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This study employs the pseudo-panel approach to estimate returns to education among income earners in Sri Lanka. Pseudo-panel data are constructed from nine repreated cross-sections of Sri Lanka’s Labor Force Survey data from 1997-2008 for workers born during 1953-1974. The results show that for males, one extra year of education increases monthly earnings by about 5 per cent using the pseudo panel estimation rather than 8 per cent as in the OLS estimation. This indicates that not controlling for unobservables such as ability and motivation bias the OLS estimation of returns upwards by about 3 per cent on average. It also suggests that males with higher ability seem to be acquiring more years of education contrary to what has been observed recently in countries such as Thailand (Warunsiri and McKnown 2010) where the opportunity cost of education seems to be high.

Various markets ban or heavily restrict monetary transfers. This is often motivated by moral concerns. However, it appears to be disputable whether the observed restrictions on transfers are the appropriate market design answer to these concerns. Instead of exogenously restricting transfers on a matching market, we introduce a desideratum based on fairness objectives and study its market design implications. The desideratum we concentrate on is discriminationfreeness, i.e. one’s access to certain resources is independent of one’s wealth endowment. A key assumption in our model is that preferences are not quasilinear but wealth has an impact on the willingness to pay. We show that matchings without transfers based on ordinal object rankings are at the efficient frontier of discrimination-free social choice functions. Implementable social choice functions are discrimination-free if and only if an agent’s object assignment only depends on ordinal object rankings and her money assignment is constant. If money can be used outside the market designer’s control even externality-freeness is needed: an agent’s object assignment has to be independent of other agents’ types. We discuss several applications in the context of discrimination-freeness including compensation for kidney donors.

In nature, bacteria are found to reside in multicellular communities encased in self-produced extracellular matrices. Indeed, biofilms are the default lifestyle of the bacteria which cause persistent infections in humans. The biofilm assembly protects bacterial cells from desiccation and limits the effectiveness of antimicrobial treatments. A myriad of biomolecules in the extracellular matrix, including proteins, exopolysaccharides, lipids, extracellular DNA and other, form a dense and viscoelastic three dimensional network. Many studies emphasized that a destabilization of the mechanical integrity of biofilm architectures potentially eliminates the protective shield and renders bacteria more susceptible to the immune system and antibiotics. Pantoea stewartii is a plant pathogen which infects monocotyledons such as maize and sweet corn. These bacteria produce dense biofilms in the xylem of infected plants which cause wilting of plants and crops. Stewartan is an exopolysaccharide which is produced by Pantoea stewartii and secreted as the major component to the extracellular matrix. It consists of heptasaccharide repeating units with a high degree of polymerization (2-4 MDa). In this work, the physicochemical properties of stewartan were investigated to understand the contributions of this exopolysaccharide to the mechanical integrity and cohesiveness of Pantoea stewartii biofilms. Therefore, a coarse-grained model of stewartan was developed with computational techniques to obtain a model for its three dimensional structural features. Here, coarse-grained molecular dynamic simulations revealed that the exopolysaccharide forms a hydrogel in which the exopolysaccharide chains arrange into a three dimensional mesh-like network. Simulations at different concentrations were used to investigate the influence of the water content on the network formation. Stewartan was further purified from 72 h grown Pantoea stewartii biofilms and the diffusion of bacteriophage and differently-sized nanoparticles (which ranged from 1.1 to 193 nm diameter) was analyzed in reconstituted stewartan solutions. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and single-particle tracking revealed that the stewartan network impeded the mobility of a set of differently-sized fluorescent particles in a size-dependent manner. Diffusion of these particles became more anomalous, as characterized by fitting the diffusion data to an anomalous diffusion model, with increasing stewartan concentrations. Further bulk and microrheological experiments were used to analyze the transitions in stewartan fluid behavior and stewartan chain entanglements were described. Moreover, it was noticed, that a small fraction of bacteriophage particles was trapped in small-sized pores deviating from classical random walks which highlighted the structural heterogeneity of the stewartan network. Additionally, the mobility of fluorescent particles also depended on the charge of the stewartan exopolysaccharide and a model of a molecular sieve for the stewartan network was proposed. The here reported structural features of the stewartan polymers were used to provide a detailed description of the mechanical properties of typically glycan-based biofilms such as the one from Pantoea stewartii. In addition, the mechanical properties of the biofilm architecture are permanently sensed by the embedded bacteria and enzymatic modifications of the extracellular matrix take place to address environmental cues. Hence, in this work the influence of enzymatic degradation of the stewartan exopolysaccharides on the overall exopolysaccharide network structure was analyzed to describe relevant physiological processes in Pantoea stewartii biofilms. Here, the stewartan hydrolysis kinetics of the tailspike protein from the ΦEa1h bacteriophage, which is naturally found to infect Pantoea stewartii cells, was compared to WceF. The latter protein is expressed from the Pantoea stewartii stewartan biosynthesis gene cluster wce I-III. The degradation of stewartan by the ΦEa1h tailspike protein was shown to be much faster than the hydrolysis kinetics of WceF, although both enzymes cleaved the β D GalIII(1→3)-α-D-GalI glycosidic linkage from the stewartan backbone. Oligosaccharide fragments which were produced during the stewartan cleavage, were analyzed in size-exclusion chromatography and capillary electrophoresis. Bioinformatic studies and the analysis of a WceF crystal structure revealed a remarkably high structural similarity of both proteins thus unveiling WceF as a bacterial tailspike-like protein. As a consequence, WceF might play a role in stewartan chain length control in Pantoea stewartii biofilms. In der Natur lagern sich Bakterien zu großen und komplexen Gemeinschaften zusammen, die als Biofilme bezeichnet werden. Diese multizellulären Biofilme sind der Ursprung vieler langlebiger und gefährlicher Infektionskrankheiten. Die bakteriellen Zellen produzieren und umgeben sich mit einen biofilm-spezifischen Schleim, der aus einer Unzahl von Biomolekülen, wie z.B. Exopolysaccharide, Lipide und extrazelluläre DNA, besteht. Diese Biofilmarchitektur schützt Bakterien vor Austrocknung und begrenzen die Wirksamkeit von antimikrobiellen Wirkstoffen (z.B. Antibiotika). Viele Studien haben gezeigt, dass die Destabilisierung der mechanischen Festigkeit des Biofilmapparates eine neue Behandlungsstrategie darstellt, in der das bakterielle Schutzschild eliminiert wird, sodass die Zellen wieder anfälliger gegenüber dem menschlichen Immunsystem oder Antibiotika werden. Pantoea stewartii ist ein Pflanzenpathogen, welches Mais und Süßmais befällt. Diese Bakterien produzieren Biofilme im Inneren der Pflanze, sodass der freie Wassertransport gestört wird. Daraufhin verwelken die Blätter und Früchte. In dieser Arbeit wurde das Exopolysaccharid Stewartan untersucht, welches lange Ketten ausbildet und als häufigste Komponente in den Biofilmen von Pantoea stewartii vorkommt. Dabei wurden die mechanischen Eigenschaften von Stewartan untersucht, um zu verstehen, wie diese den Biofilm beeinflussen. Dafür wurde eine Lösung aus mehreren Stewartan Molekülen computergestützt simuliert. Hierbei konnte beobachtet werden, dass die Stewartan Ketten ein dreidimensionales Netzwerk ausbilden, welches Poren aufweist. Außerdem wurde Stewartan aus Pantoea stewartii Biofilmen isoliert und die Diffusion von verschieden großen Nanopartikeln in dem Exopolysaccharidnetzwerk untersucht. Je höher die Stewartankonzentration war, desto mehr wurde die Diffusion der Nanopartikeln abgebremst. Außerdem wurden große Partikel stärker von dem Netzwerk zurückgehalten. Diese Untersuchungen wurden auf die Diffusion von Bakteriophagen, das sind Viren, die spezifisch Bakterien infizieren, ausgeweitet. Infolgedessen wurde gezeigt, dass Bakteriophagen in kleine Stewartanporen feststecken können. Die Diffusion all dieser Partikeln war aber auch abhängig von der Oberflächenladung des Partikels. Folglich bildet Stewartan ein Netzwerk aus, welches ganz spezifisch den Transport von Molekülen mit bestimmten Eigenschaften unterbindet. Außerdem ist bekannt, dass die Bakterien in der Lage sind, die mechanischen Eigenschaften des Biofilms zu modulieren, um sie an Veränderungen in der Umgebung anzupassen. Dies geschieht über bakterielle Enzyme. Daher wurde in dieser Arbeit der enzymatische Abbau von Stewartan untersucht, der eine dramatische Änderung der Eigenschaften des Biofilms zufolge haben kann. Dabei wurde die Stewartan Spaltung durch das Enzym WceF untersucht, welches von Pantoea stewartii produziert wird. Dieses Enzym spaltete die Stewartanketten nur sehr langsamen, sodass das Stewartannetzwerk erhalten blieb. Die Ergebnisse wurden mit dem tailspike Protein verglichen, welches von dem ΦEa1h Bakteriophagen produziert wird, dem natürlichen Feind des Bakteriums. Im Gegensatz zu WceF, baute das tailspike Protein Stewartan deutlich schneller ab und die gesamte mechanische Festigkeit des Netzwerkes wurde beseitigt. Beide Enzyme, trotz der unterschiedlichen Aktivität, besitzen eine sehr ähnliche Struktur, was vermuten lässt, dass sie von einem gleichen Vorgängerprotein abstammen. In dieser Arbeit wird vorgeschlagen, dass WceF möglicherweise in der Kettenlängekontrolle von Stewartan involviert ist.

A large literature documents the correlates and causes of subjective well-being, or happiness. But few studies have investigated whether people choose happiness. Is happiness all that people want from life, or are they willing to sacrifice it for other attributes, such as income and health? Tackling this question has largely been the preserve of philosophers. In this article, we find out just how much happiness matters to ordinary citizens. Our sample consists of nearly 13,000 members of the UK and US general populations. We ask them to choose between, and make judgments over, lives that are high (or low) in different types of happiness and low (or high) in income, physical health, family, career success, or education. We find that people by and large choose the life that is highest in happiness but health is by far the most important other concern, with considerable numbers of people choosing to be healthy rather than happy. We discuss some possible reasons for this preference.

This study investigates Korea's motivations for foreign aid allocation, analyzing panel data from over 180 countries for the last 20 years. The results show that Korea's aid allocation reflects both recipient needs and Korea's own national interests but does not consistently consider aid effectiveness. Korean aid is also characterized by its use as an instrument of both summit diplomacy and resource security. In addition, its commercial motivations appear to have shifted over time, from export promotion to overseas investment support. Despite internal and external pressures, there is no obvious evidence that Korea's allocation rule converges with international guidelines that recommend greater consideration of recipient needs and aid effectiveness and less consideration of donor interests. © 2015 The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

At European level crime among children represents a contemporary issue and in Romania, the philosophy of the new penal code approved by Law No 286/2009 is shaped around punishment. Prevention policy in Romania and juvenile justice objectives relative to age criteria outlines two different legal manners to address children's liability under the law. One is targeting the category of children between 0 and 14 years of age, which consideres the absolute inability of criminal responsibility and one that provides criminal liability starting from the age of 14. The sensitivity of the issue of children involved in unlawfull acts and the inventory of responses to it brought me to the necessity of research the types of approach and diversity of social services built around this target group.

We suggest an alternative way to construct a family of indices of socioeconomic inequality of health. Our indices belong to the broad category of linear indices. In contrast to rank-dependent indices, which are defined in terms of the ranks of the socioeconomic variable and the levels of the health variable, our indices are based on the levels of both the socioeconomic and the health variable. We also indicate how the indices can be modified in order to introduce sensitivity to inequality in the socioeconomic distribution and to inequality in the health distribution. As an empirical illustration, we make a comparative study of the relation between income and well-being in 16 European countries using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Wave 4.

Using data for 28 European countries for the period 2008 to 2012, we examine whether employed individuals are affected by the economic crisis. We provide robust evidence that unfavourable macroeconomic conditions are negatively associated with the life satisfaction of employees. In addition, we find that higher levels of regional unemployment and inflation are predominantly associated with lower levels of life satisfaction for employees who are in a bad financial situation or who expect that their future financial situation will be worse. By contrast, employed people who do well financially and who have good prospects are not affected by the crisis. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13504851.2014.931916 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2014.931916

In a quantitative model of Social Security with endogenous health, I argue that Social Security increases the aggregate health spending of the economy because it redistributes resources to the elderly whose marginal propensity to spend on health is high. I show by using computational experiments that the expansion of US Social Security can account for over a third of the dramatic rise in US health spending from 1950 to 2000. In addition, Social Security has a spill-over effect on Medicare. As Social Security increases health spending, it also increases the payments from Medicare, thus raising its financial burden.

One of the most dramatic economic transformations in modern times has been the entry of women into the labor force. The purpose of this study is to address issues related to interactions among gender differences, economic growth and education with endogenous physical and human capital accumulation. Our model is a synthesis of the Solow model (Solow 1956) and the Uzawa-Lucas two-sector growth model (Uzawa 1965; Lucas 1988) with Zhang’s approach to household behavior (Zhang 1993). It adds gender issues to the traditional models. We examine behavior of the economy by simulation. We demonstrate the existence of equilibrium points and plot the motion of the dynamic system. We also examine the effects of changes on the time distributions and human capital of man and woman in the propensity to receive education, the efficiency of learning, the efficiency of education, and the propensity to save upon dynamic paths of the system.

How has wellbeing evolved over time and across regions? How does the West compare to the Rest? What explains their differences? These questions are addressed using an historical index of human development. A sustained improvement in wellbeing has taken place since 1870. The absolute gap between OECD and the Rest widened over time, but an incomplete catching up –largely explained by education- has occurred since 1913 but fading away after 1970, when the Rest fell behind the OECD in terms of longevity. As the health transition was achieved in the Rest, the contribution of life expectancy to human development improvement declined. Meanwhile, in the OECD, as longevity increased, healthy years expanded. A large variance in human development is noticeable in the Rest since 1970, with East Asia, Latin America and North Africa catching up to the OECD, while Central and Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa falling behind.

One of the most important challenges the European Union was facing at the beginning of the 21st century was to balance economic development with the improvement of quality of its citizens life. A new approach for assessing the quality of life using the ten-degree global scale is revealed in this article. The aptness of this approach to exploring the social area and determining the quality of life of people in different countries and regions are also discussed. There are being examined some practical aspects of setting up an expert system for social area.The article describes the implementation of such a system for evaluating the quality of life – QLIFEX. The expert system is an innovative research project based entirely on qualitative methods, which aims at helping in understanding of how in an era of great changes residents from different countries live and work in diverse economic organizations, and how they would rate their work and life.

The article is based on the findings of the Goerudio project which has been implemented by the EuroEd Foundation Iasi. The study focuses on the main factors responsible for students’ passivity and suggests innovative solutions in order to enhance students’ motivation to study science. Project participants, students, teachers and experts alike, have been engaged in applied research and development since the very beginning. Traditional and state-of-the-art teaching methods promoted by European projects have been taken into account. A solid learning community encouraging a new learning environment has been created through national and international interaction and communication. Its main ambition is to devise the necessary tools to enable learners to get a better understanding of the scientific subjects.

In this paper we highlighted the importance and the role of service quality in increasing the quality of welfare. In the twentieth century quality has become a fundamental and necessary value for progress, indispensable for "mastering" the future, in which the customer is important, he has absolute priority being a central character, and the company management must consider improving the production process, finding solutions, and involving staff. Therefore, quality leads to lasting customer satisfaction, meets the needs and expectations and helps to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Quality in services contributes to attracting new customers, the loss of fewer clients by providing quality services that require the presence of skills, wisdom, determination, and energy among the basic characteristics of the service provider. The importance of quality is reflected in its ability to meet people’s needs and to increase the standard of living.

The article estimates the efficiency of financing of social infrastructure based on the study of the dynamics of quantitative indicators of social sectors functioning and identify strategic priorities for its further development. The dynamics of quantitative development indicators of social infrastructure sectors during 2002-2012 are being analyzed. Demonstrated the predominance of distribution of budget expenditures for administrative needs and support of current operation of institutions of social infrastructure by the example of Lviv region. Attention is focused on the need to change the model of financing of social infrastructure of Ukraine for its effective development. According to the author, scaling up public and private partnerships and attraction of private investment in financing social infrastructure will improve the performance of social sectors and expand the base of financial resources of the field, going beyond the limited budget funding opportunities. It is proved that the use of self-financing and private investment facilitates contributes to the stable level of funding, creating opportunities to overcome the existing problems and the development of financing of social infrastructure of Ukraine.

Over the past decade, Pakistan has seen the rapid growth of a third sector in education: shadow education. According to the Annual Survey of Education Report (2013), 34 percent of private school students and 17 percent of public school students undertake private tuition in Punjab. Anecdotal evidence suggests that private tuition has a positive impact on learning outcomes. Keeping this in view, it is possible that private tuition, rather than a difference in schooling quality, is driving the observed learning gap between public and private schools? This study employs a fixed-effects framework, using panel data from the Learning and Educational Achievement in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) survey, to quantify the impact of private tuition on learning outcomes in public and private schools. We analyze the demand and supply dynamics of the shadow education market in Punjab, and find that private tuition has a positive significant effect on learning outcomes, specifically for public school students. For English, much of the learning gap between public and private schools is explained by the higher incidence of private tuition among private school students, but this is not the case for mathematics and Urdu. We also find that private tuition is predominantly supplied by private school teachers, but that they do not shirk their regular class hours to create demand for their tuition classes, as is normally believed. On the demand side, private tuition acts as a substitute for receiving help at home. Moreover, it supplements formal education rather than substituting for low-quality formal schooling.Keywords: Public versus private education, education quality, tutoring, Pakistan.JEL classification: I00, I21, I28.(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)1. IntroductionThe growth of low-fee private schools in Pakistan has changed the dynamics of the country's education sector. According to the literature, private schools outperform public schools in terms of learning outcomes (Aslam, 2009; Andrabi, Das, & Khwaja, 2002). This learning gap raises concerns about the standard of education provided by public schools and the associated equity effects, and led to serious debate on the relationship between education expenditure and academic performance.Existing studies have, however, largely ignored a third emerging sector in education: shadow education. Shadow education is defined as extra, paid private tuition classes given after school hours, either one-to-one at the student's home or in larger groups or at tuition academies. Evidence shows the growing prevalence of such classes in Pakistan with approximately 11 percent of students in rural areas and 54 percent in urban areas opting for private tuition. Moreover, a higher proportion of private school students are found to engage in private tuition than government school students (Annual Status of Education Report, 2013).Keeping this in view, it is possible that private tuition, rather than a difference in schooling quality, is driving the observed learning gap between public and private schools. The literature on Pakistan is silent in this regard, and the international literature on shadow education provides mixed evidence on the impact of private tuition on academic performance. There is a dearth of research examining the demand and supply of private tuition classes, leaving a number of questions open to debate, particularly in the context of less developed countries.This paper attempts to fill these gaps in the literature by examining the dynamics of the private tuition market in Punjab, Pakistan. We analyze the impact of private tuition on academic performance, looking particularly at whether it can explain the observed learning gap between public and private schools and whether private tuition can help bridge this gap. On the demand side, we analyze whether private tuition serves as a substitute for low-quality formal schooling or supplements in-school learning, and if it acts as a substitute for help received at home. …

The aim of this study was to examine differences in quality of life and stressful life events, in first and second generation immigrant adolescents living in Algarve. A total of 172 immigrant adolescents participated in the study, completing the kidscreen-52, the stressful and negative life events inventory and a socio-demographic questionnaire. Results suggest that younger immigrant adolescents report more physical well-being and a higher mood level. Concerning gender differences, girls scored higher than boys in physical well-being, mood and self-perception, but no differences were found on the other kidscreen subscales. First generation immigrants scored significantly higher than second generation ones on the general quality of life index, psychological well-being, autonomy, financial resources and school environment. However, the second-generation immigrants did not seem to be more exposed to stressful life events than the first-generation group. When selecting relevant variables for well-being promotion and for intervention, we must consider that immigrants are more exposed to economic vulnerability, may experience difficulties in adapting to a different school context, and are at higher risk of social exclusion.

Why 2013 European Year of Citizens? Not only because we celebrate the 20th birthday of EU citizenship from when it was launched by the Maastricht Treaty. The people have to know the rights of EU citizens that are enshrined in the Treaty of European Union and complement national rights. If people know about these rights and use them, they benefit as an individual. We focus in this paper on the active component of citizenship (in terms of participation, interaction, accountability and leadership) and on the imperative of education for active citizenship as part of the paradigm of participatory culture that we face nowadays. The paper presents European context, a conceptual approach of active citizenship and education for active citizenship, focusing also on Romanian specific context. We mention that a significant part of the information from this paper was used and enriched during the project 'Empowering youth Leadership for Democracy Sustainability' RO-13-E9-2013-R1, financed by Youth in Action, and developed as main applicant by Pro Global Science Association, Romania.

This paper investigates the extent of vengeful feelings and their determinants using data on more than 116,000 individuals from 66 countries. Country characteristics as well as personal attributes of the individuals influence vengeful feelings. The magnitude of vengeful feelings is greater for people in countries with low levels of education, low-income countries, and interrupted democracies. Personal education has an impact on vengeful feelings in lower-income countries. The results suggest that some puzzles about individual choice can best be explained by considering the interplay of personal and economic factors. © 2013 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This study uses Alkire and Foster’s (2007) methodology to measure Multidimensional Energy Poverty in Pakistan using Pakistan Social Living standard Measurement (PSLM) data for 2007-08. This measure also satisfies the property of decomposability. Multidimensional Energy Poverty Index (MEPI) has been calculated. Value of MEP headcount for rural Pakistan is 71 percent as compared to 29 percent in urban areas of Pakistan. Multidimensional Energy Poverty headcount for rural Pakistan is 71.4 percent and 28.6 percent of the households residing in rural areas of Pakistan are energy poor. Households of Pakistan are most deprived in cooking fuel dimension (55 percent) while deprivation is the least in dimension of home appliances ownership (15 percent). In urban areas of Pakistan, households are more deprived in dimension of cooking fuels (23 percent) followed by indoor pollution (19 percent). Almost one third households of rural Pakistan are deprived in dimension of indoor pollution (69 percent). Contribution of indoor pollution (32 percent) to multidimensional energy poverty headcount in Pakistan is the highest followed by the cooking fuels dimension (31 percent) and collectively these two dimensions contribute up to 63 percent in overall Multidimensional Energy Poverty headcount for Pakistan. Study further concludes that households deprivation in energy decreases with the increase in value of cut offs. Overall indoor pollution, cooking fuel and entertainment appliances are the three major contributors, to overall MEP headcount not only as a whole but region wise also. Based on results, the study established that there is significant and higher incidence and severity of energy poverty in rural areas as compared to urban areas in Pakistan

Cet article se propose de mesurer le niveau de développement humain des régions marocaines en utilisant, pour la première fois, la méthodologie de l’Indice de Développement Humain révisée en 2010. De forts écarts de développement humain entre les régions marocaines sont mis en évidence. Les disparités apparaissent cependant plus flagrantes lorsqu’on considère le niveau d’éducation et dans une moindre mesure le niveau de vie. Avec un IDH égal à 0,709, le Grand Casablanca occuperait virtuellement la 94ème place mondiale. Cette région serait classée à la 30ème position pour la santé, 99ème pour le revenu par tête et 118ème pour l’éducation. L’analyse de l’IDH non monétaire révèle que son niveau semble être davantage entamé par la composante éducation que par celle de la santé. Par rapport au Grand Casablanca, le retard de développement humain des autres régions est de 21 ans pour l’espérance de vie à la naissance, 41 ans pour la moyenne d’années de scolarisation, 17 ans pour l’es-pérance de vie scolaire et de 47 ans pour le revenu.

There are persistent differences in self-reported subjective well-being across U.S. metropolitan areas, and residents of declining cities appear less happy than other Americans. Newer residents of these cities appear to be as unhappy as longer term residents, and yet some people continue to move to these areas. While the historical data on happiness are limited, the available facts suggest that cities that are now declining were also unhappy in their more prosperous past. One interpretation of these facts is that individuals do not aim to maximize self-reported well-being, or happiness, as measured in surveys, and they willingly endure less happiness in exchange for higher incomes or lower housing costs. In this view, subjective well-being is better viewed as one of many arguments of the utility function, rather than the utility function itself, and individuals make trade-offs among competing objectives, including but not limited to happiness.

Measuring capabilities is a major challenge for the operationalization of the capability approach. Structural equation models (SEM) are being increasingly used as one possible methodology for estimating capabilities, but a certain skepticism remains about their appropriateness. In this paper, we perform a unique simulation experiment for testing the validity of such estimators. Using an agent-based modeling tool, we simulate a ‘real’ life scenario with individuals of heterogeneous characteristics and behaviors, having different capability sets, and making different decisions. We then run a SEM (MIMIC) model on the data generated in this simulated world to estimate the individual capabilities. Thus our data generating process is completely disconnected with the econometric model used for estimation. Our results support the idea that SEM can coherently estimate the true capabilities. We find that the linear predictor from the structural part of the SEM provides better results than the ‘classical’ factor scores based on the full model.

PurposeInvestment in human development is considered a means of improving the quality of life and sustaining economic growth in the Caribbean. The purpose of this paper is to assess the efficacy of public spending on health care and education by evaluating the life expectancy and school enrolment rates of these countries.Design/methodology/approachUsing a data set containing 19 Caribbean countries over the period 1995 to 2007 for health care and 1980 to 2009 for education, a Panel Ordinary Least Squares model was employed.FindingsThe results revealed that health expenditure has a significant positive effect on health status, while spending on education has no appreciable influence on either primary or secondary school enrolment.Originality/valueUnlike previous Caribbean research, the paper explores a variable for quality in the education system, that is, the pupil‐teacher ratio. It also seeks to update the existing Caribbean literature by employing data from 1980 to 2009.

The position of Mayotte in terms of development is a critical issue following its recent accession to the status of French Overseas Department. In this article we propose measuring the level of development by the Human De-velopment Index (HDI) established by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a composite indicator that integrates dimensions relating to monetary wealth, health, and education within an economy. We perform the calculation for Mayotte and La Reunion (the other French Overseas Department in the Indian Ocean), for years 2005-2007, presenting all the assumptions and estimates that have proven necessary. In the light of this assessment, it appears clearly that Mayotte’s development gap is substantial since its level of human development ranks approximately 100th on a global scale, as compared to La Reunion, ranking 40th and France, ranking 8th on the index.

A population’s education levels determine its health status and in turn its economic growth. Despite considerable research, the mechanisms through which education influences health seeking behaviour and the way it is operationalised is still a subject of intense debate. Consequently, considerable resources are continuing to be spent on education and health literacy without achieving the desired impact. Yet, the need to understand these mechanisms is undeniable in light of its likely significant impact on how we design our health campaigns. This study shows that populations with poor formal literacy rates show equivalent or even better health indices. These target populations have better attitudes, better access and consequently better utilisation of health interventions. This utilisation was dependent upon, first people becoming aware of existence of health conditions and understanding their impact. On being confronted with a specific health condition, this general awareness would prime specific health seeking behaviours. The success of such behaviours was crucially dependent upon access to corresponding health interventions. Thus a sequential model of general awareness-specific awareness-attitudes-access-utilisation is developed. Our understanding of these mechanisms is facilitated if Health awareness is measured not only in terms of general indicators such as formal schooling or education but also in terms of specific awareness indicators. This has immense policy implications in health care, both in terms of content of message and emphasis on education and specific health behaviour campaigns. It also crucially changes the mechanism of evaluation of health behaviour interventions.

Social cohesion is one of the aims to be achieved through lifelong learning, together with personal fulfilment, active citizenship, and employability. In the context of rapid change there is a concern that many people would feel marginalized by the digital revolution and globalization. The upgrade of competences, skills and aptitudes becomes a stringent need to maintain employability, to reduce unemployment, or to become competitive on the labour market. This has to be done throughout the entire lifetime of individuals. This article aims to discover how lifelong learning contributes to increase social cohesion. It begins with a theoretical review of the construct of social cohesion, and then it explores the relationship between social cohesion and lifelong learning. In the end, several mini case studies are presented to bring real evidence into the discussion of how social cohesion can be strengthen through learning activities.

Many of the bibliographical references to the forms of ethics embedded in the hospital - related practices suggest, in return, a clear reference to the biomedical ethics involved in the healthcare of patients and also to the specific activity of ethics committees. Policies regarding abortion or those in favour of the t ermination of treatment expressed by patients in a vegetative condition through their biological testament - “the living will” (acc. Williamson & Jauch,1995) , are examples which often throw the medical world in the midst of difficult ethical dilemmas. Ne vertheless, besides their strong social mission of taking care of the health of a population, hospitals are equally meant to deal with all the ethical aspects that leave their mark on each organization, either internally, or externally, irrespective of the ir specific branch and of their field of activity – the public or the private sphere. Our article highlights in a theoretical way the necessity and benefits to promote the organizational ethics within the healthcare system

In this paper I want to emphasize the evolution of the number of disabled persons. Having in mind this objective I took in mind three important issues such as: the infrastructure, the evolution of the number of the people in need and the structure of the people wich benefits from the system. Furthermore I manage to give valuable solution to increase the finance of the system and the capacity of the system te react in time to any demand.

Although both economists and psychologists seek to identify determinants of heterogeneity in behavior, they use different concepts to capture them. In this review, we first analyze the extent to which economic preferences and psychological concepts of personality, such as the Big Five and locus of control, are related. We analyze data from incentivized laboratory experiments and representative samples and find only low degrees of association between economic preferences and personality. We then regress life outcomes (such as labor market success, health status, and life satisfaction) simultaneously on preference and personality measures. The analysis reveals that the two concepts are rather complementary when it comes to explaining heterogeneity in important life outcomes and behavior.

In this paper I tried to present the evolution of the family allowances in Romania, identifying to each one the positive and negative trend. Also had in view and the abrogate allowances and I maked a comparation between the 2 legal regulations which were in force during 2004-2011. I started this paper by identifying the conditions needed to be fulfilled to benefit by the family allowance right and after that I done an in depth analzye of each allowance.

Pedestrians are exposed to risks when crossing roads in urban areas. The crossing behaviour of pedestrians was studied as a factor contributing to their exposure to risks on the road and to their involvement in road accidents. This work explores two specific aspects of crossing behaviour: crossing speed and head pitches – the proportion of time pedestrians point their heads down (rather than towards the traffic) when crossing a road. The last one is used as an indicator of the (lack of) attention to cross-traffic. We also explored the possible effect of fear of falling (FOF) among pedestrians, as it might be associated with slow walking, less attention to cross traffic, and more attention to the pavement and their footsteps. This paper reports on a field study that combined an observatory technique with short survey. 203 pedestrians in two sites (signalised and unsignalised crosswalks) were video recorded while crossing the road. The FOF of pedestrians and other measures of pedestrian behaviour at crosswalks were revealed by means of questionnaire. Age and gender had the most significant effects on crossing speed, and FOF had a significant effect on the proportion of downward head pitches during crossing.

This study estimates long-run impacts of a child health investment, exploiting community-wide experimental variation in school-based deworming. The program increased labor supply among men and education among women, with accompanying shifts in labor market specialization. Ten years after deworming treatment, men who were eligible as boys stay enrolled for more years of primary school, work 17% more hours each week, spend more time in nonagricultural self-employment, are more likely to hold manufacturing jobs, and miss one fewer meal per week. Women who were in treatment schools as girls are approximately one quarter more likely to have attended secondary school, halving the gender gap. They reallocate time from traditional agriculture into cash crops and nonagricultural self-employment. We estimate a conservative annualized financial internal rate of return to deworming of 32%, and show that mass deworming may generate more in future government revenue than it costs in subsidies.

Basic services which are essential for the overall development of a child should not depend on circumstances such as caste, religion, gender, place of birth, or other parental characteristics, which are beyond his/her control. This paper uses two rounds of Indian National Family Health Surveys and concepts of Inequality of Opportunity and Human Opportunity Indices to measure inequality arising out of unequal coverage of full immunization and minimum nutrition for Indian children. The results suggest overall high level of inequality of opportunity with substantial geographical variations. Changes in inequality of opportunity in the two services during 1992–1993 to 2005–2006 were mixed with some geographical regions outperforming others. The findings also call for substantial policy revisions if the goal of universal full immunization and minimum nutrition has to be achieved.

La investigación empírica previa ha mostrado que el programa mexicano Oportunidades ha tenido éxito en aumentar la escolaridad y mejorar la salud de niños desfavorecidos. Este artículo estudia las potenciales consecuencias de largo plazo en la pobreza y desigualdad que afectan a estos niños. Adapta modelos desarrollados por DiNardo, Fortin y Lemieux (1996) the incorpora estimadores experimentales existentes de los efectos del programa en el capital humano para analizar cómo Oportunidades afectará los ingresos futuros de los participantes del programa. Simulamos de manera no-paramétrica las distribuciones de ingreso, con y sin el programa, y predecimos que Oportunidades aumentará los ingresos medios futuros pero sólo tienthe efectos modestos en la tasa de pobreza y la desigualdad de ingresos.

This paper uses Johansen multivariate cointegration analysis to examine the relationship between health and GDP for 13 OECD countries over the last two centuries, for periods ranging from 1820-2001 to 1921-2001. A similar, long run, cointegrating relationship between life expectancy and both total GDP and GDP per capita was found for all the countries estimated. The relationships have a significant influence on both total GDP and GPD per capita in most of the countries estimated, with 1% increase in life expectancy resulting in an average 6% increase in total GDP in the long run, and 5% increase in GDP per capita. Total GDP and GDP per capita also have a significant influence on life expectancy for most countries. There is no evidence of changes in the relationships for any country over the periods estimated, indicating that shifts in the major causes of illness and death over time do not appear to have influenced the link between health and economic growth.

The pre sent paper focuses on the management associated with relatively common concepts: objective, result and performance (ORP). The study is important because in the Romania of the year 2011, a “state reform” is being planned, which will substantiate into the reorganization of public institutions, as the improvement of their activity is set forth by utilizing the set of tools associated with the aforementioned concepts. The study represents an analysis related to the use of the set of management tools associated with the aforementioned concepts within the Romanian public organizations. The study is concerned with a qualitative estimation involving the translation of the existing theory into the practice of the present moment. The review of the specialized literature is aimed at selecting the most common theoretical milestones, in order to increase the probability to retrieve them from the practice of the organizations. The works of Drucker represent the first theoretical system of reference. The way the ORP concepts have been utilized within the American organizations generate the guiding elements of the present study. The research presents a longitudinal segmentation, the frontier between the two parts being the present moment. The current state of facts is studied by means of an inductive approach. The hypothesis related to the ORP management in the near future is actually built on the grounds provided by the estimation of this state of facts. Its deductive approach starts from evaluating the pragmatic premises, involving the support of the process that will utilize the ORP in the near future, according to the theoretical percepts. The analysis is qualitative in nature. The identification of the cases that represented “the exception” was taken into account. The analysis focused on public institutions considered a priori as more transparent: the university, the hospital and the town hall. Even if in the case of the university there are regulations that facilitate the strategic planning, the utilization of objectives according to the MBO precepts is absent. The same situation is to be found in the case of hospitals and town halls. The use of primary and secondary information sources prove that the ORP has not been utilized. It was ascertained that the premises for utilizing the ORP are the same for the near future, a fact that implies the same results. The main implication is associated with the “myth or reality?” question. The result has a demystifying impact, showing that a reliable estimation on the ORP basis related to the activities of or people working in these organizations cannot be developed nowadays - in 2011. The present study aims at a realistic analysis related to the discrepancy between words and facts within the management of the Romanian public organizations. The fact that the aforementioned organizations represent the object of the “management of shallow labels content” is signaled and demonstrated.

Evolution of preuniversity educational institution - taking into account the preuniversity educational institution in developing the human society, the following stages are distinguished in its development since its appearance until now and namely. The educational institution - basic unit of the national system of preuniversity education. The definition of the preuniversity educational institution as basic unit of the national system of the preuniversity education takes into account the social function of the preuniversity educational institution in relation to the structures which it can define in time and space.

Az elmúlt években Magyarországon is fokozatosan nőtt az érdeklődés az életminőség vizsgálata iránt. A 2004-2006 közötti időszakra készült első Nemzeti Fejlesztési Terv fő célkitűzése a lakosság életminőségének javítása volt, de célját nem érte el, mivel a WHO 2010 májusában közzétett statisztikája szerint a magyarországi életminőség-mutatók az európai rangsor végén találhatók. Elszomorító az Eurobarométer 2010. évi reprezentatív kutatásának eredménye: a népesség 77 százalékának életmódja mozgásszegény, fizikailag inaktív. Kutatásunk során azt a ténylegesen hiánypótló célt kívántuk elérni, hogy meghatározzuk és számszerűsítsük a mozgásszegény életmódból adódó nemzetgazdasági terheket, valamint megbecsüljük a fizikai inaktivitás csökkentésével elérhető megtakarítások számszerűsíthető mértékét. Az Országos Egészségbiztosítási Pénztár (OEP) és egy saját országos kérdőíves kutatás (n = 1158) adataira támaszkodtunk. A fizikai inaktivitás betegségeire vonatkozó megtakarítási lehetőségeket tételesen határoztuk meg, majd megállapítottuk az inaktivitásból származó gazdasági terheket, aminek alapján a döntéshozók elkészíthetik a fizikai inaktivitás csökkentésre alkalmas akcióterveiket. Ezzel nemcsak a lakosság "közérzete" javulhat számottevően, de komolyabb költségeket is meg lehet takarítani közép- és hosszú távon. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kód: H51, I00, I31., Interest in examining the quality of life has increased steadily in Hungary in recent years. Improving it was the main objective of the first National Development Plan, for the 2004-6 period, but it failed to do so, for Hungary s indices for quality of life were at the bottom of the European list according to figures published by the WHO in May 2010. The results of the representative research Eurobarometer 2010 are saddening: 77 per cent of the population pursue a low-exercise, physically inactive lifestyle. The authors researches sought to fill a gap by measuring and quantifying the national economic costs of a low-exercise lifestyle and to estimate quantitatively the savings to be made by reducing such physical inactivity. The paper relies on the data of the National Health Insurance Fund and on an authors questionnaire (n = 1158). The potential savings on illness relating to physical activity are listed one by one, to arrive at the economic costs of such inactivity, based on which it is possible for decision-makers to prepare adequate action plans for reducing physical inactivity. This will improve the "morale" of the public and bring appreciable savings in the medium and long term.

The research focuses on how generations can be helped to learn to manage their own intelligence, especially that form of intelligence that can act as a body resource on the line of self development, namely emotional intelligence. The study shows the link between emotional intelligence and self-esteem, relating them to other features of personality traits. We worked on 70 subjects aged between 20 and 25 years old, using Rosenberg, Eysenck, Goleman questionnaires and a temperament test. The results show that the subjects with a high emotional intelligence have a high level of empathy and self appreciation terms of personality traits closer to their real image and typologies that are extroverted.

In Deutschland ist die öffentliche Debatte über Zuwanderung und Integration nicht erst seit der Veröffentlichung von Thilo Sarrazins Buch in vollem Gange. Fast ein Fünftel der Bevölkerung hierzulande hat einen Migrationshintergrund, bei den unter 20-Jährigen sind es sogar knapp 30%. Einen großen Anteil machen die Zuwanderer der zweiten Generation aus. Insbesondere im Hinblick auf deren Bildungs- und Arbeitsmarkterfolg sind erhebliche Integrationsdefizite erkennbar. Zum einen erzielen Zuwanderer der zweiten Generation geringere Bildungsabschlüsse als Personen ohne Migrationshintergrund. Zum anderen verdienen sie im Durchschnitt weniger und sind häufiger von Arbeitslosigkeit betroffen. Unsere neue Forschungsarbeit (Lüdemann und Schwerdt 2010) untersucht, inwiefern der mangelnde Bildungs- und Arbeitsmarkterfolg von Zuwanderern der zweiten Generation mit der frühen Mehrgliedrigkeit im deutschen Schulsystem in Verbindung gebracht werden kann.

The present paper is an excerpt, with little adaptation, from the master thesis: “Project management’s contribution to international cooperation. How to make things work: ODA in Haiti” wrote under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Horst Brezinski from Technical University Freiberg Bergakademie and Prof. Dr. Eng.. Sabina Irimie from University of Petrosani, while benefiting from an Erasmus study scholarship at the first mentioned institution. It presents the case of Haiti, a small country facing big challenges and enjoying plenty of international attention especially due to the recent earthquake that struck the country at the beginning of 2010. The SWOT analysis inside the paper offers a detailed view of Haiti’s actual situation, identifying in the same time its problems and the variables that should be taken into consideration when designing programmes and projects targeting Haiti’s development.

The link between strategy and public organization is of growing interest since years and we especially question what organizations strategically do when they implement new organizational arrangements imposed by public policies. And we especially contribute to what public organizations strategically do when they face changes (Bryson and al., 2010). We especially focus on actors who face such changes which are both strategic and institutional (when changes modify the existing institutions). And we question what actors strategically do when they have to appropriate new organizational arrangements. Taking into account the complex and fragmented institutionalized context public organizations operate in, we observe that the literature has put little attention to this level of analysis as being strategically molded / created by organizations and we answer this gap by mobilizing the perspective of the Negotiated Order (NO) (Beaulieu and Pasquero, 2002; Strauss and al., 1963, Turcotte and Pasquero, 2001). Through this perspective, we analyze how actors negotiate and elaborate local and situated agreements to strategically implement new organizational arrangements in institutional contexts. We propose an additional strategy which rests on the process of constructing (i.e. enacting) stakeholders to build organization as local negotiated order. Through the process of stakeholders’enactment, the actors determined how these stakeholders may be identified and differentiated so as to better channel the institutional logics interplays which shape the actors during negotiations; and we have identified 5 ways of enacting stakeholders. We contribute to the literature on NO by enlightening the political process of NO building and proposing one additional strategy of NO building, as well as to the literature on strategy of public organization by better understanding how public organizations strategically mold the (local) rules of the game through negotiations and consensus.

The article discusses the communication policy of the selected educational institutions in the region of Eastern Slovakia in the context of the analysis of potential customers’ - secondary school students’ familiarity with the institutions and favourable attitudes towards them. It monitors the attitudes of the above mentioned subjects towards the faculties of the selected higher education institutions putting the emphasis on finding and meeting their needs for information. It also focuses its attention on defining further target segments and meeting their needs for information resources by means of selecting tools of communication policy and their appropriate combination.

Suicide is considered a public health issued by the World Health Organization. Suicide is amongst the ten most frequent causes of death in all ages, in addition to being the second or third cause of death between 15 and 34 years of age. Estimates show that for every suicide there are at least ten suicides attempts that require medical attention and for every suicide attempt recorded, four are not known. The aim of this paper is to analyze the socioeconomic determinants of suicide rates for Brazilian micro-regions, taking into account spatial aspects of the problem. The hypothesis of this paper is that there is a "spatial contagion effect" for suicide, that is to say, the neighborhood suicide rates are an important determinant of the regional suicide rate. This is achieved by the use of spatial econometrics techniques to assess whether there is spatial dependence for suicide rates in micro-regions.

What are the underlying drivers of human development? This essay argues that long-term human development, in incomes, social conditions, security and so on, is fundamentally driven by capitalist dynamics and state functioning. The big issue is not state versus market, or growth versus equity, or dynamism versus security. It is the jointly determined functioning of both capitalism and the state. It is in particular a consequence of the extent to which both capitalist and state behaviour is oligarchic, extractive, exploitative and divisive as opposed to being inclusive, innovative, accountable, responsive and effective at mediating distributional conflict. This can be conceptualized, at a point of time, in terms of the nature of the political equilibrium, or, alternatively, the way in which social contracts work. This is a product of the historically shaped interaction between political and economic elites, and between these and various social groups. Specific policy designs of course matter, whether in terms of market-related policy, regulation, designs for social provisioning. But the ways in policy and institutional choices work, and indeed the choices societies make, is intimately linked to the nature and functioning of the underlying social contracts that in turn shape capitalist dynamics and state behaviour.

The standard cost per student is an indicator of substantiating the need for funds to cover the financing base. Standard cost level that of each category of expenditure on basic funding is determined by physical indicators of human and material resource consumption down by laws and government decisions or acts of ministries and central institutions developed specialized.

This paper examines the macroeconomic impact of inward international remittances on human-centered development in 15 Sub-Saharan African countries. Following the fixed-effects balanced panel data estimation procedure for the period, 1987 to 2007, the empirical results reveal that, indeed, international remittance inflows impact positively on human development in the long run. As per the empirical findings, the paper concludes that, given the irreversible high propensity to travel abroad among the productively active citizens of the sub-region in a bid to earn ‘a decent wage’, the relevant institutions and policymakers within the sub-region should devise appropriate strategies and policy framework to attract higher remittances from abroad. The empirical model and methodology used in this paper are relevant and, hence, can be applied in related fields of study.

A szorosabb értelemben vett fogyasztóvédelem szempontjából a hagyományos közgazdaságtan általános ajánlása egyszerű volt: a fogyasztókat minél teljesebben kell informálni, és mivel gyakran ez nem áll a vállalatok érdekében, a kötelező információnyilvánosság eszközeivel szabályozásra is szükség van. A szabályozó feladata annak eldöntése, hogy mely információk számítanak "relevánsnak". A viselkedési közgazdaságtan azonban nemcsak a kevéssé informált, hanem a korlátozottan racionális fogyasztóval is számol. Ezért a fogyasztó megtévesztése közgazdasági elmélet alapján is értelmezhetővé vált. Sőt, a megtévesztés nemcsak hazugságot, félreinformálást jelent ebben a megközelítésben, hanem a fogyasztók kognitív és döntési hibáinak, "irracionális" preferenciáinak tudatos kihasználását is. Emellett az új megközelítés a szabályozói kudarcok új szempontjait veti fel, hiszen a régi elmélet alapján a szabályozási kudarcok oka is csupán a szabályozók információs hiányosságai lehettek. A korlátozott racionalitás a szabályozókra és jogalkalmazókra is érvényes. A tanulmány ezeket a kérdéseket vizsgálja konkrét példákon - elsősorban a fogyasztói hitelezésen és szakértői szolgáltatásokon - keresztül. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) kód: D18, L15, I00., Informing consumers to the fullest possible extent was perhaps the simplest and com-monest proposition concerning consumer protection under the traditional theory of asymmetric information. Since it has been demonstrated that firms do not necessarily have adequate incentives to provide that information, the obvious policy conclusion according to the traditional approach leads to the regulation of disclosure of information. Regulators have to decide what the relevant information is. Awareness has developed among behavioural economists of consumers who are rational within bounds, not merely of poorly informed consumers. This change in perspective implies that even cheating or misinforming consumers are ideas susceptible to analysis by economists. Regulatory attention has also been paid to deliberate strategies of making use of cognitive mistakes or irrational" preferences. However, the new approach exhibits new types of regulatory failures, since regulators are themselves liable to be less than perfectly rational. The study summarizes recent literature on these topics.

In this paper we have tried to present the most important characteristics of unemployment, its forms of manifestation and involvement, its analysis based on its specific marks, as well as the means of fighting it. We related these findings to the level of unemployment in Alba County for a better exemplification and understanding. The data provided by Employment Agency of Alba Iulia (U.A. of Alba Iulia) reflects the economic reality.