Demographic transition,education and economic growth in Tunisia

This paper provides empirical evidence supporting the interaction between fertility, education and economic growth through the underlying mechanism behind that correlation in accordance with Becker's theory. In consistency with the theory, the key explanatory variables in Tunisia's fertility model are real GDP per capita, infant mortality, contraceptive use ratio, and education. As opposed to most empirical works, the present study takes into consideration three educational levels, i.e., primary, secondary and higher. Also unlike most empirical research, this study attempts to analyse the impact of fertility transition on education and economic growth. To deal with too little or incomplete data, time series data for Tunisia are computed over 45 years. A multivariate cointegration analysis is carried out and shows that a long-term triangular relationship exists. A short dynamic run analysis based on the vector correction error model displays results in coherence with and close to those of the long term. Among our key results, education is found to trigger fertility transition both in the short and long run. In addition, education has relatively fostered economic growth but hardly boosted it through its dynamic interaction with fertility. Furthermore, the variance decomposition and the impulse function show that the fertility transition has produced a feedback effect on both education and economic growth.     

Technik für ein langes Leben

Megatrend Ambient Assisted Living - Im Jahr 2035 wird in Deutschland jeder dritte Mensch ?lter sein als 60 Jahre. Die Nachfrage nach Dienstleistungen und unterstützenden Systemen wird steigen. Technische Assistenzsysteme für Pflegende, Pflegebedürftige und deren Angeh?rige sollen das Leben im Alter sicherer und bequemer machen.     

Leslie Berlin. The Man behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. xi + 402 pp. ISBN 0-19-516343-5, $30.00.

The last few years have seen a number of books on the rise ofSilicon Valley. Martin Kenney’s Understanding SiliconValley (2000), Ross Bassett’s To the Digital Age (2002),Frederick Terman at Stanford by C. Stewart Gillmor (2004), andmy own book on Making Silicon Valley (2006) are notable examples.Another addition to this literature is The Man behind the Microchip:Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley by     

Stock selection using a multi-factor model - empirical evidence from the French stock market

Using a Barra-type factor model, we have attempted to determine whether it is possible to beat the benchmark by taking advantage of anomalies established in the financial empirical literature. More specifically we have built an equity premium model based on three sets of factors (accounting variables, stock market characteristics and sector indicators) using a Bayesian method corrected for heteroscedasticity to estimate risk premiums, a technique that takes agents' learning into account. The results are encouraging: first, the factors that carried most weight on the equity premiums corroborated the results of empirical studies described in the financial literature, secondly, the portfolios constructed from our methodology and simulated outside our sample, returned higher performance than the benchmark and rewarded the supplement of volatility.     

The Risk Map: A new tool for validating risk models

This paper presents a new method to validate risk models: the Risk Map. This method jointly accounts for the number and the magnitude of extreme losses and graphically summarizes all information about the performance of a risk model. It relies on the concept of a super exception, which is defined as a situation in which the loss exceeds both the standard Value-at-Risk (VaR) and a VaR defined at an extremely low probability. We then formally test whether the sequences of exceptions and super exceptions are rejected by standard model validation tests. We show that the Risk Map can be used to validate market, credit, operational, or systemic risk estimates (VaR, stressed VaR, expected shortfall, and CoVaR) or to assess the performance of the margin system of a clearing house.     

May business mentors act as opportunity brokers and enablers among university students?

Networks are recognized as a central component of the entrepreneurial process, in particular with regard to opportunity identification and exploitation. In this study, we specifically analyze the role of mentors who are in business as opportunity brokers and enablers among university students with entrepreneurial intentions. Our investigation on 1022 students from 13 French-language universities based in Canada, France, Belgium and Algeria indicates that mentors in business, contrary to other mentors, support opportunity identification and exploitation among university students. Although student gender, entrepreneurial experience and education have a more pronounced effect, mentoring is the only element that can be controlled for through the creation of formal support programs. These results call on public authorities, and universities in particular, to implement formal mentoring programs to support students who are interested in starting their own business, and who would not otherwise have access to business mentors in their environment.