Structural change and female participation in recent economic growth: a multisectoral analysis for the Spanish economy

ABSTRACT

Economic growth has different impacts on gender gaps. In recent decades the growing participation of women in the labour market has reduced the gender employment gap, however a notable gender pay gap still persists standing at around 15% on average in the European Union. In this context, this paper evaluates the impact of economic growth patterns on the evolution of gender employment and pay gaps. First, sectorial feminization, direct discrimination, and structural change factors are identified and evaluated as ways to explain changes observed in the gender pay gap. Second, we explore the influence of demand, technology, and intensity factors on the evolution of employment combining gender, skill, sectorial, and temporal perspectives. As a case study, we examine Spanish economic growth from 1980 to 2007 and the influences on the size, composition (by skill), and distribution (by sector) of female and male employment, as well as the consequences for gender gaps. Our results show that structural change contributed to reduce the gender employment gap in Spain; while the evolution of the gender pay gap is less conclusive, following a sort of inverted U-shape. This paper shows the suitability and potential of the multisectorial input–output framework to analyse structural and technological changes and their impacts on the gender employment and pay gaps.     

The Index of Function Suitability (IFS): A new tool for assessing the capacity of landscapes to provide amenity functions

Integrating social demands into landscape management has been proven difficult because of a lack of suitable measures. In order to address this issue this article describes the development of the Index of Function Suitability (IFS). This offers an integrated conceptual tool for incorporating social demands into landscape management. The IFS links preferences to land cover spatial patterns as it uses quantitative indicators for gauging differences between the preferred landscape patterns by users, for a certain activity related to an amenity function (e.g. hunting), and the land cover patterns of a given rural area (either at the present or from scenarios developed for the future). Introducing the measurement of the difference between the preferred spatial patterns and the landscape patterns occurring in a given landscape is a fundamental conceptual development represented in the IFS. By using the same set of indicators to quantify different land cover patterns, the IFS gauges quantitatively the differences between their spatial patterns, thus providing landscape managers with an indication of the suitability of changing land covers to support the selected amenity functions. In this paper, the conceptual aspects, as well as the methodological steps of the IFS were explained and further applied to one empirical case study in the Alentejo region of Portugal. This paper also examines both the strengths and weaknesses of the IFS approach along with a discussion for improvement.     

A decomposition formula for option prices in the Heston model and applications to option pricing approximation

By means of classical It? calculus, we decompose option prices as the sum of the classical Black?CScholes formula, with volatility parameter equal to the root-mean-square future average volatility, plus a term due to correlation and a term due to the volatility of the volatility. This decomposition allows us to develop first- and second-order approximation formulas for option prices and implied volatilities in the Heston volatility framework, as well as to study their accuracy for short maturities. Numerical examples are given.     

International trade in services: firm-level evidence for Portugal

Portuguese Economic Journal - This paper adds to the existing firm-level evidence on international trade in non-tourism services, using a new Portuguese database merged with balance-sheet data. In...     

Pattern of information technology use and relationship learning in international customer-supplier relationships

While information technology (IT) has been widely applied in global supply chain relationships, academic research in this area is still limited. Drawing on resource-based view (RBV) and interpartner learning theory, we investigate how different pattern of IT use (IT exploitation and IT exploration) influences relationship learning and performance in international customer-supplier relationships. Further, we look into two contingent conditions including technological uncertainty and cultural distance in the proposed model. Based on 240 Taiwanese-based electronics suppliers, this empirical study reveals that only exploration side of IT use was significant on relationship learning and finds significant positive relationship between relationship learning and relationship performance. Moreover, the effect of IT exploration on relationship learning was positively moderated by technological uncertainty but negatively moderated by cultural distance. However, the effect of IT exploitation on relationship learning was negatively moderated by technological uncertainty but positively moderated by cultural distance.     

Cuestionario del Trabajo Decente: Elaboración y validación en dos muestras de trabajadores intelectuales

Se propone un Cuestionario del Trabajo Decente como herramienta de medición basada en las percepciones de los trabajadores, cubriendo así un vacío de investigación: el análisis a escala individual. Los autores parten de los elementos fundamentales del Programa de Trabajo Decente de la OIT. La versión definitiva del cuestionario comprende 31 enunciados vinculados, mediante análisis factorial, a siete factores. Las pruebas de fiabilidad, validez convergente y validez discriminante arrojan buenos valores, por lo que el cuestionario podría abrir nuevas vías de investigación empírica sobre la base del concepto de trabajo decente.     

Forecasting Tail Risks

This paper presents an early warning system as a set of multi‐period forecasts of indicators of tail real and financial risks obtained using a large database of monthly US data for the period 1972:1–2014:12. Pseudo‐real‐time forecasts are generated from: (a) sets of autoregressive and factor‐augmented vector autoregressions (VARs), and (b) sets of autoregressive and factor‐augmented quantile projections. Our key finding is that forecasts obtained with AR and factor‐augmented VAR forecasts significantly underestimate tail risks, while quantile projections deliver fairly accurate forecasts and reliable early warning signals for tail real and financial risks up to a 1‐year horizon. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A note on the implied volatility of floating strike Asian options

Decisions in Economics and Finance - In this paper, we study the short-time behavior of the implied volatility for short-time floating strike Asian options. Our method is based on Malliavin...     

Volatility and volatility-linked derivatives: estimation,modeling, and pricing

Decisions in Economics and Finance -