Haptic Habituation to Temperature Is Slower in Newborns of Depressed Mothers

Forty newborns (M age = 27 hr old) of depressed and nondepressed mothers were habituated to a cold or warm temperature tube by hand. Both groups of infants habituated the temperature of the tube, as indicated by a decrease in holding, and dishabituated, as indexed by an increase in holding when the temperature of the tube changed. However, the newborns of depressed mothers (a) required twice as long to habituate; (b) showed a sensitization effect, as indexed by an increase in holding from the second to the third trial of habituation; and (c) passively handled the objects with their hand.     

The Productivity Advantages of Large Cities: Distinguishing Agglomeration From Firm Selection

Firms are more productive, on average, in larger cities. Two main explanations have been offered: firm selection (larger cities toughen competition, allowing only the most productive to survive) and agglomeration economies (larger cities promote interactions that increase productivity), possibly reinforced by localized natural advantage. To distinguish between them, we nest a generalized version of a tractable firm selection model and a standard model of agglomeration. Stronger selection in larger cities left‐truncates the productivity distribution, whereas stronger agglomeration right‐shifts and dilates the distribution. Using this prediction, French establishment‐level data, and a new quantile approach, we show that firm selection cannot explain spatial productivity differences. This result holds across sectors, city size thresholds, establishment samples, and area definitions.     

Technology-based total factor productivity and benchmarking: New proposals and an application

The present study fills a gap between the benchmarking literature and multi-output based efficiency and productivity studies by proposing a benchmarking framework to analyze total factor productivity (TFP). Different specifications of the Hicks–Moorsteen TFP index are tailored for specific benchmarking perspectives: (1) static, (2) fixed base and unit, and (3) dynamic TFP change. These approaches assume fixed units and/or base technologies as benchmarks. In contrast to most technology-based productivity indices, the standard Hicks–Moorsteen index always leads to feasible results. Through these specifications, managers can assess different facets of the firm's strategic choices in comparison with firm-specific relevant benchmarks and thus have a broad background for decision making. An empirical application for the Spanish banking industry between 1998 and 2006 illustrates the managerial implications of the proposed framework.     

"Eurokid": An innovative pedagogical approach to developing intercultural and anti-racist education on the Web

Most schools in today's Europe have a high percentage of immigrant students. This percentage has increased in typical immigration countries such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, France and the UK. However, this is also true for countries such as Sweden or Spain. Aware of this multicultural picture, in this paper we present the methodological approach of a European Comenius project, "Eurokid", based on the template "Britkid" (see www.britkid.org), which addresses intercultural education and anti-racism. Three countries are involved in the project: the UK, Sweden and Spain. The project is an educational and innovative tool and a learning and teaching resource for students and teachers in secondary schools. How? Through websites where a group of adolescents (minorities and majorities) "meet" and "talk" about issues of acceptance, difference, racism, mixed cultures, (multiple) identitie, and integration. Their "talks" in the three websites--written in each country's language(s) and in English--as well as the characters, are based on original research (via interviews and questionnaires). The project's objectives, content, pedagogical approaches and authentic classroom material, created to facilitate and promote dialogue among minorities and majorities, form the basis of this paper.     

The Elasticity of Demand for Microcredit: Evidence from Latin America

Microcredit demand is frequently assumed to be inelastic, yet understanding the price elasticity of demand for microcredit is highly relevant in designing appropriate microfinance institution (MFI) financial products and policy. This article extracts loan demand schedules and elasticities of MFI borrowers in the Dominican Republic using a unique survey instrument. We analyse the intensive margin of microcredit demand and find that client demand elasticities are not homogeneous and are correlated with certain borrower characteristics. Overall results suggest that these micro‐entrepreneurs, who have already entered the MFI market, have close to unit elastic demand for microcredit. The mean demand elasticity for our sample is ‐1.0.     

Declining inequality in Latin America? Robustness checks for Peru

The Journal of Economic Inequality - Household surveys underreport incomes from the upper tail of the distribution, affecting our assessment about inequality. This paper offers a tractable...     

The fragility of the KPSS stationarity test

Stationarity tests exhibit extreme size distortions if the observable process is stationary yet highly persistent. In this paper we provide a theoretical explanation for the size distortion of the KPSS test for DGPs with a broad range of first order autocorrelation coefficient. Considering a near-integrated, nearly stationary process we show that the asymptotic distribution of the test contains an additional term, which can potentially explain the amount of size distortion documented in previous simulation studies.