Weights in multidimensional indices of well-being: an overview

Multidimensional indices are becoming increasingly important instruments to assess the well-being of societies. They move beyond the focus on a single indicator and yet, are easy to present and communicate. A crucial step in the construction of a multidimensional index of well-being is the selection of the relative weights for the different dimensions. The aim of this paper is to study the role of these weights and to critically survey eight different approaches to set them. We categorize the approaches in three classes: data-driven, normative and hybrid weighting, and compare their respective advantages and drawbacks.composite indicator, multidimensional well-being index, weights.

Measuring inequality of well-being with a correlation-sensitive multidimensional Gini index

We propose to measure inequality of well-being with a multidimensional generalization of the Gini coefficient. We derive two inequality indices from their underlying social evaluation functions. These functions are conceived as a double aggregation functions: one across the dimensions of well-being, and another across the individuals. They differ only with respect to the sequencing of aggregations. We argue that the sequencing that does not exclude the Gini index to be sensitive to the correlation between the dimensions is more attractive. We illustrate both Gini indices using Russian household data on three dimensions of well-being: expenditure, health and education.multidimensional inequality, single parameter Gini index, correlation increasing majorization, Russia.

Mejorar los procedimientos de control interno para el área de nómina del Centro Médico Imbanaco de Cali S.A.

Dentro de las compañías existe una gran necesidad de contar con adecuados sistemas de control interno e información financiera para una efectiva toma de decisiones y así poder salvaguardar los recursos y verificar la eficiencia de las operaciones. Para lograr este objetivo deben implementar mejoras que permitan llevar a cabo dicho objetivo. El control interno es una función de control, de consulta y de gestión con la misión de vigilar y mantener un adecuado sistema de control interno y prevenir futuros riesgos. Como consecuencia del constante desarrollo que tiene el Centro Médico Imbanaco de Cali, requiere para su área de nómina que se mejoren procedimientos de control interno, con el fin de mitigar los riesgos y reducir los posibles fraudes, asegurándose de aplicar de manera correcta las normas contables y evaluación en la eficacia en otros controles. Para llevar a cabo este proyecto y lograr mejorar los procedimientos de control interno en el área de nómina, se realizaron distintas exploraciones, inicialmente académicas con las cuales se busca conocer que tanto se ha estudiado sobre el tema de interés, de igual forma se investiga la empresa para la que se quiere mejorar los controles, obteniendo tanto información verbal por medio de entrevistas a empleados del área, como información documentada que apoye y respalde estas entrevistas

Effects of Food Prices on Poverty: The Case of Paraguay, a Food Exporter and a Non-Fully Urbanized Country

A vast proportion of households in developing countries like Paraguay are both consumers and producers of food, and thus the effects of food price fluctuations on welfare are not obvious. Historically, the agricultural sector in Paraguay has played a key role in economic development and has contributed significantly, and increasingly, to economic growth. In recent years, sharp movements in commodity prices have been added to the inherent volatility of the sector linked to climate conditions. In this work, we use the 2011/12 expenditure and income survey, as well as monthly price data for 127 food items for the period 2007/15, to simulate the effect of a potential hike in food prices on welfare. Our main results suggest that the expenditure effect is negative and regressive everywhere, but larger in rural than urban areas. The income effect is positive and progressive in rural areas and negligible in urban ones. Therefore, we find that the potential overall impact of an unexpected increase in food prices in Paraguay is a very flat U-shaped curve. We conclude with a simple exercise where we simulate a policy response in order to help those affected by the initial increase in food prices.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Distributional effects of reducing energy subsidies: evidence from recent policy reform in Argentina

We analyze the distributional effects of the reduction in energy subsidies in Argentina since 2016. As the policy reform also includes the introduction of a scheme to protect less well-off families (social tariff), we also review how well the targeting mechanism works. We apply traditional benefit-incidence analysis using household surveys and administrative data, focusing on residential subsidies to natural gas and electricity in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. We find that the social tariff is relatively pro-poor, with significantly higher coverage among the poorest households. There are some exclusion errors in the low-income deciles and large inclusion errors in the medium- and high-income deciles. The distributive incidence of subsidies does not appear to have changed substantially. Energy subsidies in Argentina (lower in aggregate terms) continue to be, although progressive, pro-rich. The distributional effect is explained by the fact that generalized subsidies to all categories of consumption coexist with a relatively well targeted social tariff. Regarding energy budget shares, monthly spending on electricity has increased from 1.1 percent of total household income to 3.4 percent. Monthly spending on piped gas rose from 1.3 percent to 3.3 percent. These shares are in line with many other countries in the region. Naturally, there has been a convergence of tariffs toward service provision costs.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociale

Effects of Food Prices on Poverty: The Case of Paraguay, a Food Exporter and a Non-Fully Urbanized Country

A vast proportion of households in developing countries like Paraguay are both consumers and producers of food, and thus the effects of food price fluctuations on welfare are not obvious. Historically, the agricultural sector in Paraguay has played a key role in economic development and has contributed significantly, and increasingly, to economic growth. In recent years, sharp movements in commodity prices have been added to the inherent volatility of the sector linked to climate conditions. In this work, we use the 2011/12 expenditure and income survey, as well as monthly price data for 127 food items for the period 2007/15, to simulate the effect of a potential hike in food prices on welfare. Our main results suggest that the expenditure effect is negative and regressive everywhere, but larger in rural than urban areas. The income effect is positive and progressive in rural areas and negligible in urban ones. Therefore, we find that the potential overall impact of an unexpected increase in food prices in Paraguay is a very flat U-shaped curve. We conclude with a simple exercise where we simulate a policy response in order to help those affected by the initial increase in food prices.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Income and beyond: multidimensional poverty in six Latin American countries

This paper presents empirical results ofa wide range of multidimensional poverty measures for: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Mexico and Uruguay, for the period 1992-2006. Sixdimensions are analysed:income, childattendance at school, education of the household head, sanitation, water and shelter. Over the study period, El Salvador, Brazil, Mexico and Chile experienced significant reductions of multidimensional poverty. In contrast, in urban Uruguay there was a small reduction in multidimensional poverty, while in urbanArgentina the estimates did not change significantly. El Salvador, Brazil and Mexico together with rural areas of Chile display significantly higher and more simultaneous deprivations than urban areas of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. In all countries, access to proper sanitation and education of the household head are the highest contributors to overall multidimensional poverty.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS

Contratación económica y Derecho penal: una frágil línea en el escenario económico actual

El artículo analiza las relaciones existentes entre los procesos de contratación económica y el Derecho penal. Es el producto de una investigación doctoral. En la misma se valoran algunas de las características de los procesos de negociación de contratos económicos y cómo puede surgir una relación jurídico penal. Entre los elementos fundamentales para determinar la presencia de ilícitos penales está la determinación del tipo de dolo y la existencia o no del llamado riesgo permitido. Se realizan algunas valoraciones pertenecientes a la dogmática penal y al Derecho de contratos. Entre los aspectos que se analizan está la búsqueda de argumentos doctrinales para la solución de conflictos mediante vías distintas al Derecho penal. Resulta necesario que esta materia sea realmente un Derecho de última ratio

Determinación de la enfermedad residual mínima como factor pronostico para la estratificación de riesgo en las leucemias linfoblasticas infantiles.

El objetivo general del trabajo fue estudiar de la Enfermedad Residual Mínima como factor pronostico en las leucemias Infantiles agudas para una correcta estratificación de pacientes en grupos de riesgo que permitan adecuar el tratamiento y lograr a si una mejor sobrevida del paciente.CONACYT - Consejo Nacional de Ciencias y TecnologíaPROCIENCI

The Incidence of Subsidies to Residential Public Services in Argentina: The Subsidy System in 2014 and Some Alternatives

More than a decade of energy and transport subsidies have weakened Argentina’s fiscal capacity. Following the 2001 crisis, public services tariffs were frozen in an attempt to offset the negative effects on households’ real purchasing power. However, these subsidies steadily increased over the years, particularly since 2006, becoming a significant fiscal burden.2 Though subsidies can be a tool to protect the poor, in Argentina they led to distortions and a large share have been absorbed by upper classes and non-residential consumers. In 2015, electricity bills reflected less than 10% of production costs (Bidegaray, 2015), and lower tariffs have led to an increased demand of public services. Not only have energy and transport subsidies distorted both demand and supply, they have also not been efficiently targeted to the poor; instead, they have been distributed across all income groups, with the non-poor receiving the largest shares (Castro and Barafani, 2015; Lombardi et al., 2014; Marchionni et al., 2008; Navajas, 2015; Puig and Salinardi, 2015). For a recent discussion of the distortionary aspects of subsidies in Argentina, see Coppola et al. (2016). This report starts by analyzing the incidence of the 2014 system of residential federal subsidies to residential public services (defined as electricity, gas, water and transport) building on the work by Puig and Salinardi (2015).3 Figure 1 is a summary of the main results that will be explained in more detail in Section II. The left panel of Figure 1 shows the share of each subsidy going to the various quintiles of the income distribution. The public subsidies are in decreasing order of the share received by the poorest quintile which we have used here to describe targeting. It is clear that the subsidies to trains, piped gas and airlines benefit the richer segments disproportionally more. Electricity appears relatively neutral which still means that it could be targeted better. Programa Hogar is included in our incidence analysis, even if it was not introduced until 2015, since it will be used for the baseline of the simulation.Centro de Estudios Distributivos, Laborales y Sociales (CEDLAS