpies and a similar vegetable attitude are signs of the strength of Zamora's way, right connected with the lands of the kingdom of León. The canon of some figures, in particular, do match those in the occidental façade of San Juan del Mercado (Benavente), even in the scene representing a going-far knight (same as the one we find in the collegiate of Toro, the cloister of Santillana, San Esteban de Sograndio and San Pedro de Villanueva). The study of the chapter house throws up some other parallelism with San Salvador de Oña (Burgos). A really enigmatic question

Self interest and justice principle

We introduce non-enforceable property rights over bargaining surplus in a dictator game with production, in which the effort of the agents is differentially rewarded. Using experimental data we elicit individual preferences over the egalitarian, the accountability and the libertarian principle and provide evidence to support the inability of these justice principles to account for the observed behavior. Although this finding is consistent with the idea of individuals interpreting justice principles differently, we show that dictators behave self-interested concerning redistribution and choose which justice principle best maximizes their own payoff. We interpret this result as the justice norm imposing a constraint on otherwise self-maximizing agents.dictator game, justice principles, self-interest, self-serving bias.

On the impact of the GOP size in a temporal H.264/AVC-to-SVC transcoder in baseline and main profile

Scalable video coding is a recent extension of the advanced video coding H.264/AVC standard developed jointly by ISO/IEC and ITU-T, which allows adapting the bitstream easily by dropping parts of it named layers. This adaptation makes it possible for a single bitstream to meet the requirements for reliable delivery of video to diverse clients over heterogeneous networks using temporal, spatial or quality scalability, combined or separately. Since the scalable video coding design requires scalability to be provided at the encoder side, existing content cannot benefit from it. Efficient techniques for converting contents without scalability to a scalable format are desirable. In this paper, an approach for temporal scalability transcoding from H.264/AVC to scalable video coding in baseline and main profile is presented and the impact of the GOP size is analyzed. Independently of the GOP size chosen, time savings of around 63 % for baseline profile and 60 % for main profile are achieved while maintaining the coding efficiency