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RESUMEN: El enfoque de la inclusión social y educativa cobra cada vez mayor relevancia en políticas dirigidas a personas en situación de discapacidad, especialmente cuando sus derechos demandan apoyos desde una perspectiva ecológica y multidimensional. De esta forma, el objetivo de esta revisión sistemática ha sido analizar la investigación relacionada con programas de intervención socioeducativos para niños, jóvenes y adultos con discapacidad intelectual que han seguido métodos experimentales y/o cuasi experimentales. De acuerdo con los lineamientos de la Declaración PRISMA se han seleccionado 19 estudios utilizando bases de datos internacionales, durante el periodo 1995-2020. Los resultados muestran que la mayor cantidad de programas consideran en su muestra, niños y adolescentes (68%) y en menor porcentaje a jóvenes y adultos (31%). Por otro lado, el 52.6% no identifica diseño y tipo de muestra, y la medida más utilizada corresponde a pre y post test (78.9%). Se discuten hallazgos y conclusiones para la mejora de apoyos a las personas con discapacidad intelectual especialmente frente a la crisis sanitaria del COVID-19.

We examine the role of residential environments (urban/rural) in understanding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions in nationwide movement on several socio-economic attitudes. We conducted large-scale surveys in four European countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom) before and after nationwide lockdowns were implemented. We investigate how the pandemic affected: (i) economic (economic insecurity), (ii) political (trust in domestic and international institutions), and (iii) social attitudes (loneliness), by controlling for the degree of urbanization, obtained from the geocodes of the survey respondents. Our results show that taking the degree of urbanization into account is not only relevant but is also essential. Compared to urban areas, in rural areas lockdowns led to a greater increase of economic insecurity and to a greater decrease in trust in domestic institutions. We also show that these results are particularly valid for women and households with children.

The objectives of this study were to a)verify the validity and reliability of a scale to assess skill levels to learn content knowledge (SLACK) and b) develop percentile norms to assess the SLACK of adolescent students. The study included 2270 students (1134 males and 1136 females) ranging in age from 10.0 to 18.9 years old. A scale was used to measure the SLACK. The results showed high values of validity (saturation between 0.32 and 0.54) and with internal consistency from 0.83 and 0.84. The LMS method made it possible to create percentiles p10, p50, and p90 in order to classify the (SLACK) based on category, age, and sex. The results suggested the use and application of the scale with the school education system by using the percentiles to diagnosis, classify, and monitor the skills for learning knowledge validly and reliably.

The presence of antimicrobial and pesticide residues in products sourced from peasant family farms selected from eight regions of Chile was determined. A total of 204 samples were analyzed from family farm products, including honey, lettuce, tomato, strawberry, raspberry, lamb meat, and cow's milk. Pesticide residues were found in 43 of 107 samples tested for them, but only 4 samples had concentrations that exceeded the maximum residue limits (MRLs) set by Chilean regulations. As for animal products, 2 of 15 cow's milk samples tested positive for permethrin residues; however, these concentrations did not exceed Chilean MRLs. No pesticide residues were detected in honey samples. As for antimicrobial drugs, 4 of 14 lamb meat samples and 11 of 79 cow's milk samples tested positive for different classes of antimicrobial residues, such as tetracyclines, macrolides, aminoglycosides, and β-lactams. Among these, only three samples exceeded the MRLs for these matrices. Traces of tetracyclines and sulfonamides were detected in 7 of 29 honey samples. These findings show that these chemical contaminants are present in trace concentrations in foodstuffs produced by peasant family farms in Chile; however, most residues did not exceed the regulatory limits. This study is the first assessment of the presence of residues from antimicrobial drugs and pesticides in food products sourced from peasant family farms in Chile. Data about the current state of drug residues in this segment of food products provide a baseline for efforts to close possible gaps in current surveillance schemes.

This study investigates whether asking early adolescents to evaluate the food choices of remote peers improves their own food selection. Participants were students from fifth (N = 219, Mage = 9.30 years) and sixth grades (N = 248, Mage = 10.28 years) of varying nationalities living in the United Arab Emirates (race and ethnicity were not collected). Students saw peers' healthy or unhealthy food choices before picking their own food. In some conditions, students also critically evaluated the healthiness of the peers' choices. Evaluation of peer choices led to healthier decisions (d = .53) to the point that it offsets the negative impact of observing unhealthy peer choices. This effect is larger for sixth graders compared to fifth graders.

El manejo sostenible de los agroecosistemas de dehesa es un desafío de gran importancia ambiental, social y económica en la península ibérica y en los territorios de clima mediterráneo en general. El manejo racional de los recursos forrajeros para el ganado juega en esto un rol preponderante tanto para la seguridad alimentaria presente y futura de la población, como para la conservación de especies vegetales y animales y la mantención de la fertilidad y calidad de los suelos y el agua, con todos los beneficios relacionados. El presente trabajo presenta una propuesta de planificación de pastoreo en dehesa para el rebaño caprino de la quesería "ComoCabras" en la provincia de Córdoba, Andalucía, España. Mediante entrevistas a expertas y visitas a experiencias, fichas de análisis y trabajo conjunto con las sostenedoras del la granja, se logró perfilar el diseño de la propuesta incluyendo análisis de factores y beneficios potenciales en lo ambiental, económico y social. Mediante esta propuesta se busca generar un aporte para este proyecto caprino en particular, y para otras iniciativas de planificación de pastoreo en climas mediterráneos, así como un caso de estudio que pueda ser útil en el diseño de políticas públicas de apoyo a la producción ganadera, proyectos de producción sostenible de alimentos y recuperación de agroecosistemas de alto valor socio-ambiental.

The main goal of this methodological thesis was to present optimised magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences for ex vivo and in vivo studies in ultra-high field scanners (UHF, from 7 T and above, beyond the conventional 1.5 or even 3 T available in the clinics). The researchers mainly worked with the STEAM sequence, which overcame several of its restrictions in these scanners. It resulted in ultra-high resolution whole-brain MRI data for ex vivo studies (achieving 400 μm , or 0.4 mm, isotropic resolution), and very highly accelerated acquisition protocols for in vivo studies (up to x 54 times the current total possible acceleration). With the current feasibility of acquiring ultra-high resolution data and highly sampled multi-contrast MRI images, data-expensive signal models can be employed; but above all, the biological microstructure features in the brain can be easily more revealed from the resulted analysis.

We examine the impact of the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide movement restrictions on socio-economic attitudes in four European countries (France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom). We conducted large-scale surveys while the pandemic rapidly spread before and after nationwide lockdowns were implemented. We investigate the impact in three different categories of attitudes: i) economic perceptions (economic insecurity and views on globalization); ii) political attitudes (trust in domestic and international institutions, populism and immigration); and iii) social aspects (authoritarianism and loneliness). We find that overall, the pandemic/social-distancing, but not the lockdowns, has increased economic insecurity, loneliness, and acceptance of authoritarianism while decreasing support for globalization. On the bright side, there is a sensible increase in trust in domestic institutions. We also document that the pandemic had heterogeneous and disproportional effects both at the country level and at the demographic group level. In terms of societal groups, our results suggest that the aggregate results are mostly driven by a number of groups, most notably women, families with children, and the labor force.

Several magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrasts are sensitive to myelin content in gray matter in vivo which has ignited ambitions of MRI-based in vivo cortical histology. Ultra-high field (UHF) MRI, at fields of 7 T and beyond, is crucial to provide the resolution and contrast needed to sample contrasts over the depth of the cortex and get closer to layer resolved imaging. Ex vivo MRI of human post mortem samples is an important stepping stone to investigate MRI contrast in the cortex, validate it against histology techniques applied in situ to the same tissue, and investigate the resolutions needed to translate ex vivo findings to in vivo UHF MRI. Here, we investigate key technology to extend such UHF studies to large human brain samples while maintaining high resolution, which allows investigation of the layered architecture of several cortical areas over their entire 3D extent and their complete borders where architecture changes. A 16 channel cylindrical phased array radiofrequency (RF) receive coil was constructed to image a large post mortem occipital lobe sample (~80×80×80 mm3) in a wide-bore 9.4 T human scanner with the aim of achieving high-resolution anatomical and quantitative MR images. Compared with a human head coil at 9.4 T, the maximum Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) was increased by a factor of about five in the peripheral cortex. Although the transmit profile with a circularly polarized transmit mode at 9.4 T is relatively inhomogeneous over the large sample, this challenge was successfully resolved with parallel transmit using the kT-points method. Using this setup, we achieved 60μm anatomical images for the entire occipital lobe showing increased spatial definition of cortical details compared to lower resolutions. In addition, we were able to achieve sufficient control over SNR, B0 and B1 homogeneity and multi-contrast sampling to perform quantitative T2* mapping over the same volume at 200 μm. Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling provided maximum posterior estimates of quantitative T2* and their uncertainty, allowing delineation of the stria of Gennari over the entire length and width of the calcarine sulcus. We discuss how custom RF receive coil arrays built to specific large post mortem sample sizes can provide a platform for UHF cortical layer-specific quantitative MRI over large fields of view., Highlights • Custom-built 16 channel 9.4 T RF-coil to image large post mortem samples at high resolution. • Parallel transmit techniques allow homogenization of B1+ for 3D GRE imaging at UHF. • 60 μm anatomical MRI of the entire human occipital lobe. • 200 μm isotropic quantitative T2* mapping of the entire human occipital lobe. • A platform for future UHF cortical layer specific qMRI over large FoVs.

In this paper, we study two games of conflict characterized by unequal access to productive resources and finitely repeated interaction. In the Noisy Conflict game, the winner of the conflict is randomly determined depending on a players’ relative conflict expenditures. In the Decisive Conflict game, the winner of the conflict is simply the player who spends more on conflict. By comparing behavior in the two games, we evaluate the effect that “decisiveness” has on the allocation of productive resources to conflict, the resulting inequality in the players’ final wealth, and the likelihood that players form long-lasting peaceful relations.

We investigate an experimental labor market setting in which we introduce the novel aspect that workers have the chance of investing money in a long-term project in order to increase their income. We find a strong relationship between what happens inside the labor market (worker's performance) and what happens outside the labor market (long-term investment). Contrary to the theoretical predictions with selfish preferences, we find that the mere presence of long-term projects acts as an effort-enforcement device; this effect seems to be driven by an increase in long-term employment relationships. In the other direction, long-term labor relationships seem to provide a safer environment for undertaking successful long-term projects. This article also considers three different types of experimental labor contracts. We find that performance-based dismissal barriers, whereby firms are required to retain workers if they have satisfied the effort level required by firms, lead to more long-term employment relationships and higher overall productivity. As theory predicts, the presence of renewable dismissal barriers makes it likely that workers will provide the desired effort level. Firms appear to correctly anticipate this, leading to greater social efficiency.

We introduce differently sized teams, rather than a single worker, and three production technologies to an otherwise standard gift-exchange environment to study experimentally whether, and to what extent, ‘trust and reciprocity’ is affected. Moving to a team of workers introduces new motivations, such as free riding and coordination burden, that are likely to intensify with team size and the technology used by the firm. We find that the positive relationship between wages and effort, although affected, still holds; workers reduce their efforts when coordination for efficiency is more difficult using a particular production technology. Results also suggest that for any given technology, firms react to their relevant outcome (profitability) and not just to workers’ efforts.

We conducted a randomized controlled trial of an information intervention to evaluate the effects of providing information to families on their children's reading and math achievement in a mid-size city in Colombia. Most families are poorly informed about their children's performance, but our information intervention closes the gap between beliefs and performance and induces some behavioral response among parents in the treatment group. We find positive impacts on student achievement of 0.09 SD to 0.10 SD in the first two semesters after treatment, followed by fadeout in year two. This overall pattern is driven by large gains—around 0.28 SD—and then similarly complete fadeout for students with low baseline test scores.

Obese adolescents suffer negative social experiences, but no studies have examined whether obesity is associated with dysfunction of the social brain or whether social brain abnormalities relate to disadvantageous traits and social decisions. We aimed at mapping functional activation differences in the brain circuitry of social decision making in adolescents with excess versus normal weight, and at examining whether these separate patterns correlate with reward/punishment sensitivity, disordered eating features, and behavioral decisions. In this fMRI study, 80 adolescents aged 12 to 18 years old were classified in two groups based on age adjusted body mass index (BMI) percentiles: normal weight (n = 44, BMI percentiles 5th–84th) and excess weight (n = 36, BMI percentile ≥ 85th). Participants were scanned while performing a social decision-making task (ultimatum game) in which they chose to “accept” or “reject” offers to split monetary stakes made by another peer. Offers varied in fairness (Fair vs. Unfair) but in all cases “accepting” meant both players win the money, whereas “rejecting” meant both lose it. We showed that adolescents with excess weight compared to controls display significantly decreased activation of anterior insula, anterior cingulate, and midbrain during decisions about Unfair versus Fair offers. Moreover, excess weight subjects show lower sensitivity to reward and more maturity fears, which correlate with insula activation. Indeed, blunted insula activation accounted for the relationship between maturity fears and acceptance of unfair offers. Excess weight adolescents have diminished activation of brain regions essential for affective tracking of social decision making, which accounts for the association between maturity fears and social decisions. Hum Brain Mapp, 36:–237, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

We introduce three extensions of the Hirshleifer–Skaperdas conflict game to study experimentally the effects of post-conflict behavior and repeated interaction on the allocation of effort between production and appropriation. Without repeated interaction, destruction of resources by defeated players can lead to lower appropriative efforts and higher overall efficiency. With repeated interaction, appropriative efforts are considerably reduced because some groups manage to avoid fighting altogether, often after substantial initial conflict. To attain peace, players must first engage in costly signaling by making themselves vulnerable and by forgoing the possibility to appropriate the resources of defeated opponents.

La experiencia práctica es un componente esencial de la formación de docentes. Sin embargo, la evidencia en Chile respecto de la cantidad, intensidad y calidad de dicho componente práctico es escasa. Usando una metodología mixta, esta investigación cuantifica y analiza la organización de la formación práctica del 70% de las instituciones que imparten carreras de Pedagogía Básica en Chile. Los resultados muestran, en primera instancia, que el componente práctico se encuentra presente en todas las universidades analizadas, pero existe bastante dispersión en términos de cantidad de cursos, horas y organización de estas experiencias; y, en segundo término, que estas diferencias se encuentran asociadas a características institucionales como, por ejemplo, la acreditación. Tanto los instrumentos como los resultados del estudio contribuyen a este campo, no solo entregando claves para guiar procesos de mejora, sino también para generar indicadores que permitan evaluar la intensidad y calidad del componente práctico de la Formación Inicial Docente (FID), aumentando las exigencias en procesos de acreditación.

The Lazarillo of Tormes' picaresque novel introduces a story where two subjects sequentially extract (one, two or three) tokens from a common pool in an asymmetric information framework (the first player cannot observe her partners' actions). By introducing a reward for both subjects in case that in every period at least one subject had taken one single token, we define an interesting coordination game. We conduct an experiment with 120 undergraduate students to study their behavior in this framework. We find that if the second player is allowed to take more tokens than her partner, then the frequency of cooperators does not seem to be affected by the informational asymmetry. Nevertheless, this asymmetry (i) incentives the second player to use her 'power of extraction' while the social externality is still available, (ii) yields to more asymmetric profit distributions when subjects win the social externality and (iii) delays the breach period in case of coordination failure. Furthermore, the first choice of the first player is determinant for getting the reward.

O presente relatório, intitulado “O Programa Idosos em Segurança: Estudo de Caso do Dter de Sintra”, baseia-se num estudo da análise do trabalho que é desenvolvido pelos militares do Destacamento Territorial de Sintra e tem a finalidade de avaliar o impacto e influência do Programa Idosos em Segurança na população adstrita a este Destacamento. O envelhecimento é uma realidade inevitável e que deve, cada vez mais ser preparada e antecipada, permitindo, a quem pretender participar na vida ativa da sua comunidade, que tal seja possível. Para aqueles que, não têm possibilidades de o fazer, deve garantir-se assegurada, em todas as situações a sua dignidade enquanto pessoa humana. O envelhecimento ativo é também uma temática abordada que carece de tratamento pela sua novidade e extrema relevância no contexto atual. Para que tais realidades sejam coincidentes é imperioso que o policiamento de proximidade se efetue e que se abram portas ao desenvolvimento das capacidades de resposta dos diferentes órgãos de apoio social e das Forças de Segurança. Para conseguirmos responder à Questão de Partida, formulámos quatro Questões Derivadas e consequentes Hipóteses que, através da sua verificação, validação ou refutação, nos permitiram responder às questões anteriormente levantadas. Foram realizadas Entrevistas e Questionários, que nos permitiram aceder às diferentes perspetivas que trabalham e são alvo deste Programa. A Guarda Nacional Republicana possui um grande reconhecimento junto das entidades externas e dos idosos com quem trabalha. Foram, no entanto, encontradas algumas falhas ao nível do efetivo, da formação, especialização e verificação do trabalho desenvolvido, a vários níveis. De salientar que muitas falhas são colmatadas pela boa capacidade de adaptação dos militares, o que evita que tais fragilidades afetem o serviço prestado e transpareçam para o exterior. This report, entitled "The Elderly Safety Program: Case Study on Sintra’s Territorial Detail" researches the work done by the territorial Detail of Sintra and aims to assess the impact of this program in the elder population of the Sintra area. The premise hinges on the fact that aging is inevitable. But, with awareness, preparation and anticipation, those who wish to have an active lifestyle and be participative in their communities can continue to do so. For those who want to engage in such activities but are unable to afford ways to remain healthy and active, we, as representatives of the state, need to ensure and respect their dignity as humans and help them remain active members of society. Another theme approached by the study is “active aging” due to its recent growing traction and extreme importance for the current context. For these realities to coincide, it is imperative to continue developing close range response agencies, as well as improving the coordination between the safety forces and Social Services. In order to accurately answer the Starting Question, we formulated four derivative ones and evaluated the consequent Hypothesis. Through its verification, validation or refutation, we were able appropriately answer the questions previously posed. Interviews and questionnaires were conducted, which gave us access to several different perspectives that are the foundation of this Program. Despite the magnificent recognition the National Guard received from external entities on the continuous work throughout the Program, we did find potentially damaging gaps in effectiveness, training, expertise and verification of the work that’s done at many levels. Nevertheless, note that military have the ability to correct some of the failures uncovered, preventing underuse on the Program’s end result.

The main goal of this article is to investigate the rates of delay discounting among obese people treated surgically and belonging to an association of those interested in controlling their weight. We also analyze whether socio-economic status and personality traits explain the existing differences. rates of delay discounting are elicited using real monetary incentives in an economic experiment where subjects are asked to make several choices between a smaller, more immediate reward and larger, more delayed rewards. personality traits are examined using the Five Factor model. interestingly, our results show that obese people display lower discount rates than the reference group. these differences can not be explained by personality traits. We argue that obese people do not have to show larger discount rates. in fact, awareness and commitment, rather than their current bmi, seem to play a more important role in determining this parameter.El objetivo principal de este artículo es investigar las tasas de descuento temporal entre los individuos obesos tratados quirúrgicamente y que pertenecen a una asociación de personas interesadas en controlar su peso. también se analiza si el nivel socio-económico y los rasgos de la personalidad explican las diferencias existentes. las tasas de descuento diferido se obtuvieron utilizando los incentivos monetarios reales en un experimento económico donde a los sujetos se les pide elegir entre una menor y más inmediata recompensa o una recompensa mayor diferida. los rasgos de personalidad son examinados usando el modelo de cinco factores. Curiosamente, nuestros resultados muestran que las personas obesas muestran tasa de descuento menores al grupo de referencia. estas diferencias no pueden explicarse por los rasgos de personalidad. Nosotros sostenemos que la gente obesa no debería mostrar mayores tasas de descuento. De hecho, la conciencia y el compromiso, en lugar de su actual índice de masa corporal, parecen jugar un papel más importante en la determinación de este parámetro.

This paper analyzes the effect on performance and earnings of delegating the wage choice to employees. Our results show that such delegation significantly increases effort levels. Moreover, we observe a Pareto improvement, as the earnings of both employers and employees increase when employers delegate than when they do not. Interestingly, we also find that the employees' performance under delegation is higher than under nondelegation, even for similar wages. While there is strong evidence that behavior reflects strategic considerations, this result also holds for one-shot interactions. A possible nonstrategic motivation explaining the positive reaction to delegation is a sense of enhanced responsibility. (JEL J31, J33, J41)

The tension between cooperation and competition that characterizes many business relationships is experimentally studied in a ‘pie’-creation game; value is created and increased through cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma game. At the end, the player with the greater stake in the joint pie decides on the division of the pie. Three treatments of the pie-creation game are considered: in the first treatment, rivals create the pie; in the second, non-rivals create the pie; finally, in the third, the pie is created by subjects who do not know about the future pie-division. The data show that the competition for the right to split the pie biases behaviors towards defection when subjects play with their rival.

En base a una metodología etnográfica se identifican y analizan visiones de diferentes actores frente al proyecto urbanístico Ciudad del Milenio en la comunidad A´i cofán Dureno, provincia de Sucumbíos. En un relato sobre las condiciones políticas, sociales y territoriales, ordenadas en tres momentos socio históricos, que avanzan desde el inicio de la actividad petrolera en la Amazonía norte ecuatoriana, hasta la actualidad. A raíz de estos acontecimientos interesa presentar las consecuencias del extractivismo y de las políticas de desarrollo ligadas a él, tales como la Ciudad del Milenio cofán Dureno.

Este articulo examina el papel que los inmigrantes de baja cualificacion laboral juegan a la hora de determinar los beneficios de las pensiones publicas en el pais de acogida. Con un modelo de generaciones solapadas en tiempo continuo que nos permite identificar que grupos de la poblacion nativa estan mejor o peor con la inmigracion y un sistema de pensiones completamente redistributivo, nosotros encontramos que las pensiones y por lo tanto los niveles de bienestar de la poblacion local dependen de si coinciden o no con los inmigrantes durante el periodo de jubilacion. En este sentido, la poblacion local mas joven puede preferir, frente a los mas viejos, una politica de fronteras cerradas.

This paper analyzes the reform of the pensionable age as an answer to the future financing problems of public pension systems. We use a two-staged model where, first, the government decides the redistribution level of the pension system and, secondly, individuals face a voting process on the legal retirement age. The results suggest that governments attempting to postpone the legal retirement age should increase the degree of intra-generational redistribution of the pension system in order to make the reform aimed at more easily achievable. More importantly, the most productive individuals could support some degree of redistribution to that aim.

In the context of the current debate surrounding the reform of most social security systems, this paper analyzes the political economy of the legal retirement age. Using a life‐cycle model, we study the effects of changing the redistributive parameters on the optimal legal retirement age in a Pay‐As‐You‐Go social security system. Two pension plans are studied, with opposite results. In a defined contribution plan, an increase in the redistribution levels will delay the preferred legal retirement age. On the other hand, in a defined benefits plan, the same increase in the redistribution levels will lower this preferred age.

This article examines the role played by the low-skilled immigrant labour force in countries aiming to reform their public pension systems by postponing the pensionable age. With an overlapping-generations model in continuous time and a fully redistributive pension system, the results of this article suggest that immigration could imply a delay in the pensionable retirement age. Further, we find that the preference for a delay in retirement age increases with the labour productivity of both immigrants and native population.

I. INTRODUCTION The reform of social security systems is now one of the main issues on the economic policy agenda of most industrialized countries. It is widely considered that, unless serious changes take place, the aging of the population implying a rise in the number of retirees relative to that of workers will threaten the viability, of pay-as-you-go public pension systems in the long run. This threat is being reinforced by the progressive reduction in the retirement age of the working population. The central reforms that are being proposed to neutralize these future financing problems are the raising of the contribution rate, the decreasing of pension benefits, or/and the delay of the retirement age. With reference to this latter reform, as Blondal and Scarpetta (1998) state, a direct way to encourage people to work longer would be to raise the pensionable age. But delaying the retirement age may not be very popular. According to recent surveys, most workers claim that they are happy with the current retirement age (see Cremer and Pestieau 2003). This may help to explain why reforms on the legal retirement age have currently become a very delicate matter for governments. (1) On the other hand, pension systems in virtually all Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in the mid-1990s made it financially unattractive to work after the age of 55, see Gruber and Wise (1997) or Blondal and Scarpetta (1998). Indeed, the general consensus in the theoretical literature related to social security and retirement decisions is that pension systems create enormous incentives to leave the labor force early. (2) Therefore, increasing the retirement age as a tool to improve the financial problems of public pensions systems faces two sensitive problems: the opposition of workers to a delay in the standard retirement age and the disincentives to continuous work being embedded in the pension system. The large decline in labor force participation is attributed to the specific fact that to keep on working implies a reduction in the present value of total pension benefits. The terms "old-age pension wealth" and "implicit tax on postponing retirement" have been frequently used to illustrate these disincentives in the pension system. The old-age pension wealth is the discounted value of expected pension benefits minus the discounted cost of obtaining such benefits. After the earliest age at which pensions can be accessed, working for an extra year may imply changes in this pension wealth by foregoing 1 yr of pensions, paying contributions for an additional year, and maybe increasing the pension benefits per year. Therefore, if the costs of postponing retirement are higher than the gains, then it is considered that the pension system is implicitly taxing to prolong the working period. That is, the drop in pension wealth acts as an implicit tax on income from continued work and as such is a clear incentive to retire early. Actually, reforms aiming to increase the effective retirement age to improve the financial problems of public pensions systems have mainly focused on the reduction of this implicit tax on prolonging the working period. It is also considered that when the increase in pension benefits is exactly offset by the higher cost in terms of contributions and forgone pensions, the pension system is not distorting the retirement decision. That is, the pension systems that are marginally actuarially fair will not distort individual decisions concerning retirement age, and, consequently, they are defined as neutral systems. For this reason, the main economic policy measures move in the direction of strengthening the link between lifetime contributions and pension benefits. (3) Indeed, this reform is one of the policy conclusions of Maintaining Prosperity in an Ageing Society, OECD (2000): " ... the most appropriate reform would be to allow people to retire at the age of their own choice and to adjust pension level so that the pension system is neutral on average. …

© 2014, The Author(s). We present a comprehensive experimental design that makes it possible to characterize other-regarding preferences and their relationship to the decision maker’s relative position. Participants are faced with a large number of decisions involving variations in the trade-offs between own and other’s payoffs, as well as in other potentially important factors like the decision maker’s relative position. We find that: (1) choices are responsive to the cost of helping and hurting others; (2) The weight a decision maker places on others’ monetary payoffs depends on whether the decision maker is in an advantageous or disadvantageous relative position; and (3) We find no evidence of reciprocity of the type linked to menu-dependence. The results of a mixture-model estimation show considerable heterogeneity in subjects’ motivations and confirm the absence of reciprocal motives. Pure selfish behavior is the most frequently observed behavior. Among the subjects exhibiting social preferences, social-welfare maximization is the most frequent, followed by inequality-aversion and by competitiveness., Financial support by the Spanish Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness (Grant: ECO2011-29847-C02-01), the Generalitat de Catalunya (Grant: 2009 SGR 820), the Barcelona GSE Research Network, and CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 (CSD2006-00016) is gratefully acknowledged

In this paper, we analyze a majority voting process on the earnings-related part of pension benefits in a Social Security system with flexible retirement. We show that the aging of the population may make it easier to implement one of the proposed reforms to achieve a delay in the average retirement age of workers, to reinforce the link between contributions and pensions.

This article examines whether social comparisons have behavioral effects on workers' performance when a firm can choose workers' wages or let them choose their own. Firms can delegate the wage decision to neither, one or both workers in the firm. We vary the information workers receive, finding that social comparisons concerning both wages and decision rights affect workers' performance. Moreover, the relative effect of discrimination in relation to decision rights is larger than in relation to wage. We find these treatment effects with both stated effort and a real-effort task, suggesting that both approaches may yield similar results.

This article examines an intra- and international trust game experiment among Moroccan, French and Spanish subjects. Before making each decision, participants were informed on the nationality of their partner. We find that, overall, subjects from Morocco exhibited a higher level of trust. Furthermore, they were found to trust French subjects more than those from Spain. Regarding reciprocal behavior, subjects from Spain were the least trustworthy. Apart from this, we do not observe any discriminatory patterns from or towards any country.

This paper analyzes the effect of delegation on the employees’ performance in an experimental gift exchange game where employers may allow workers to choose their own wage. Our results show that workers reciprocate positively towards companies that delegate the decision of the wage, obtaining that higher effort levels are displayed when workers are free to choose their wage, even when wages chosen by employees are similar to those assigned by employers. In addition, we find that this enhancement in workers’ behavior is mainly due to the positive effect of delegation per se rather than to the “responsibility-alleviation”.