The Impact of Infrastructure on Mexican Manufacturing Growth

This paper analyses the impact of infrastructure on the growth rate of the Mexican manufacturing sector. For such purpose, two measures of infrastructure are used: highways and electricity. Further, we also estimate the degree of returns to scale and the markup. We pooled two digit industries to obtain the estimates of the whole manufacturing sector. For the entire manufacturing sector, our results do not show evidence of increasing returns but the existence of market power cannot be rejected. We find that both types of public infrastructure have a significant effect on manufacturing growth and its inclusion reduces the estimated values of returns to scale and market power. Once we use sectoral data, we obtain mixed results: public infrastructure affects significantly only some sectors.

More class time, better achievement?

Spanish press has widely criticized the fact that students spend almost their whole day at school, a practice rooted in the common belief that higher instruction time enhances students’ learning. However, in spite of this high amount of instruction time that Spanish students are receiving, their results do not seem to outstand in comparison with other countries with similar or lower instruction time. In this context, this research intends to accomplish two main objectives: the first one is to check if the amount of instruction time received by 15 year-old Spanish students actually affects their academic achievement. The second one intends to analyse if this potential influence of instruction time may be affecting Spanish Autonomous Communities in different ways, as each one is responsible for setting instruction time in its own region. In order to accomplish these objectives, the methodology employed let us isolate the effect of instruction time from other covariates by using students’ fixed effects by subject, using PISA 2009 and 2012 data. Results have shown that there is not any effect of instruction time on academic achievement, being this conclusion extended to every Autonomous Community in Spain. Further checks have corroborated the robustness of these results and have also highlighted that the effect of instruction time is a question of quality more than quantity, as students’ engagement and the classroom climate during lessons may be causing differences in academic achievement, rather than the amount of instruction time per se.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Students’ birth date and academic progression

Education laws which impose starting cut-off dates for students to begin compulsory education may be negative for those students who are born just before these cut-offs; this is because these students will be among the youngest in their classroom, while those born just after (the oldest students) will see their academic achievement increased. The current research works on this subject employing census and longitudinal data for the most populated region of Spain (Andalusia), making use of a regression discontinuity methodology. We find that the youngest students in the classroom (due to this school entry cut-off) present lower academic achievement compared to the oldest students, being this effect reduced while students progress in their education. This motivates policy interventions aimed at giving the option to parents to choose whether or not to delay their children’s access to school when the latter are too young.Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. The data used in this research has been provided by Agencia Andaluza de Evaluación Educativa, Consejería de Educación, Junta de Andalucía. This work has been partly supported by the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad under Research Project ECO2017-88883-R; by the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprises (PAI group SEJ-532) and the postdoctoral contract from the Plan Propio signed by the Universidad de Málaga

The teaching crisis in less developed countries

There is a huge concern on the influence of teachers on students’ cognitive learning. However, little is known about the causal impact of teachers’ knowledge on students’ performance. In addition, this effect is likely to change depending on the group of countries and regions under analysis. In the current research, we propose to study this subject for sixth grade teachers and, concretely, for less developed regions. To achieve this aim, we have employed the heterogeneity within-student between-subjects of teachers’ subject knowledge on students’ academic achievement. We have found that, for the countries under analysis, teachers’ subject knowledge does not have a significant influence on students’ academic achievement; many robustness checks have supported this result. This could be indicating that, in these countries, teachers do not have enough knowledge to teach students, what brings some policy implications.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Are early writers and readers more successful than their counterparts?

There exists an increasing number of scientific contributions focused on the influence of the attendance to early childhood and/or preprimary education on the future academic track of the students, which employ the quarter of birth of the student as a proxy for infants’ maturity. The present work goes a step further by employing information on the precise time when children begin to exhibit the basic competences (reading and writing), controlling by the effect of the quarter of birth, for andalusian students aged 10-11 and 14-15. This study uses descriptive analysis as starting point to specify multivariate estimates for the age at which the student began to read and write, together with students’ quarter of birth. Moreover, the effect of these variables on the likelihood of repeating a course has also been analyzed. Results show that the quarter of birth and the age when the student began to read and write affect students’ early academic achievement –primary education– and the likelihood of repeating, but this effect is weakened once non-repeaters reach age 14-15. In addition, students from households where parents have a low level of education present a late start in beginning to read and write and, thus, lower achievement than their older counterparts. This highlights the need to increase the investments in public early education for students living in this kind of families –by increasing the supply of public early education places and scholarships–, so they can develop these competences as soon as possible. This kind of interventions could have a relevant role in fostering higher social mobility.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech; Andalusian Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Employment [PAI group SEJ-532 and Excellence Project SEJ-2727]; the Research Plan of the University of Malaga (Capacity Building Programme I+D+i of Universities 2014-2015) and by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain [Research Project ECO2014-56397-P]

Testing the impact on educational achievement of expectations

Parental and students’ expectations on the educational achievement of the latter have been highlighted in the literature as proper proxies for students’ forthcoming performance and high school track elections. In this research we intend to measure the effect of these expectations on students’ performance accounting for the existence of endogeneity, due to the reciprocal relationship between the expectations of parents and students and their correlation with unobservable variables conditioning students’ achievement. A rich dataset containing information on Andalusian parental and students’ socio-economic characteristics, expectations, parental involvement interactions and academic performance variables is used to conduct the empirical analyses. Our results show that the agreement of parental and students’ expectations presents a positive influence on students’ achievement and the likelihood of selecting a high school track. In addition, parental expectations have been found to be dependent on family socio-economic background, what supports the argument of the persistence in Andalusia of strong barriers to socioeconomic mobility. In the view of these results, we suggest policy interventions as, e.g., fostering the participation of both parents and students on university and professional orientation in early moments of secondary education, so they could have complete and symmetric information to set their expectations on realistic basis.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Is a bad will a weak will? Cognitive dispositions modulate folk attributions of weakness of will

In line with recent efforts to empirically study the folk concept of weakness of will, we examine two issues in this paper: (1) How is weakness of will attribution [WWA] influenced by an agent’s violations of best judgment and/or resolution, and by the moral valence of the agent’s action? (2) Do any of these influences depend on the cognitive dispositions of the judging individual? We implemented a factorial 2x2x2 between–subjects design with judgment violation, resolution violation, and action valence as independent variables, and measured participants’ cognitive dispositions using Frederick’s Cognitive Reflection Test [CRT]. We conclude that intuitive and reflective individuals have two different concepts of weakness of will. The study supports this claim by showing that: a) the WWA of intuitive subjects is influenced by the action’s (and probably also the commitment’s) moral valence, while the WWA of reflective subjects is not; b) judgment violation plays a small role in the WWA of intuitive subjects, while reflective subjects treat resolution violation as the only relevant trait. Data were collected among students at two different universities. All subjects (N=710) answered the CRT. A three-way ANOVA was first conducted on the whole sample and then on the intuitive and reflective groups separately. This study suggests that differences in cognitive dispositions can significantly impact the folk understanding of philosophical concepts, and thus suggests that analysis of folk concepts should take cognitive dispositions into account

La influencia de la educación viva en el desarrollo sostenible: aplicación en la educación básica mexicana

Hacer propuestas de mejora en la educación básica mexicana para orientarla hacia el desarrollo sostenible

Computational methods and parallel strategies in dynamic decision making

Cada uno de estos objetivos han sido tratados en un capítulo independiente de esta tesis. En el segundo capítulo, un modelo de programación estocástica es presentado para un problema práctico de planificación de producción de un producto perecedero en un horizonte de tiempo finito. Una política estática es estudiada para el modelo. Tal política ha demostrado ser óptima asumiendo una estrategia de incertidumbre estática, que es considerada para instancias con un tiempo de espera largo. El tercer capítulo trata el uso de computación paralela para los algoritmos desarrollados en el capítulo previo. Dos implementaciones fueron desarrolladas para plataformas heterogéneas: una versión multi-GPU usando CUDA y una versión multinúcleo usando Pthreads y MPI. Para la primera implementación la simulación de Monte Carlo (la tarea más costosa) es paralelizada. La versión multinúcleo mostró una buena escalabilidad, una vez tratada la carga no balanceada entre los procesadores. El cuarto capítulo trata la efectividad de heurísticas para un problemas de tamaño de lote de productos perecederos similar. La clásica heurística de Silver es extendida para productos perecederos y se presentan variantes del procedimiento: una analítica y una basada en simulación. Los resultados de la heurística son comparados con las soluciones óptimas dadas por un modelo SDP generado para el problema, mostrando que los costes de las heurísticas son se presentan, de media, un 5% sobre el coste óptimo para la estrategia basada en simulación y un 6% para la aproximación analítica. En el quinto capítulo, se presenta un modelo MILP para seleccionar la flota de embarcaciones óptima para el mantenimiento de un parque eólico marino. El modelo se presenta como un problema de dos niveles, seleccionando la flota optima en el primer nivel y optimizando la programación de las operaciones, usando dicha flota, en el segundo. Dado que el modelo es determinístico, como otros en la literatura que aspiran a resolver problemas con un horizonte temporal largo usando periodos cortos, el sexto capítulo trata la cuestión de cómo la anticipación de los eventos estocásticos como los fallos en las turbinas o las condiciones meteorológicas afectan la decisión de la flota de embarcaciones óptima. Este capítulo presenta una heurística que ilustra este efecto.Esta tesis analiza aplicaciones de toma de decisiones dinámica para un conjunto de problemas. Pueden diferenciarse dos líneas principales. La primera trata problemas de gestión de la cadena de suministro para productos perecederos, mientras que la segunda estudia el diseño de flotas de embarcaciones para realizar labores de mantenimiento en parques eólicos marinos. Los modelos de inventario para productos perecederos estudiados en esta tesis consideran un único producto, única localización de suministro y una planificación de producción sobre un horizonte de tiempo finito. El problema de toma de decisiones para programar las operaciones de mantenimiento en parques eólicos marinos es tratado como un problema de cadena de suministro: la instalación requiere programar operaciones de mantenimiento y atender los fallos en turbinas durante el horizonte planificado. Una flota de embarcaciones tiene que ser seleccionada para realizar estas operaciones. Para este conjunto de problemas, las decisiones no son solo dinámicas, sino que además se realizan bajo incertidumbre. Los principales objetivos de esta tesis son los siguientes: (1) estudiar que políticas de pedido son las más apropiadas para los problemas de tamaño de lote? ¿En qué casos una política de pedido da una solución óptima?; (2) analizar el efecto del uso de computación paralela para mejorar el rendimiento de los algoritmos derivados para diseñar políticas para problemas de tamaño de lote de productos perecederos; (3) explorar como de efectivas pueden ser las heurísticas para problemas de toma de decisiones dinámica sobre tamaño de lote de productos perecederos; (4) elaborar un modelo MILP para seleccionar una flota de embarcaciones para realizar las operaciones de mantenimiento en parques eólicos marinos; y (5), diseñar una heurística para programar las operaciones de mantenimiento en parques eólicos marinos considerando fallos en turbinas e incertidumbre meteorológica