Advantages of assembly lines in Sheltered Work Centres for Disabled. A case study

Current practices for the treatment of the physically and/or mentally handicapped prescribe meaningful job activity as a means towards both a more fulfilling life and societal integration. In many countries, these practices have facilitated the development of many Sheltered Work Centres for Disabled.In the case study presented, a reengineering process is done starting from individual workplaces where only certain workers were capable of assembling the entire product, and finishing with an assembly line implementation. It is revealed how the traditional division of work in single tasks, typical in assembly lines, becomes a perfect tool for making certain worker disabilities invisible, providing new jobs for disabled people; always taking into account certain special constraints that are analysed.     

Evaluating the efficiency of municipalities in the presence of unobserved heterogeneity

Journal of Productivity Analysis - The paper applies some of the latest advances of probabilistic approach to account directly for unobserved heterogeneity in the estimation of efficiency measures...     

Which farmers benefit the most from Bt corn adoption? Estimating heterogeneity effects in the Philippines

The potential contributions of new biotechnologies to sustainable food and income security have been the subject of widespread discussions around the turn of the 21st century. But distributional issues of which segments of adopters of genetically modified (GM) crops benefit the most have not been given ample attention). Using propensity scores, we apply the (a) stratification‐multilevel method of estimating heterogeneous treatment effects; and the (b) matching‐smoothing method of estimating heterogeneous treatment effects proposed by Xie et al. We find that the incidence of higher yields, lower insecticide use, and reduced seed utilization in the Philippines diminishes progressively as a farmer's propensity to adopt Bt corn increases. Farmers with a low propensity to adopt Bt are those who farm smaller, nonirrigated farms located farther from seed suppliers and farmers without previous training on pest identification. In most cases, while these farmers are typically poorer farmers in smaller parcels, cannot afford irrigation and are situated in remote areas away from easily accessible seed suppliers, there is no evidence, however, that profits differ across farmers with varying propensities to adopt the Bt variety.     

On the performance of the Chow-Lin procedure for quarterly interpolation of annual data: Some Monte-Carlo analysis

Most of the countries of the OECD offer quarterly estimates of their national growth or of their Gross National Product. Official Statistical Agencies in western countries have to deal with the problem of estimating Quarterly National Accounts series congruently with Annual National Accounts. In Spain, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística uses the Chow-Lin disaggregation method, which is based on information provided by a group of high-frequency related variables, to estimate the quarterly components of National Accounts from annual components. In this paper, we analyse the relative quality of the estimates obtained through the Chow-Lin procedure, under different sets of hypotheses.JEL Classification: C15, C43, M40We are grateful to Maria Amparo Ripoll for her assistance. The authors also wish to thank three anonymous referees and an editor for their constructive suggestions and comments. This research was partially made during the stay of the first author at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. It has been partially supported by the research project DGCYT PB98-1460.     

Analysing wage differentials when workers maximize the return to human capital investment

The analysis of the determinants of differences in wages across workers has traditionally relied on the estimation of average earnings functions. In this article, we propose a new theoretical model where it is the workers who decide the amount they wish to invest in human capital, taking into account the costs of acquiring those skills, for the purpose of maximizing earnings. In this model, both human capital and marginal productivity are likely to be influenced by the individual’s (unobserved) characteristics such as ability or motivation, potentially giving rise to endogeneity problems. In this context, the empirical implementation of our theoretical model allows us, under certain assumptions, to obtain consistent estimates even under the assumption of endogeneity. We present an empirical application to the education sector using data from the Spanish Structure of Earnings Survey 2010. Our results show that females and workers in the private education sector face more difficulties in achieving their maximum potential wage.     

A Negotiation Model for Inducing Higher Service in a Distribution Channel

This paper analyzes, in the context of negotiation, the problem of coordination and conflict resolution between the manufacturer (Seller) and the retailers (Buyers) for a two-tier inventory system. The retailers capture demand (from customers) and therefore are responsible for the level of service offered by the system. The larger the inventory that a retailer has of a particular product, the lower the probability of running out of stock and therefore, avoid the possibility of a lost sale for the manufacturer. A conflict arises (and therefore the negotiation process starts) when the manufacturer wants the retailer to increase the level of service while retailers are satisfied with the status quo. Using the Nash bargaining solution, we develop a theoretical framework that incorporates behavioral dimensions and predicts the outcome of “sharing” the profit. The results indicate the advantage of developing long term relationships among the members of the distribution channel to minimize the uncertainty and therefore the source of conflict.