The Effects of Technical Change on Skill Requirements: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract. This essay offers an empirical analysis of the effects of technical change on skill. Firstly, with the increasing diffusion of more and more mechanization and, in this decade, with the advent of microelectronics, this theme has been widely debated both in theory and in empirical analyses. These latter are usually based on a measurement of skill in terms of the parameters adopted in the job evaluation. My critique to that approach is both on the job evaluation criteria adopted, and on the unclear distinction between quantitative and qualitative effects of technical change on labour requirements. The following analysis will show the importance of that distinction in interpreting data. The case study is the production of ceramic tiles in Italy. The analysis is articulated in three parts. The first discusses an indicator of technical level of ceramic tile production. This indicator refers to the ‘scale of mechanization’ proposed by Bright in 1958. The oldest and the most up-to-date techniques in use in the early 1980's are compared with regard both to the level of mechanization and to the number of workers required at each task at factory level. This analysis is the premiss for the distinction between quantitative and qualitative effects of technical change. This—together with the discussion of a measurement of skill based on job content—is examined in the second part. The conclusion of the case study and a critical analysis of the main contributions on this topic are in the third part.     

The Value of Reducing Cancer Risks at Contaminated Sites: Are More Knowledgeable People Willing to Pay More?

We use conjoint choice questions to investigate people's tastes for cancer risk reductions and income in the context of public programs that would provide for remediation at abandoned industrial contaminated sites. Our survey was self-administered using the computer by persons living in the vicinity of an important contaminated site on the Italian National Priority List. The value of a prevented case of cancer is €2.6 million, but this figure does vary with income, perceived exposure to contaminants, and respondent opinions about priorities that should be pursued by cleanup programs.     

Using simulation to manage project supply chain in the offshore oil and gas industry

This paper is aimed at comparing simulation against spreadsheets as decision support tools to properly manage project supply chain in the offshore oil and gas industry. The paper presents a case study related to the problem of sizing a chain for pipeline laying from an offshore field in the Barents sea to the Russian coast. Results obtained through a spreadsheet developed by an oil and gas company have been compared to the ones gathered from an ad hoc simulation model. A simulation model with no stochastic variable has been introduced: results are quite similar to the ones of the spreadsheet, which allowed to validate the simulation model. However, the spreadsheet cannot take into account the continuous move of the pipe-lay vessel while laying the pipes and it does not consider stochastic variables whose effect in real life is not negligible. Both weaknesses above are discussed.     

Modeling trade policies under alternative market structures

The paper focuses on the importance of assumptions made about market structure and firm behavior in empirical trade policy analysis. The contribution to the relevant literature is 3-fold: first the paper develops two original models which incorporate imperfectly competitive market structures in a spatial modeling framework; then it proposes a procedure to identify the degree of market power in international trading which is consistent with observed prices and traded quantities, and applies it to the banana market; finally, it assesses how analysis of the implications of recent changes in the EU import regimes for bananas (the Economic Partnership Agreements and the December 2009 WTO agreement) is affected by the assumptions made on the prevailing market structure.     

Quis custiodet ipsos custodes? How to detect and correct teacher cheating in Italian student data

The increasing diffusion of standardized assessments of students’ competences has been accompanied by an increasing need to make reliable data available to all stakeholders of the educational system (policy makers, teachers, researchers, families and students). In this light, we propose a multistep approach to detect and correct teacher cheating, which decreases the quality of student data offered by the Italian Institute for the Educational Evaluation of Instruction and Training. Our method integrates the “mechanistic” logic of the fuzzy clustering technique with a statistical model-based approach, and it aims to improve the detection of cheating and to correct test scores at both the class and student level. The results show a normalization of the scores and a stronger correction on data for Southern regions, where the propensity to cheat appears to be highest.     

Specialization Versus Diversification in EU Economies: A Challenge for Agro-Food?

Much attention has been paid to industrial differentiation versus specialization. In EU, the phenomenon of secondary production is important enough since it absorbs 6.3% of the total output at basic prices. Through the development of new symmetrical indicators, we point out the ability of economic branches to diversify, penetrate and invade others. This analysis is applied both to EU countries and to economic system branches, focusing the analysis on the challenges facing Agriculture and Food and beverage industry. We can assume that the most advanced countries belong to a post-modern or post-industrial stage of development. The only way to continue to stay on the market is to diversify production and to emphasize the search for a quality/price ratio attractive for the consumer. On the contrary, less advanced countries of Central and Eastern Europe are rather in the initial or intermediate stages of industrialization in which agriculture, crafts and traditional services still have a certain importance and, as we know, undertake more differentiated activities. What emerges is a watershed between continental and Mediterranean countries. Eastern Europe is still anchored to a traditional behavior. In synthesis we find three fundamental trends: (a) a long period continuity of those complementary activities that have always characterized agriculture; (b) the different structure of secondary production in the EU countries; (c) different barriers to entry, that explain asymmetries in the behavior of branches otherwise more or less related. Remark that these barriers may be not only physical or economical but also normative, thus introducing more differences in the behavior of different countries.     

Inter-rater Agreement Indices for Multiple Informant Methodology

This paper addresses the potential applications of multiple informant methodology (MIM) to family research. The MIM is used when data on the same unit of analysis are collected from more than one informant, and when the researchers’ purpose requires a dyadic or group level of analysis. The MIM relies on inter-rater agreement (IRA) indices, which are needed to both estimate agreement among informants and aggregate scores from different informants. This review describes the main IRA indices: reliability within-group index (r_WG), agreement within-group index (a_WG), average deviation indices (AD_M and AD_Md), intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC), and random group index (r_WG). For each index, we describe the aim, application contexts, formula(s), ranges, cutoffs, requirements to apply the index, and its possible application to family research.     

I,that am curtailed

ABSTRACT

The essay investigates desire in Shakespeare’s Richard III as connected to Deleuze and Guattari’s line of flight and war machine. By following the drawing of the line of flight of betrayal and the setting of Richard’s war machine, and by investigating the constitution of his character as a Body without organs, it traces the production of the plane of immanence of a differential subjectivity where desire is free to become.