In the last decades the US economy experienced a rise in female labor force participation, a reversal of the gender education gap and a closing of the gender wage gap. Importantly, these changes occurred at a substantially different pace over time. During the same period, workers in the US faced a considerable shift in labor demand from more physical to more intellectual skill requirements. I rationalize these observations in the context of a general equilibrium model displaying two key assumptions: (1) the demand for brain increases both within and across education groups; and (2) women have less brawn than men. Given the observed US technical change process, the model replicates (1) over half of the narrowing gender wage gap, (2) most of the narrowing employment gap, and (3) all of the reversing education gap. Crucially, the model can also account for the time-varying-path of the narrowing gender divide with an initial stagnation and a later acceleration in female wages and education rates.
Mercoledì 29 marzo 2017 ore 18:00 Auditorio campus di Lugano La serata-evento organizzata da RSI Radiotelevisione della Svizzera italiana, Università della Svizzera italiana e Inmagine.ch è dedicato al fenomeno delle web series. Durante l'evento verrà inoltre consegnato la Web Series World ...
Lesion and functional imaging studies in humans have suggested that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) are involved in orienting attention. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study supplemented by a behavioral experiment examined the effects of 5 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) conditioning to the right and left DLPFC on reaction times and synaptic activity as indexed by changes in the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal during a cued choice reaction time task. Orienting precues were either correct (valid) or incorrect (invalid) with respect to the subsequent move cue. The effects of real and sham rTMS were compared for each site of stimulation. Invalid trials showed a significant increase in response times and increases in the BOLD signal in right frontal and parietal regions when compared with valid trials. Conditioning left DLPFC with rTMS led to decreased BOLD signal during performance of this reorienting task in areas including left VLPFC and left IPS. Comparing invalid to valid trials after right DLPFC conditioning revealed decreased BOLD signal in right VLPFC. Data from the behavioral study showed that right DLPFC rTMS selectively increases response times in invalid trials. This effect was only present in the first 10 min after rTMS conditioning. No effect was found in either validly or invalidly cued trials with left DLPFC conditioning. These results suggest that 5 Hz rTMS over right DLPFC exerts remote effects on the activity of areas that functionally interact with the DLPFC during attentional processes, particularly when the reorienting of attention is more demanding as in invalid trials.
Recent work by Anderson and van Wincoop (2003) establishes an empirical modeling strategy which takes full account of the structural, non-(log-)linear impact of trade barriers on trade in new trade theory models. Structural new trade theory models have never been used to evaluate and quantify the role of endogenous preferential trade agreement (PTA) membership for trade in a way which is consistent with general equilibrium. Apart from this gap, the present paper aims at delivering an empirical model which takes into account both that preferential trade agreement membership is endogenous and that the world matrix of bilateral trade flows contains numerous zero entries. These features are treated in an encompassing way by means of (possibly two-part) Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation with endogenous binary indicator variables in the empirical model.
This paper studies how groups resolve disagreement in lottery choices. In an experiment, subjects submit individual proposals, exchange chat messages, and must reach unanimity. Overall, group choices are more coherent and closer to risk neutrality than individuals’. The proposal of the minority prevails in about one instance out of five. About one third of the groups do not reach immediate agreement after communication. In these groups, extrovert subjects are more likely to lead the group outcome than confused or conscientious subjects. The amount, equality and timing of chat messages help us to predict which choice prevails in the group.
The UNESCO World Heritage List contains the 900 most treasured Sites of humanity’s culture and landscapes.nThe World Heritage List is beneficial where heritage sites are undetected, disregarded by national decision-makers, not commercially exploitable, and where national financial resources, political control and technical knowledge for conservation are inadequate.nAlternatives such as the market and reliance on national conservation list are more beneficial where the cultural and natural sites are already popular, markets work well, and where inclusion in the List does not raise the destruction potential by excessive tourism, and in times of war or by terrorists.
Well-functioning groups enforce social norms that restrain opportunism, but the social structure of a society may encourage or inhibit norm enforcement. Here we study how the exogenous assignment to different positions in an extreme social hierarchy – the caste system – affectsnindividuals’ willingness to punish violations of a cooperation norm. Although we control for individual wealth, education, and political participation, low caste individuals exhibit a muchnlower willingness to punish norm violations that hurt members of their own caste, suggesting a cultural difference across caste status in the concern for members of one’s own community. Thenlower willingness to punish may inhibit the low caste’s ability to sustain collective action and so may contribute to its economic vulnerability .
In recent decades, many firms offered more discretion to their employees, often increasing the productivity of effort but also leaving more opportunities for shirking. These “high-performance work systems” are difficult to understand in terms of standard moral hazard models. We show experimentally that complementarities between high effort discretion, rent-sharing, screening opportunities, and competition are important driving forces behind these new forms of work organization. We document in particular the endogenous emergence of two fundamentally distinct types of employment strategies. Employers either implement a control strategy, which consists of low effort discretion and little or no rent-sharing, or they implement a trust strategy, which stipulates high effort discretion and substantial rent-sharing. If employers cannot screen employees, the control strategy prevails, while the possibility of screening renders the trust strategy profitable. The introduction of competition substantially fosters the trust strategy, reduces market segmentation, and leads to large welfare gains for both employers and employees.
An empirical overview of the UNESCO World Heritage List according to various characteristics is presented. The officially stated intention of the World Heritage List is to protect global heritage. Our focus is on the imbalance of the existing List according to countries and continents. The existing distribution is compared to hypothetical distributions considered “balanced” from different points of view. Itnturns out that the World Heritage List is unbalanced with respect to a distribution of Sites according to population, area or per capita income. This paper wants to reveal facts about the existing distribution, and is designed tonhelp a reasoned discussion to emerge.
Many governments as well as terrorist experts see the use of military and police forces as the only
way to effectively counter terrorism. The most effective negative sanctions are considered to be
military strikes, aggressive actions (including kidnapping and killing) against individuals known
or suspected of being terrorists, or against persons supporting and harboring terrorists. Overt and
covert military and paramilitary action is also thought advisable to pre-empt and prevent actions
by terrorist groups, as well as against states suspected of hosting or tolerating terrorists. This paper
argues that decentralization constitutes a powerful antidote as it strongly reduces the incentives for
terrorists to attack and because the expected damage suffered is much smaller than in a centralized
society. It moreover strengthens society, as economic, political and social decentralization (or
polycentricity) is an essential element of a free and vigorous society. This in turn makes a society
less vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Indeed, terrorism has no chance of success against a society that
actively guards its fundamental liberal institutions, of which decentralized decision-making forms
an essential part.
