Project Controls and Management Systems : current practice and how it has changed over the past decade

Project Controls and Management System (PCMS) refers to an ecosystem of processes, tools and personnel required for the proper planning and execution of capital projects throughout the different phases of design, procurement, construction and startup. This can be divided into different focus areas (functions) that would include Estimating, Planning, Scheduling, Cost Control, Change Management, Progressing, and Forecasting. Various trends such as globalization, contractor specialization and information technology developments have impacted the way PCMS are implemented and made it the subject of extensive research over the past years to investigate how to best utilize those trends. Replicating the research methodology used in a 2011 report published by the Construction Research Institute (CII), this work aims to investigate the current status of PCMS implementation and how it has changed over the past decade. It was concluded that while the original PCMS principles are still valid, adoption has drastically changed in terms of efficiency for the majority of the functions. The research also identifies areas of potential concerns and provides recommendations for further improvement.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Trends in job quality in Europe

Using data from the fifth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), this study measures job quality in the 27 countries of the European Union, as well as seven additional countries in Europe that participated in the survey. The intention was to find an objective means of assessing the principle established in a number of EU directives that work should adapt to the workers. Increased understanding of the social costs of poor job quality has focused attention on physical and social environments at work. Prolonged life expectancy and the ageing of the population suggest that jobs will have to be of good quality if more workers are to be persuaded to work longer. The indices constructed for this study do not rely on subjective measurement such as preferences and attitudes, but are built on the self-reported features of jobs that are associated with workers’ well-being

Measuring the Impact of Universal Pre-School Education and Care on Literacy Performance Scores

The objective of this paper is to simulate the effects of universal pre-school education and care (PSEC) on reading performance scores and educational inequalities in the UK and Sweden. We utilize the PISA 2009 data and start by estimating a fixed effects multilevel model for each country in order to determine the returns to PSEC attendance. Then we simulate the effects of universal PSEC provision using counterfactual data. More precisely, after estimating the multilevel model, we progressively universalize PSEC participation starting with the lowest economic, cultural and social status (ESCS) decile and moving up to reach the top decile. At each stage of the universalisation process we compute the average predicted performance scores for each ESCS decile and for each country as well as their dispersions. This allows us to measure the change in average predicted literacy scores and the change in the level of inequality. Our findings show that all social groups benefit from universalizing PSEC with the lowest groups getting the highest additional benefits from universalisation. Further, the international rankings of both Sweden and the UK improve after the universalisation of PSEC. The UK moves 12 positions up the OECD league table and Sweden moves up seven positions. We also find that inequalities in test scores drop until reaching a minimum when the lower seven ESCS deciles are attending PSEC and then starts to increase again. In conclusion, our findings clearly show that universalising PSEC would be an effective policy instrument that boosts educational performances while reducing inequalities in their distribution

Technical Report on Response in the Teacher Survey in MCS 4 (Age 7)

This report assesses the extent of non-response in the teacher survey in the Millennium Cohort Study wave 4

The Rise of Endogeneity in Multilevel Models: a Theoretical Assessment of the Role of Stratification.

This paper studies the role of stratification in the rise of endogeneity bias in multilevel models. The theory is illustrated using educational stratification and its implications on the estimation of multilevel education production functions. Educational stratification results from the functioning of the education market; it transforms a continuum of student characteristics into a continuum of tuition fees. These fees enter students' utility functions and determine the school they attend and its quality. In other words, student characteristics are the major determinants of school quality and the two are correlated. In this paper, I analyze how these correlations arise and what their implications are for multilevel estimation of education production functions. The major problem posed by such correlations is cross-level endogeneity bias. The theory developed in this paper can be extended to any economic phenomenon that exhibits stratification or nesting of smaller units within larger units (employees within firms, residents within neighborhoods, etc.)

The chimera of competitiveness: varieties of capitalism and the economic crisis

In this paper we assess the different definitions and theories of economic competitiveness at the firm and national levels. First we contrast the theories of classical liberal economists with those of the German historical school of national economics, noting the importance of the historical school for theories of national economic competitiveness. Drawing on the comparative political economy literature on ‘varieties of capitalism’, we hen discuss the factors underlying competitiveness in social market economies, social democratic economies, and liberal economies. These models f capitalism are compared under six headings: labour markets and labour market institutions; financial markets; corporate funding and governance; inter-firm relations; the role of the state; and economic culture and history. In the penultimate section of the paper we discuss how the different odels of capitalism have responded to the economic crisis and the impact of the crisis on their economic competitiveness. The paper concludes with a summary of the key points to emerge from the analysis and looks to how the scene may evolve as national economies begin to adapt

Millennium Cohort Study: Technical report on response in sweep 5 (age 11)

Report on response and the construction of attrition weights in MCS sweep 5

Handling attrition and non-response in the 1970 British Cohort Study

The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) is a continuing multi-purpose, multidisciplinary longitudinal study based on a sample of over 17,000 babies born in England, Wales and Scotland in 1970. The study has collected detailed information from the cohort members on various aspects of their lives, including their family circumstances at birth, education, employment, housing and partnership histories. There have been nine sweeps of data collection so far: at birth and at ages 5, 10, 16, 26, 30, 34, 38 and most recently age 42 (2012). This paper studies the extent of attrition in BCS70 and how it affects sample composition over time. We examine the determinants of response then construct inverse probability weights. In the last section, we use a simulation study to illustrate the effectiveness of weights and imputations in dealing with unit non-response and item missingness respectively. Our findings show that when the predictive power of the response models is weak, the efficacy of non-response weights is undermined. Further, multiple imputations are effective in reducing the bias resulting from item missingness when the magnitude of the bias is high and the imputation models are well specified