Trade, extent of the market and economic growth 1960-1996

We find that trade and domestic market size are robust determinants of economic growth over the 1960-1996 period when trade openness is measured as the US dollar value of imports and exports relative to GDP in PPP US$('real openness'). When trade openness is measured as the US dollar value of imports and exports relative to GDP in exchange rate US$ ('nominal openness') however, trade and the size of domestic markets are often non-robust determinants of growth. We argue that real openness is the more appropriate measure of trade and that our empirical results should be seen as evidence in favor of the extent-of-the-market hypothesis.Extent of the market, institutions, growth

Output composition and the US output volatility decline

We argue that the role played by output-composition changes on the decline in US output volatility has been incorrectly assessed in the recent literature. We obtain that shifts across broad sectors in the economy account for about thirty-percent of the volatility decline since the 1950’s.volatility, business fluctuations

Trade and productivity

We estimate the effect of international trade on average labor productivity at the country level. Our empirical approach relies on summary measures of trade that, we argue, are preferable on both theoretical and empirical grounds to the one conventionally used. In contrast to the marginally significant and non-robust effects of trade on productivity found previously, our estimates are highly significant and robust even when we include institutional quality and geographic factors in the empirical analysis. We also examine the channels through which trade and institutional quality affect average labor productivity. Our finding is that trade works through labor efficiency, while institutional quality works through physical and human capital accumulation. We conclude with an exploratory analysis of the role of trade policies for average labor productivity.Trade, productivity, institutions trade policy

Copying, Superstars, and Artistic Creation

We provide a new perspective on the impact of unauthorized copying and copy levies on artistic creation. Our analysis emphasizes three important aspects of artistic markets: the predominance of superstars, the dynamics of talent sorting, and the importance of promotion expenditures. In the short run, piracy reduces superstars’ earnings and market share, and increases the number of niche and young artists. From a dynamic perspective, piracy may help more young artists start their careers, thereby increasing the number of highly talented artists in the long run. The long run impact on artistic creation of levies on copy equipment may crucially depend on whether their yields primarily accrue to superstars or are allocated to help young artists.artistic creation, superstars, private copy, piracy, levies

Of the Processes of Subjectivation as a Subspecies of the Event: the Deleuzian Reading of the Later Foucault

CASTELLANO: La separación, tanto teórica como personal, que tuvo lugar entre Gilles Deleuze y Michel Foucault a partir de la publicación de La voluntad de saber es bien conocida. Deleuze considera que La voluntad de saber constituye un nuevo avance con respecto a Vigilar y Castigar, en la medida en que otorga a los dispositivos de poder una función netamente más ambiciosa: la vieja función normalizadora a través de la formación de los saberes es relevada por una función constitutiva, y constitutiva nada menos que de “verdad”, de una «verdad del poder». El principal problema que plantea esta nueva función atribuida por Foucault a los dispositivos de poder, constituir una suerte de verdad, es el del estatus de los fenómenos de resistencia. Luego Deleuze disiente de esta nueva función, porque considera que tal aproximación niega un estatus propio a los fenómenos de resistencia, haciendo de toda verdad «una verdad del poder». El presente artículo pretende estudiar en detalle esta separación teórica que tuvo lugar entre Deleuze y Foucault después de la publicación de La voluntad de saber: primero, desde la confrontación de los conceptos de dispositivo y agenciamiento que la suscitó; segundo, desde la interpretación deleuzeana del tema foucaultiano de los procesos de subjetivación como una subespecie del acontecimiento, que finalmente la resuelve. *** INGLÉS: In his article, “On the Processes of Subjectivation as a Subspecies of the Event: the Deleuzian Reading of the Later Foucault” Francisco Alcala discusses the well-known theoretical separation that occurred between Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault after the publication of The Will to Knowledge. Deleuze disagreed with the new function that Foucault attributed in this book to the apparatuses of power (to be constitutive of truth) because he considered that such an approach denied an inherent status to the phenomena of resistance, making all reality a truth of power. The aim of this paper is to analyze this controversy: first, from the confrontation of the concepts of apparatus and assemblage that made it appear; secondly, from the Deleuzian interpretation of the Foucaultian topic of the processes of subjectivation as a subspecies of the event, which finally resolves it.Proyecto de I+D+I del Minero "Procesos de subjetivación: biopolítica y política de la literatura. La herencia del último M. Foucault"(FFI2015-64217-P

Genetic learning of accurate and compact fuzzy rule based systems based on the 2-tuples linguistic representation

One of the problems that focus the research in the linguistic fuzzy modeling area is the trade-off between interpretability and accuracy. To deal with this problem, different approaches can be found in the literature. Recently, a new linguistic rule representation model was presented to perform a genetic lateral tuning of membership functions. It is based on the linguistic 2-tuples representation that allows the lateral displacement of a label considering an unique parameter. This way to work involves a reduction of the search space that eases the derivation of optimal models and therefore, improves the mentioned trade-off. Based on the 2-tuples rule representation, this work proposes a new method to obtain linguistic fuzzy systems by means of an evolutionary learning of the data base a priori (number of labels and lateral displacements) and a simple rule generation method to quickly learn the associated rule base. Since this rule generation method is run from each data base definition generated by the evolutionary algorithm, its selection is an important aspect. In this work, we also propose two new ad hoc data-driven rule generation methods, analyzing the influence of them and other rule generation methods in the proposed learning approach. The developed algorithms will be tested considering two different real-world problems.Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology under Projects TIC-2002-04036-C05-01 and TIN-2005-08386-C05-0

Barreras de entrada, concurrencia y precios de equilibrio en un modelo de análisis general

El presente trabajo pretende sugerir un modelo de determinación de los precios de equilibrio en un marco particular de concurrencia de capitales del cual no se deduce la uniformidad de los tipos de beneficio. En la primer parte se cuestiona la igualación a largo plazo de los tipos de beneficio en una economía que presenta indivibilidades tecnológicas, acceso limitado al crédito y unidades capitalistas de muy diverso tamaño. En la segunda se construirá un modelo formal tipo Sraffa- Leontief donde la "cuantía" de las barreras de entrada, los diferentes tipos de beneficio y los precios relativos son las variables endógenas determinadas simultáneamente. Para conseguir este objetivo se propone un tratamiento específico de los stocks de capital fijo necesarios para la producción en cada industria, que quedan definidos por las indivisibilidades en la producción y comercialización del bien correspondiente. Dichas indivisibilidades suministran la clave para la cuantificación y endogeneización de las barreras de entrada de las cuales dependen los diferentes tipos de beneficio

Cooperative monocular-based SLAM for multi-UAV systems in GPS-denied environments

This work presents a cooperative monocular-based SLAM approach for multi-UAV systems that can operate in GPS-denied environments. The main contribution of the work is to show that, using visual information obtained from monocular cameras mounted onboard aerial vehicles flying in formation, the observability properties of the whole system are improved. This fact is especially notorious when compared with other related visual SLAM configurations. In order to improve the observability properties, some measurements of the relative distance between the UAVs are included in the system. These relative distances are also obtained from visual information. The proposed approach is theoretically validated by means of a nonlinear observability analysis. Furthermore, an extensive set of computer simulations is presented in order to validate the proposed approach. The numerical simulation results show that the proposed system is able to provide a good position and orientation estimation of the aerial vehicles flying in formation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Artistic Creation and Intellectual Property: A Professional Career Approach

Reaching high levels of artistic creation in a society requires institutions that facilitate the sorting of the most talented individuals of each generation and the development of their skills across artistic careers. This working paper takes a professional career approach to analyzing how copyright regulation affects artistic creation. It builds an overlapping-generations model of artists in which the number and average talent of senior artists in each period is linked to the number of young artists in previous periods. Long copyrights increase superstar market concentration and can reduce the number of young artists who are able to pursue artistic careers. As a result, in the long run, excessively long copyrights can reduce artistic creation, the average talent of artists, and social welfare.Copyrights, superstars, sorting of talent, artistic markets

Metodología para la medida de la energía consumida en las maniobras de acceso y salida de turismos empleando el sistema de captura de movimiento Kinect

El proyecto que se describe en este artículo pretende desarrollar una metodología que permita medir el gasto energético cuando una persona entra y sale de un vehículo. Para la captura de las maniobras que realiza la persona se emplea la especificación más reciente del sistema de captura de movimiento Kinect. La medida del gasto energético se plantea como una forma de evaluar la accesibilidad a las plazas de un vehículo y está especialmente orientado a personas mayores y personas con movilidad reducida en general. En primer lugar se evalúa la capacidad del sistema de captura de movimiento Kinect en lo referente a precisión en el seguimiento de las diferentes articulaciones del cuerpo que incorpora el modelo tanto en escenarios despejados como en presencia de obstáculos visuales. A continuación, su capacidad para captar las maniobras que se realizan para entrar al habitáculo y subsanar los problemas que plantea el trabajar con un habitáculo de dimensiones más o menos reducidas y con elementos de morfologías diversas como los asientos y el salpicadero. En paralelo, se trabaja en una metodología que permita obtener información sobre el gasto energético de una persona a la hora de realizar las maniobras de acceso y salida que se capturen. La unión de la valoración energética del movimiento y de la captura del mismo con la fiabilidad necesaria debe confluir en la metodología para valorar energéticamente la accesibilidad de un turismo