Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Participation in education and training 1980 - 1994

The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) project studies the progress of several groups of young Australians as they move from school into post-secondary education and/or work. The oldest group in the project was born in 1961 while the youngest were in Year 9 in 1995. Issues investigated in the LSAY project include school achievement and school completion, students in part-time work and employment and unemployment levels. This publication investigates issues concerning participation by young people in education and training in Australia. It presents results on the patterns and processes of educational participation for four national cohorts of young Australians in terms of the completion of Year 12, entry to higher education from Year 12, participation in higher education, participation in a TAFE course (excluding apprenticeships and traineeships), participation in an apprenticeship or traineeship and participation in any form of post-school education and training. Patterns of educational participation by age nineteen are examined for each of the socioeconomic categories. There is a well-established body of literature concerning the link between the knowledge and skills that education and training can provide, the economic returns for the individuals, productivity for business and economic well-being of the nation. Individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to participate in the labour market and less likely to be unemployed. Areas of analysis include estimates of participation in education and training, factors affecting changes in educational participation, equity, subgroups and statistics, gender differences, social, educational and economic origins, ethnicity and rural and urban students. It also provides analysis of the differences among states, public and private schools, as well as comprehensive statistics and tables.
The Relationship between Dividend Payout Policy and Foreign Institutional Investment in India

This article tries to explore the link between dividend payout policy and foreign institutional investment (FII). Using panel data of 150 listed Indian companies for the period 2001–2010, this article tries to explore the impact of FII on dividend payout policy and vice versa. The outcomes indicate the FIIs, as a whole, increase the chance of paying cash-dividend, but the marginal impact is quite small in economic terms and also FIIs increase the probability of paying more dividend payouts. Our analysis has further shown that the foreign institutional investors are attracted towards cash-dividend paying firms. Thus, our study does not support the traditional agency cost problems but do support the clientele theory. Our results further reveal that our firm-level characteristics do support the free-cash flow theory and the pecking order theory firmly but the maturity theory partially. However, the financial recession, which has started since 2007, has shown its usual negative impact on the level of dividend payments.
Le revenu selon l'origine sociale

Les descendants de cadres sont-ils avantages par rapport aux descendants d'ouvriers en termes de niveau de vie ? Cette question amene a analyser les distributions de revenus offertes aux menages selon la categorie socioprofessionnelle du pere du chef de famille. Ces distributions de revenus sont assimilees a des loteries dont le rendement et le risque font l'objet d'estimations a partir des cinq vagues des enquetes Budget de Famille realisees entre 1979 et 2000. La comparaison de ces loteries permet d'evaluer le degre d'inegalite des chances. L'inegalite des chances de revenu n'a pas disparu au cours des deux dernieres decennies et cette persistance provient en grande partie des ecarts de revenus esperes. Les ecarts de risque inherent a chaque loterie sont en effet de faible ampleur. En 2000, un descendant de cadre peut esperer beneficier d'un niveau de vie de 50 % superieur a celui d'un descendant d'ouvrier. L'ecart a diminue de 20 points en vingt ans. En revanche, les descendants de non-salaries, et en particulier ceux des agriculteurs, ont de meilleures perspectives de revenu qu'auparavant. Au total, la hierarchie des revenus selon l'origine sociale a peu change mais s'est resserree. Les resultats plaident donc pour une reduction du degre de l'inegalite des chances. Cette evolution du revenu espere est decomposee entre mobilite sociale et evolution du revenu par categorie socioprofessionnelle : l'amelioration des perspectives des descendants d'independants et d'agriculteurs provient surtout d'une remuneration accrue des metiers auxquels ils se destinent. A l'oppose, l'erosion de l'avantage des descendants de cadres traduit leur difficulte croissante a rester dans leur groupe social d'origine, en depit de l'augmentation de la proportion de cadres dans la population. L'inegalite des chances provenant de la CSP du pere ne contribue que pour une part assez faible a l'inegalite globale. Cette part a t
Equity Prices, Household Wealth, and Consumption Growth in Foreign Industrial Countries: Wealth Effects in the 1990s

Although most recent empirical research regarding the size and significance of the impact of changes in wealth on consumption has looked for such effects in the United States, equity prices in the 1990s rose considerably in most other industrial countries as well. This paper investigates the strength of the wealth effect across countries. Using a variety of methods, I find evidence of significant wealth effects in the United Kingdom and Canada of a size comparable to that in the United States, reflecting the importance of equities in aggregate household wealth in these countries. A significant wealth effect is also evident in Japan, but because household wealth has changed little on balance in Japan in recent years, this channel has been less important in explaining Japanese consumption growth in the second half of the 1990s. Despite a rapid appreciation in equity prices and an increase in equity ownership in the major continental European countries since 1995, equities remain a less important form of household wealth in most of these countries, and the consumption response to changes in wealth remains limited. However, in some smaller European countries where equity issuance is more common, the emerging evidence suggests that wealth effects may be more important.
Opsonization of Cryptococcus neoformans by human immunoglobulin G: role of immunoglobulin G in phagocytosis by macrophages

The role of immunoglobulin G (IgG) as an opsonin in phagocytosis of Cryptococcus neoformans by macrophages was investigated. Labeling with 125I showed that IgG isolated from normal human serum bound to non-encapsulated C. neoformans. Furthermore, IgG-opsonized cryptococci were agglutinated by anti-serum to IgG heavy chains, indicating that normal human serum contains antibody that will bind to the yeast surface. The IgG isolated from normal serum accounted for all opsonizing activity found in normal human serum, since differences were not noted between the opsonizing activities of whole serum, heat-inactivated serum and purified IgG when these opsonins were compared at equivalent concentrations of IgG. Phagocytosis of IgG-opsonized cryptococci was inhibited by anti-macrophage IgG, a reagent known to block Fc-mediated attachment and ingestion, and by pepsin digestion of opsonizing IgG. Thus, IgG opsonization is an Fc-dependent process. Opsonizing IgG appears to play its major role during the attachment phase of phagocytosis, since antimacrophage IgG blocked attachment of cryptococci to macrophages but could not block ingestion of IgG-opsonized cryptococci that had been allowed to attach to macrophages. Ingestion of opsonized cryptococci was not blocked by 2-deoxy-D-glucose, a reagent known to block Fc-mediated ingestion, thus confirming that IgG has a primary role in attachment and suggesting that ingestion is mediated by a process that is not Fc dependent.
State Dependence at Internet Portals

This study offers evidence of the existence of switching costs on the Internet. It uses more flexible methods than previously possible to separate switching costs from serially correlated unobservables at Internet portals. The data contain nearly 1,000 observations per household, allowing for household-specific regressions that control for all household-specific heterogeneity. The results show that households exhibit switching costs. The loyalty generated by these costs drives a large fraction of portal visits and generates considerable revenues; however, these revenues are not large enough to justify the losses incurred by Internet portals in the 1990s while building market share. The results also suggest that random coefficients models overestimate true state dependence. This study offers evidence of the existence of switching costs on the Internet. It uses more flexible methods than previously possible to separate switching costs from serially correlated unobservables at Internet portals. The data contain nearly 1,000 observations per household, allowing for household-specific regressions that control for all household-specific heterogeneity. The results show that households exhibit switching costs. The loyalty generated by these costs drives a large fraction of portal visits and generates considerable revenues; however, these revenues are not large enough to justify the losses incurred by Internet portals in the 1990s while building market share. The results also suggest that random coefficients models overestimate true state dependence.
Urban Welfare Maximization and Housing Market Equilibrium in a Random Utility Setting

A welfare-maximization framework for the allocation of a given housing supply to urban submarkets is formulated. The approach is founded on a stochastic equilibrium model for the housing submarkets, the demands of which are based on generalized extreme value choice models. This allows the random utilities associated with different submarkets to be statistically dependent. The deterministic part of the utilities includes the submarket rent levels together with disutility measures related to the local population densities. This latter aspect can be regarded as a kind of spatial externality usually neglected in urban modelling. The optimization is performed with respect to a welfare criterion derived as the aggregated expected utility accruing to utility-maximizing households at normalized equilibrium rents. Since these rents are implicit functions of the policy variables, that is, the submarket housing supplies, the welfare maximization is not straightforward. However, as a main result it is shown that if the population density disutilities satisfy a convexity condition, the unique welfare-maximizing housing allocation can be found by solving a dual unconstrained convex minimization problem. Finally, the relationship with entropy maximization is clarified and the applicability of the framework to the joint choice of residential location and travel mode is demonstrated. Two examples of nested multinomial logit models illustrate the potential use of the approach.
Gender and Discretionary Work Effort

Do men and women differ in the extent to which they work beyond the level required by their jobs? Does this gender difference vary across national contexts? The authors answer these questions using survey data from the United States and Britain. Multivariate ordered logistic regression models reveal no gender difference in self-reported discretionary effort in the United States, but greater discretionary effort among women in Britain, net of individual, family, and workplace characteristics. The authors attribute these findings to a greater divergence of women’s and men’s labor force participation and careers, historically weaker regulation of workplace equality, and a sharper differentiation of gender roles in Britain than in the United States. They conclude by discussing the relevance of national context for shaping gender differences in work orientations and behaviors.
Powering the change: a Contingent Valuation study on the determinants of demand for green vs. brown energy

A Contingent Valuation study was performed to assess a potential trade-off between external costs (impacts on health caused by pollution) and the cost of electricity paid by households. Two technologies were selected for the valuation exercise: coal-fired thermal and solar photovoltaic. Our results show that households are interested in buying solar energy, and are willing to pay an additional premium for it, which would support maintenance of a feed-in tariff system. In addition, it is found that higher awareness of the external benefits and costs related, respectively, to solar and coal energy, is a crucial factor that shapes their demand in the household sector. According to the results of our study, we can expect that if electric utilities were required by regulators to provide detailed information on the external effects (and in particular, on health impacts) of coal and other fossil fuels used in their energy mix, there will be a sizeable positive shift in the demand of green electric energy in the household sector.
Narratives in teacher education

In primary teacher education, using a multimedia learning environment, we challenge student teachers to develop narratives of paradigmatic classroom situations. In this digital environment they observe footage of classroom practice (mathematics lessons) and discuss, analyse, and interpret these episodes. The environment will stimulate student teachers to develop narratives (about these events) as a tool to construct meaning about mathematics education and to bridge the divide between theory and practice. Through this construction process they can exceed their practical experience and discuss important issues in teaching and learning. In this article we describe a six step curriculum design framework aimed at the construction of educational meaning through narratives and will touch on some arguments in favour of a narrative approach.
Shared sovereignty and the politics of peace: evaluating the EU's ‘catalytic’ framework in the eastern Mediterranean

There has been a consistent failure on the part of international actors over the past four decades to resolve the Cyprus problem. The EU framework, heralded as a catalyst, has failed so far to bring the two sides together, despite the significant advantages it possesses in linking resolution of the Cyprus problem with the Turkish ambition to join the EU. Cyprus has always been a testing ground for experimental approaches to dealing with conflict, and what may well emerge after the failure of the Annan Plan in 2004 is a form of ‘shared sovereignty’ where important governance functions that remain contested are undertaken by the UN and EU Commission. Furthermore, the EU framework has led to the Cyprus problem becoming a catalyst for Turkish accession. While very controversial, these avenues offer the opportunity for the international community to accept the political and interventionary nature of the ‘peace’ they prescribe.
Demographic and Economic Pressure on Emigration Out of Africa

Two of the main forces driving European emigration in the late nineteenth century were real wage gaps between sending and receiving regions and demographic booms in the low-wage sending regions (directly augmenting the supply of potential movers as well as indirectly making already-measured employment conditions less attractive). These two features are even more prominent in Africa today, but do or can Africans respond to them with the same elasticity as in the days of "free" migration? Our new estimates of net migration and labor market performance for the countries of sub-Saharan Africa suggest that exactly the same forces are at work driving African across-border migration today. Rapid growth in the cohort of young potential migrants, population pressure on the resource base, and poor economic performance are the main forces driving African migration. A century ago, more modest demographic forces in Europe were accompanied by strong catching-up economic growth in the low-wage emigrant regions, followed by a slowdown in already-modest demographic growth. Yet, migrations were still mass. In Africa today, economic growth has faltered, its economies have fallen further behind the high-wage OECD leaders, and there is a demographic speed up in the making. Our estimates suggest that the pressure on emigration out of Africa will intensify, manifested in part by a growing demand for entrance into high-wage OECD labor markets.
Stock Market Volatility in Saudi Arabia: An Application of Univariate GARCH Model

Study of stock market volatility has been the focus of financial economics. Modelling stock market volatility has great contributions to make in the areas of portfolio management, asset allocation, risk management, etc. We estimate the conditional volatility of Saudi stock market by applying AR (1)-GARCH (1,1) model to the daily stock returns data spanning from August 1, 2004 to October 31, 2013. We show that a linear symmetric GARCH (1,1) model is adequate to estimate the volatility of the stock market of the country. We find that Saudi stock market returns are characterised by volatility clustering and follow a non-normal distribution. Saudi stock market returns show a time varying volatility, show persistence and are predictable. Past volatility impacts the current period volatility and past returns play a role in determining the current period return. Saudi stock market is nervous in its reactions to market fluctuations. This finding of the study offer important input into the decisions relating to asset allocation and risk management strategies of investors and treasury managers in Saudi stock market.
Market Structure and External Control in the Regional Economies of Great Britain

This paper establishes the degree to which markets are dominated by a limited number of firms, and the implications of this for the indigenous firms in each region that are attempting to sell in national markets. The author then looks at the causes of industrial concentration, which has largely been achieved through the acquisitions and mergers of firms located in various regions. He then goes on to consider the possible consequences of the "branch plant' economy, especially in relation to employment opportunities. This leads back to a consideration of a core-periphery model of various spatial economies (e.g., profit-cycle models). Copyright 1988 by Scottish Economic Society.
Does The Use Of Derivatives Increase Bank Efficiency? Evidence From Latin American Banks

This study investigates whether the use of derivatives by banks in Latin America affect their efficiency. Overall, and in line with theory, the results indicate that the use of derivatives increases the efficiency of Latin American banks. Additionally, we find that as Latin American banks get larger their efficiency levels increases. Lastly, the results show that regulatory and institutional constraints negatively affect the efficiency of Latin American banks.
A Theory of the Perturbed Consumer with General Budgets

We consider demand systems for utility-maximizing consumers facing general budget constraints whose utilities are perturbed by additive linear shifts in marginal utilities. Budgets are required to be compact but are not required to be convex. We define demand generating functions (DGF) whose subgradients with respect to these perturbations are convex hulls of the utility-maximizing demands. We give necessary as well as sufficient conditions for DGF to be consistent with utility maximization, and establish under quite general conditions that utility-maximizing demands are almost everywhere single-valued and smooth in their arguments. We also give sufficient conditions for integrability of perturbed demand. Our analysis provides a foundation for applications of consumer theory to problems with nonlinear budget constraints.
Innovation as re-institutionalization: a case study of technological change in housebuilding in Norway

Case study can give important new insights into the systemic nature of construction innovation and the interrelationship between local innovation successes and structural forces shaping the sector. Even well-defined, modular innovations can have significant repercussions on the industry level. Recent innovation in building materials for wet rooms in Norway represents an attempt to modify only limited aspects of the established approach to housebuilding, but is made difficult by institutions and actors relying on established methods and existing building products. Institutions acting as innovation brokers can be very important for innovators. However, brokering is no panacea for promoting disruptive innovation. A broker can thwart rather than promote potentially useful but disruptive innovations. Because innovation is a re-institutionalization process, the third-party position needed for brokering effectively can be undermined, whenever a successful broker attains vested interests in the innovation outcomes it has helped bring forth. Methodologically, employing theories on technological innovation systems and on multilevel socio-technical systems shows that these are effective, complementary tools for analysis of innovation in construction. Only the latter incorporates the notion of innovation as creative destruction, and it is by drawing on this theory that the precariousness of the brokering role can be highlighted.
Polynomial Time Algorithms for Computing a Minimum Hull Set in Distance-Hereditary and Chordal Graphs

We give linear and polynomial time algorithms for computing the hull number of distance-hereditary and chordal graphs, respectively. The complexity of computing the hull number in chordal and distance-hereditary graphs has been open since the introduction of the notion in [M. G. Everett and S. B. Seidman, Discrete Math., 57 (1985), pp. 217--223]. Prior to our result polynomial time algorithms were only known for subclasses of considered graph classes, e.g., split graphs, cographs, interval graphs. Our techniques allow us to give at the same time a linear time algorithm for computing the geodetic number in distance-hereditary graphs. Another consequence of the techniques used is an incremental output-polynomial algorithm to list the set of (inclusion-wise) minimal hull sets in any graphs.
Original Contribution Modification of the Excess Risk of Coronary Heart Disease Due to Smoking by Seafood/Fish Intake

Seafood/fish intake has been regarded as a protective factor for coronary heart disease (CHD), while smoking is a strong risk factor. To examine whether associations between smoking and risk of CHD are modified by seafood/ fish intake, we studied 72,012 Japanesemen andwomen aged 45–74 years who completed 2 food frequency questionnaires, 5 years apart, during the period 1995–2009. After 878,163 person-years of follow-up, 584 incident cases of CHD (101 fatal and 483 nonfatal), including 516 myocardial infarctions, were documented. There was a clear dose-response association between smoking and CHD risk among subjects with a low seafood/fish intake (<86 g/day) but not among those with a high seafood/fish intake (≥86 g/day). Compared with never smokers, the multivariable hazard ratios in light (1–19 cigarettes/day), moderate (20–29 cigarettes/day), and heavy (≥30 cigarettes/day) smokers were 2.39 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.60, 3.56), 2.74 (95% CI: 1.90, 3.95), and 3.24 (95% CI: 2.12, 4.95), respectively, among low seafood/fish eaters and 1.13 (95% CI: 0.64, 1.99), 1.29 (95% CI: 0.95, 2.04), and 2.00 (95% CI: 1.18, 3.51), respectively, among high seafood/fish eaters. Compared with heavy smokers with a low seafood/fish intake, light smokers with a high seafood/fish intake had substantially reduced risk of CHD (hazard ratio = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.32, 0.98). High seafood/fish intake attenuated the positive association between smoking and risk of CHD.