Should quarterly government finance statistics be used for fiscal surveillane in Europe?

We use a newly available dataset of euro area quarterly national accounts fiscal data and construct multi-variate, state-space mixed-frequencies models for the government deficit, revenue and expenditure in order to assess its information content and its potential use for fiscal forecasting and monitoring purposes. The models are estimated with annual and quarterly national accounts fiscal data, but also incorporate monthly information taken from the cash accounts of the governments. The results show the usefulness of our approach for real-time fiscal policy surveillance in Europe, given the current policy framework in which the relevant official figures are expressed in annual terms. JEL Classification: C53, E6, H6Fiscal policies, forecasting, Mixed frequency data, Unobserved Components

Driving Cars by Means of Genetic Algorithms

Proceedings of: 10th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving From Nature, PPSN 2008. Dortmund, Germany, September 13-17, 2008The techniques and the technologies supporting Automatic Vehicle Guidance are an important issue. Automobile manufacturers view automatic driving as a very interesting product with motivating key features which allow improvement of the safety of the car, reducing emission or fuel consumption or optimizing driver comfort during long journeys. Car racing is an active research field where new advances in aerodynamics, consumption and engine power are critical each season. Our proposal is to research how evolutionary computation techniques can help in this field. As a first goal we want to automatically learn to drive, by means of genetic algorithms, optimizing lap times while driving through three different circuits.Publicad

Overreaction and Noise Trading

Treballs Finals del Màster d'Economia, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2016-2017, Tutor: Vicente Royuela MoraThis master thesis examines whether the opening price of a trading session is a result of overreaction generated by the interaction of noise traders. In order to study the overreaction and noise trading, we analyze the price retracement pattern of the Ibovespa futures contract. We also perform an econometric analysis, using probit and logit regressions, to see if and how the extent of price movement, volatility and trading volume affect the price retracement and consequently the overreaction. We find evidence that, the opening price is an inefficient price level result of noise trading. We also find significant effects of our considered explanatory variables: move length affects negatively, while volatility and trading volume have a positive impact on overreaction

What present for plasticity? History and Motor Scheme

Indexación: Revista UNAB.La obra de Catherine Malabou, basada principalmente en la reelaboración filosófica del concepto de plasticidad, ofrece una nueva lectura del tiempo y, puntualmente, de la conciencia histórica. En el siguiente ensayo pretendemos articular un nuevo sentido de la historia a partir del concepto esquema motor, ofrecido por la filósofa, siguiendo la pista de la conformación esquemática epocal del porvenir, y previstas en su noción de ver venir. El esquema motor permite repensar las nuevas prácticas y reflexiones tanto de la filosofía como de la historiografía.The work of Catherine Malabou, based mainly on the philosophical re-elaboration of the concept of ‘plasticity’, offers a new reading of time and, punctually, of the writing of history. In the following essay we intend to articulate a new sense of History from the concept ‘motor scheme’; offered by the philosopher, following the track of the schematic epochal conformation of ‘avenir’, and foreseen in his notion of voir venir. The ‘motor scheme’ allows us to rethink, in this way, the new practices and reflections of Philosophy and of Historiography, properly so.http://revistahumanidades.unab.cl//wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Diego-Perez-%C2%BFQue-actualidad-para-la-plasticidad-Historia-y-esquema-motor.pd

La con-formación de la profesión de maestro en educación infantil

Se presenta la lenta gestación de la profesión de Maestro en Educación Infantil en España, dado que a veces no se exigió formación inicial para ejercer y otras se requirió más estudios que a otros maestros. En el siglo XIX se ponen las bases pedagógicas y metodológicas gracias a la acción de varios filántropos, asociaciones y a la administración que reconoció a la Escuela Normal Central de Párvulos que funcionaba en Madrid (1850) y promocionó la difusión de los métodos de Fröbel (1876). Durante el siglo XX hubo ocho planes de estudio de formación de maestros que no contemplaron la de éstos. Sin embargo, aunque no se reguló la formación inicial, se exigió una formación postgrado a las maestras que estaban en activo, ayudando así indirectamente a la profesionalización. En los años setenta los estudios de magisterio se realizaban en la Universidad y así empezó una mínima especialización inicial (1977), que se incrementó con el plan de estudios de 1991 y terminó siendo una profesión regulada en toda Europa en la actualidad